Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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I was informed Tuesday that the promoter of Steele County Speedway in Owatonna, MN has cancelled the ASCS Northern Plains event scheduled for this Thursday July 26th. No other information was given.

The ASCS Northern Plains drivers will still have a big (2) night stand when they invade I90 Speedway in Hartford, SD this Friday July 27th and the next night Saturday July 28th at the Murray County Speedway in Slayton, MN...CZ

Starting to seem like quite a few ASCS races are getting called. If I'm looking right, the touring series only have 4 point races left now.

Savage

Any idea why it was canceled?

gettin to be next to impossible to have a racetrack be your sole income. The guys that are doing it are running racing into the ground because they ain't payin enough just to start the races.....and/or charging to much to get in (especially these back gate assholes). As long as promoters are in this mainly for the money they----along with everyone else----will be disappointed in the end. A perfect situation would be a well-to-do kinda guy........who has a good mind along with good charachter........who has a very successful business behind him and loves dirt racing to the fullest. Instead of trying to make a whole buch more money....try giving back to the sport and be the only track in the nation that pays their drivers what they deserve. Take that money that most promoters pocket and put it back into the purse and maybe into some advertising as well. I mean......you have to generate profit to be able to pay for track workers, mainetnance, and bills.....but aside from that.........not making a whole lot. And just for kicks pay well for a tech man to actually enforce your rules. Not many tracks down in this area that do that.

I may be wayyyyyy off on this ya'll. But I really think if all those things stated above came into place.....it might end up being the best weekly program in the nation.

How much would could a wouldchuck chuck if a 
wouldchuck could chuck would

That well-to-do business man was Craig Cormack. We all know what happened there.....

Savage

This was an ASCS regional event, not an ASCS National event.

Here is what we received from the promoters:

"...Due to unforeseen medical circumstances, One of our business partners has had to resign from the track. We will not have the legalities straightened out before the show on the 26th so unfortunately we will have to cancel this show. We are looking into rescheduling it toward the end of September.

We are truly sorry for the inconvenience that this has caused everyone that has been helping to support and keep racing alive at the Steele County Speedway.

Thanks,Brian Madsen..."

Hopefully they can get things worked out...CZ

Savage Bad Monkey you had the EXACT same answer for OKC that I had- Craig Cormack is precisely the guy he described, and many a racer and fan called him the best promoter in the country.

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

Yeah Newbee, it's a shame when people get treated like that after trying to give back to this sport. Maybe too many people think they have a say in what goes on these days instead of just attending and enjoying the show.

Savage

You pretty much described a Fairgrounds track and it sounds a lot like Knoxville. As far as promoting and advertising I can only speak from personal experience. Advertising a big race to hardcore racefans isn't necessary, they'll be there come h*ll or high water. Us rabid fans have our nose to the ground and a pile of racing schedules sitting on the stand next to our sh*tter. No race gets past us, most events are scheduled around the same time each year almost to the day so we have it down to a science when putting in for vacation.

So with that being said advertising more specifically targets the casual fan with a family. Hence the NASCAR nights like Cedar Lake's recent Dale Jr. visit, an attendance record with thousands that had never seen a dirt race. Many were talking about how they'd like to come back again for a regular race night. Advertising for a Dale Jr. to the general public makes sense but they're going to be clueless when it comes to most weekly shows. One track owner I know told me that they tracked their attendance after sponsoring a television show for an entire season and they found it didn't make a significant difference at the gate. The same goes for when they run full page newspaper ads in a Metro area of several million people. No significant difference in attendance so they only do it for the biggest specials. A lot of fans think that low attendance is a result of not advertising but I don't believe that is really the case.

Doc Lehman wrote a good article about the "graying of the dirt track fan base" in the latest Dirt Late Model magazine. What he said in there translates to all types of dirt track racing. The biggest challenge is the different forms of entertainment. I find that my non-race-fan relatives and a few casual fans I know will only come out for a couple of big shows, the WoO Sprints, USA Nationals Late Model race, Richert Memorial and DTRA 100. From my association with track owners the message I keep hearing is that it's a fine line between advertising and throwing money at the media with no return for their advertising dollar. I'd suggest that you ask your local track owner about this subject and I'm sure you'll get an earful about the return on advertising dollars.

P.S. I have been taking photos at Steele County for the last two seasons. Their biggest challenge down there is that southeast Minnesota is rabid Modified country. Put on a Sprint or Late Model race and attendance is so, so. Get the USMTS in there, Shryock, Noble, and those guys and the place is packed to the rafters. No amount of advertising seems to make any significant difference unless you've got Modifieds on the card. Southwest Minnesota towards Husets is Sprint Car country, north of the Twin Cities and you better have Late Models or you're not going to draw. That's part of the challenge in our area as well.

Stan Meissner

Up here in Minnesota we're so far off the radar of the ASCS National Tour that what's going on in the rest of the country isn't a big factor. When Wissota decided to drop the Sprint Cars ASCS stepped in and created the northern plains division to fill the void. Quite a few of our guys don't have the ASCS heads and the ASCS only allows the sleeves for their regional races. There are other open shows and Jackson's weekly deal but only one ASCS National race this season at Brainerd, Minnesota. The rest of the national races have been too far to travel for most of our local (around Minnesota and the Twin Cities) teams. Only a few of the well funded guys like Swenson and Peters before he got hurt were able to make many of the National races.

We've got a few teams that have both 360 and 410 cars. When there's a nearby 360 race they'll run that or they'll run their 410 with the IRA or the Outlaws depending on what's closest. If there's nothing else scheduled a few of them will run a Jackson weekly show. There isn't much incentive to go out and buy a set of heads for one race at Brainerd if they know they're not going to travel hundreds of miles to follow the national tour.

This cancellation at Owatonna had nothing to do with any ASCS shows anywhere else in the country. Owatonna had an open 360 show on their schedule that got rained out and we've had open 360 shows at Kopellah and Cedar Lake as well. We're on the far northern fringes of ASCS's area of influence and it isn't necessarily the only 360 option available. If the ASCS said tomorrow that their heads were mandatory for all teams racing in the northern plains division half the cars wouldn't be able to race. I think when they came up here they were probably counting on guys getting in line with their rule book but that hasn't happened. If ASCS didn't sanction the Kouba Memorial or Billy Anderson Memorial they'd go back to being open shows.

Nothing against the guys working with ASCS but my observation is that it hasn't made much difference from what we had under Wissota. As a matter of fact, most of the tracks up here are Wissota sanctioned and they used to book 360 shows at a lot of tracks that no longer run Sprint specials. Grand Rapids, Proctor, Superior, Rice Lake, Princeton, Golden Spike, Deer Creek, have all run Wissota shows just to name a few. I like what I have seen of ASCS but they've got some challenges getting established up here.

Stan Meissner