Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

After this racing season winds up I hope Knoxville, Jackson and Badlands take a look at what could be if they could work things out and take advantage of all the sprint cars that could be racing at their tracks. The fragmentation we saw this year wasn't good for the facilities or the fans.   

put their egos aside and work to   tucked away

All Badlands has to do is go back to Sundays like Husets did for years and years.  Knoxville and Husets had a deal.  Knoxville never had a rain date on sunday except a rare occasion of 410 nationals.

My thoughts exactly. But then it's not my money.

Badlands isnt moving from Saturday night. Thats been decided already.  With that said, there will be some changes though...

Oh???

The rumor at Badlands on Sunday was that they were going to an all Saturday sprint car show.  Basically Badlands will be running 410, 360 and IMCA sprints every Saturday.  If Jackson shortens the track and adds more 410 nights, you basically have a sprint car hot bed 100 miles apart, which makes a lot of sense.  Knoxville is kind of out on its own, but it is Knoxville.  It will always have a fantastic program and they will begin to draw more cars from Missouri and Illinois, just like they used to do.  For drivers in Illinois, no reason not to get a 410 and start competing at Knoxville weekly. 

It all will work itself out.  What would be more interesting if Knoxville got together with the Iowa State Fair, they built a new shorter track at the fair, and they began racing 410's on Friday.  It would be awesome to have a Des Moines/Knoxville circuit and a Jackon/Badlands circuit, with them taking off for August to have the 150k to win Knoxville Nationals, the 50k to win Badlands Gold Cup, Iowa State Fair holds a 15k to win special and then the month wraps up with the 25k to win Jackson Nationals.  That would become the new "month of money"

One compromise (and I won't hold my breath) would be to set one weekend per month aside as an "NSL" weekend. Badlands goes dark for sprint cars on Saturday (they can still run monster trucks or concerts or whatever), NSL runs at Knoxville, and then Badlands would run a special Sunday NSL show.

I don't see the need for Badlands to go back to Sundays full time, for reasons typed a hundred times on this board, but there needs to be some spirit of cooperation if only to get cars to support the Gold Cup.

This may make the most sense of all that's been said.

I like the idea of Des Moines and Knoxville and then Jackson and Badlands

You can't say they are competing when the tracks (Knoxville and Badlands) are so far from each other.

Ohio has 3 tracks running 410s on Saturdays each pulling 15 to 25 cars normally.

I like this idea and especially the idea of shortening the track at Jackson.  If I were Tod, I would copy the dimensions of River Cities with length, banking and especially width.  Jackson could become the Bristol of dirt tracks with all the ammenities they have added.

I doubt that Tod Quiring will go back on his agreement with Knoxville about Saturday night scheduling. So next year I doubt we will see much change. Knoxville amd Jackson can do just fine on Friday and Saturday nights and could work out an incentive between them to help promote each other. It will probably take a couple years for things to settle down and for the current drivers involved to decide where they want to race. The key is who chooses Knoxville and who chooses Badlands. If the top drivers between Knoxville and Badlands remains split as it is now, then both tracks will need to work hard to bring in additional teams. Otherwise both will struggle. I think Knoxville has the better chance of attracting better talent. Badlands will continue to attract the ND drivers, but the pool of talent there is pretty slim. Jackson on the otherhand running on Friday night, has the opportunity to attract the entire field of top drivers from the area, if the purse is right. Jackson has never drawn much from ND and vice versa so that is not an issue. It's a stretch to even discuss, but the Des Moines Fairground track would be a great venue for a Sunday night weekly event. With well over a million people in the Des Moines area and a huge pool of potential sponsors, a lot of good things could happen. The track size and design would need attention for sure.  A "trifecta" between Knoxville, Des Moines and Jackson could really make things happen and attract a good number of teams and drivers to the midwest. If we could only see the future!

You're right about the Des Moines metro....I was using a 60 mile radius for the area numbers. My brother is in a business in Des Moines and they use the 60 mile radius as their primary customer reach and they figure that to exceed the million mark. I know the IA State Fairgrounds track deal isn't happening soon, if at all. So as I stated earlier, I don't think we will see much change in the next couple years unless it is driver and team initiated.

Why does Jackson need to shorten their track? Ive been a couple times this year including the Outlaw show and the racing was great. 

The rumor was Tod is going to shorten it.  I personally hate the fact this might happen, as it is one of the classic 1/2 miles, but I don't own the track and doubt pretty they could care less what I think.

Also, for the person wondering why Jackson doesn't attract ND cars?  3 words=River Cities Speedway

Tod's handshake agreement with Knoxville lasts for one more race there this weekend.  Now, I'm not saying anything changes, I'm only saying that everything's up in the air for next season.  The changes I spoke of earlier, weren't necessarily all at Badlands...

What a shame.  I have far better things to do on a typical Saturday night than I do on Sunday night.  I used to attend weekly on Sunday's.  This year the few Saturday's I had open were spent watching Knoxville PPV.   I miss Sunday night 410s at Huset's.

I have been trying but I can't come up with anything better to do on saturday then go to the races. Or any day for that matter.

Got it all worked out, problem one is Iowa stare fair has and will always be a stock car track? Clear back in the 70s they always ran stock cars, a few imca Sunday day shows and one fair race and that's it. Back in the 90s there ways only 10 to 15 cars there. Tony is a great guy? But it's stock car crazy and the fans dont like sprints. Knoxville will be alright badlands can't keep paying mccarl and the rest? Only one guy can win. Todd will pick Knoxville because badlands has been so hard to work with plus he seems to like going after tracks before he ever seen Knoxville he was running off at the hips! Outlaws had more then they can take, But only time will tell until gene Simmons wants a return on his money. Working together is a nice dream because you are alright there mile between the to but 5 or 6 cars are lost at both places and ti does make a difference. 18 cars to 23 cars make a difference to a fan I'd think at both places. 

Seeing as how i ran Des Moines weekly i can throw in a little insight on why it isn't getting shortened as quickly as the promotion team would like. The fairboard wants them to donate money to other parts of the fair and not just invest in the track. The money for the track is there. The labor is there. The dirt needed is there. Heck the plans are done. A new stage is designed but the fairboard is standing in the way. Which is funny considering they claim they want racing at the fairgrounds, but yet they don't want them to improve the facility and the racing overall. 

ISF may be stock car crazy but the two times the NSL has been there the crowd was good, and the first time the NSL was there the crowd was amazing. 

I agree it would be nice to have the (3) tracks in the upper midwest work together, which has been mentioned a 100 times over, but unless 3 of the 3 players are all playing nice it won't happen. I won't support anyone, whether they own a race track, a local business, or sponsored by any brand, that says FU to the world. 

So I'll support the tracks in Iowa as much as a I can and venture out as the padding in my pocketbook allows. I feel confident that Kendra and the Knoxville TEAM will produce a quality event week in and week out. In the end maybe Knoxville will start seeing more of the Billy Alleys, or some MO, NE, IL drivers when the MOWA is off. 

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