What happened to Angel Fire?
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2/18/2007 - by
Fred Dreier
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What happened to Angel Fire?
By Fred Dreier
VeloNews associate editor
This report filed February 13, 2007
Angel Fire ski resort sits in a secluded corner of northern New Mexico, about two hour's drive from Santa Fe. A far cry from the mega resorts in neighboring Colorado, Angel Fire prides itself as a winter and summertime playground where the crowds are light and the price of admission is low.
Like many other ski areas, Angel Fire hosts mountain-bike races in the summer - the Chile Challenge is a regular stop on the Mountain States Cup. In 2005, the venue hit the pinnacle of its mountain-bike racing when it hosted a stop on the UCI World Cup - the first American World Cup since 2001.
Angel Fire was slated to host the World Cup for 2007, however the resort and the UCI recently announced that the plans were off. The UCI announced it was looking for a replacement, but thus far, none has been announced.
VeloNews caught up with Dave Dekema, Angel Fire's marketing director, to find out what went wrong.
VeloNews: Why did things fall apart between Angel Fire and the UCI?
Dave Dekema: Well, when we hosted [the World Cup] in 2005 it was our first time hosting an event of that size, and there was a little bit of a learning curve. You need to operate under a tight schedule to get that many sponsors involved to help pay for the thing. It turned out to be an investment, and we didn't break even - not by even a long shot. But there was course building and stuff that could be used for future events. So ownership said we had to generate a certain amount of sponsorship dollars if we wanted to have the thing again.
The UCI prompted us to come at them with a bid for 2007, and we did but with some conditions. I said we needed to know by such and such dates whether we would have it or not. Our bigger brand partners like Pepsi need to know when they're putting their budgets together if they're going to have room to help us out.
So right off the bat there were communication problems. We were the last venue to know that we had gotten the event. We actually heard second-hand from some people who went to Interbike and saw our name on the UCI schedule for 2007. We didn't even know it! I mean, had we known we would have liked to have been [at Interbike] with a booth or a presence to talk to companies about sponsorship, and that opportunity was totally lost.
VN: So it was primarily a funding issue?
DD: No, it was a communications issue. USA Cycling was great, they really tried to make it work and coordinate logistics for us. But still, it was clear that we were an afterthought to the UCI. It costs several hundred grand to put the race on the first time, and we wanted to do it right and be more efficient this time, but there were priority issues there. We figured since we were the only American World Cup the UCI would work closely with us to help us [find sponsorship], but we were way down the priority list. I mean, for us to find out in October that the race is coming next year and all of our sponsors had put their budgets together already, we just couldn't do that again.
VN: Will you continue to host mountain-bike races?
DD: Of course. The Mountain States Cup wants to grow the Chili Challenge and the Final Descent races. They want to take it to a whole new level, and that was also part of our deciding factor. We've had success working with these other developers, and their events are gathering momentum.
VN: What would have taken for you to continue with the UCI?
DD: A phone call. That's all it would have taken.
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