E52 • AUGUST 24, 2025

Learn how you can use online membership clubs and virtual events to create year-round races immune to weather and closures.

E51 • JULY 30, 2025

Learn how race promoters can pivot quickly towards asynchronous competition and virtual events to survive local natural disasters.About Merchants of DirtMerchants of Dirt is your insi

E50 • JULY 8, 2025

Learn the 50 race direction lessons learned that can help you build your roadmap, refine your checklists, or just help you find a place to start.

E49 • JUNE 24, 2025

Learn how to leverage third-party professional services to free you up to focus on new racing experiences.About Merchants of DirtMerchants of Dirt is your insider's guide to the art a

E48 • JUNE 18, 2025

Learn how encouraging women to become better riders can create an environment that encourages more women to attend your events.

E47 • JUNE 13, 2025

Learn why hiring your friends instead of employees can be the beginning of the end for your racing business.

E46 • NOVEMBER 5, 2024

Learn how spectator-friendly events create both excited crowds and marketing buzz for your growing events company.

E45 • OCTOBER 8, 2024

Learn why you are accountable for keeping track of all of your registered customers from the time they arrive to the time they leave your venue safely.

E44 • SEPTEMBER 26, 2024

Learn why you need financial protection for your business, volunteers, family, and yourself from other people’s injuries with event insurance.

E43 • AUGUST 22, 2024

Learn how forming or supporting a collegiate sports club can give college kids racing opportunities while serving as a laboratory for your next race idea.

E42 • AUGUST 15, 2024

Learn the levels of outreach where the marketing of each of your endeavors depends on how much time you have and what kind of impact you want to make.

E41 • JULY 25, 2024

Jennifer "Jelly" Crawford from Sparent and DC Podfest walks me through the strategies and struggles of directing a conference from the ground up.

E40 • JULY 19, 2024

Learn how to build redundancy strategies into your venue setup plan by removing all your single points of failure on race day.

E39 • JULY 19, 2024

Learn the 5 special slog fest challenges that hide within a multi-day race that few single-day race directors experience until it’s too late.

E38 • JUNE 28, 2024

Use these 7 important tips to turn any new trail into a rewarding adventure while on holiday.

E37 • JUNE 21, 2024

Learn how to go on the road and use bigger events as a platform for announcing your event to find more racers and break your race out of obscurity.

E36 • JUNE 14, 2024

Learn how to scale up your operation and make your races bigger when I reveal the secrets national championship race companies don't want you to know.

E35 • JUNE 5, 2024

Learn how to prepare yourself for the possibility that one or all of the four horsemen of race planning will show up and wreck your race.

E34 • MAY 27, 2024

Learn how basing your race decisions on measures or metrics helps you avoid unforeseen problems.

E33 • MAY 16, 2024

Why you need to be on your toes when it comes to combating those wannabe activists and trail extremists who are out to sabotage your race.

E32 • MAY 7, 2024

Go behind the scenes of the first mountain bike race in a four-race series and learn what thinking goes into preparing and directing a recent race (Part 2 of 2).

E31 • MAY 7, 2024

Go behind the scenes of the first mountain bike race in a four-race series and learn what thinking goes into preparing and directing a recent race (Part 1 of 2).

E30 • APRIL 7, 2024

Learn how to get your events into locations you’ve never raced before by building better relationships with local trail stewards and organizations.

E29 • APRIL 7, 2024

Learn how to use the Always Be Racing (ABR) business model to make racing a full-time gig by maximizing your sales volume.

E28 • APRIL 7, 2024

Explore why avoiding negligence is a primary job of a race director and how waivers are your first line of defense against personal injury lawsuits.

E27 • MARCH 20, 2024

You can't fix a race you never start, so stop caring about what other people might think and go define your own race direction style.

E26 • MARCH 20, 2024

Cy Sack walks me through the State of Adventure Racing (circa 2017) and shows how a little data can go a long way to making big decisions.

E25 • MARCH 20, 2024

Avoid race day woes using these registration strategies to improve your next event's participation numbers.

E24 • MARCH 20, 2024

Mark Montague and I walk step by step through his latest adventure race launch and learn how to SPROUTE an Adventure Racing course.

E23 • MARCH 20, 2024

If you can communicate with your customers, your customers will communicate back by showing up to your races.

E22 • MARCH 19, 2024

Michelle Faucher and I walk step by step through her latest adventure race launch and learn how to Brake the Habit.

E21 • MARCH 19, 2024

Race day volunteers can be a key element in your race’s success but only if you can recruit, manage, and effectively deal with them.

E20 • MARCH 18, 2024

Having an accurate timing process starts off being essential to deciding who won or lost your race, and ends up helping you pay for future races.

E19 • MARCH 18, 2024

Fix a bad race course with a good design strategy that includes walking the course, testing your design, and getting feedback from real racers.

E18 • MARCH 18, 2024

Build your location development strategy using the scout, planner, and course designer roles to help you decide which locations can support a race.

E17 • MARCH 18, 2024

Learn how to develop a tried-and-true process for obtaining legal permission to use public venues that stops permit denial runaround.

E16 • MARCH 18, 2024

Bounce back from missed deadlines, bad schedules, forgotten equipment, and ruined venues by using a few simple race day risk mitigation strategies.

E15 • MARCH 11, 2024

Bounce back from customer disappointment, racer injury, or even a lawsuit, by using contingency planning to create a risk mitigation strategy.

E14 • MARCH 11, 2024

When it comes to Mr. Murphy, you need to take emergency response planning very seriously when -- not if -- you need to save a racer's life.

E13 • MARCH 11, 2024

When it comes to Mr. Murphy and bad weather ruining your off-road race, you need to have a cancellation policy, a rain day, and be ready to give refunds.

E12 • MARCH 11, 2024

Why simply improving the way you treat people, your business will be rewarded with customer attendance, money, and most of all, their love.

E11 • MARCH 11, 2024

Picking your race dates is an important part of your strategic process, but includes more than just sitting down with your calendar and a pen.

E10 • MARCH 5, 2024

Understand how market forces, competition, and customers work before you base your racing business on another off-road racing fad.

E9 • MARCH 5, 2024

Let's talk about money, budgets, and getting your race expenses under control.

E8 • MARCH 5, 2024

I gave an interview to Carey Green from Podcastification at DC Podfest where I delved into the origins of Merchants of Dirt.

E7 • MARCH 2, 2024

It's time to debunk the myth race promoters have about money and why so many off-road race businesses are afraid of making a profit.

E6 • MARCH 2, 2024

Learn why the secret to building a successful race is in how you turn repeatable tasks into a manageable business system called a roadmap.

E5 • MARCH 2, 2024

Listen to the rant I recorded at the DC PodFest this past weekend and learn about the new Race Promoters Group I started on Facebook.

E4 • MARCH 2, 2024

Learn the subtle but important reason why all race promoters are race directors, but not all race directors are race promoters.

E3 • MARCH 1, 2024

Take a guided tour through the creation of the strategy every race promoter needs before they start getting dirty.

E2 • MARCH 1, 2024

Walk through the top five things I wished I had known before I built my first race and learn how to avoid and overcome these common mistakes.

E1 • FEBRUARY 27, 2024

Learn the three reasons why now is a great time to get into off-road racing and the three lessons I learned after 20 years in the endurance sports industry.