Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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It is only four weeks until the season starts in Florida and according to I B Racing the All Stars only have four signed up saw recently that Holtgraver will only run part time and Blaney has moved on to Pa. ,they had 14 fallow the whole tour last year if only four fallow this year I would think twice about a big sanction fee .

Selinsgrove has a Sunday rain date listed for their race while Bedford also has a race that night.

How much is Tony going to race himself?

14?

Based upon the # of features that drivers entered in last year I'd say 6 or 7. 

Keep It Real

You should check qualifying to see who actually attempted to make the race.  I know some of the full timers had a difficult time making every feature.

Signature here.

What are Kraig Kinser's plans?

The more time goes by, the more the All Star stories grow legs.  I've been following them since the 1970's ( including sponsoring and owning cars and even sponsoring the Series ) and they have never had 14 teams attend the entire tour or even the majority of the tour in one complete season.  I think they will have maybe 8-10 teams , at best, who will attend 95-100% of the events in 2017, which is not bad considering the most recent 10 years, which often had 5-8 who recorded 100% attendance.  Keep in mind, the purse has largely been unchanged ( except for selected positions ) for over 20 years, while inflation has eroded that $ 5000 to win. The sanction fee, however, has more than doubled in the most recent 15 years.  Top 15 used to receive tow money, while today anything above 10 is of a discretionary nature.  The tow money has increased over the older days, but not enough to offset inflation over time.  The series is in need of some monetary restructuring, hopefully from sponsorship dollars and not the paying customer's pocket.

According to my unofficial numbers, only 4 drivers ran 'every' race in 2016.  12 competed in close to 90% of the races, and 14 ran close to 50%.

Kraig Kinser    42
Dale Blaney    42
Chad Kemenah    42
TJ Micheal    42
Danny Holtgraver    41
Caleb Helms    40
Bradley Howard    40
Sheldon Haudenschild    39
Andrew Palker    39
Cap Henry    39
Kory Crabtree    39
Lee Jacobs    37
Tim Shaffer    29
Caleb Armstrong    20

2015, 4 drivers ran 'every' race.  8 competed in close to 90% of the races, and 15 ran close to 50%.

Tim Shaffer    45
Chad Kemenah    45
Dale Blaney    45
Danny Smith    45
Danny Holtgraver    43
Cody Darrah    42
Ryan Smith    40
Greg Wilson    40
Travis Philo    38
Sheldon Haudenschild    38
Andrew Palker    36
Parker Price-Miller    31
Caleb Helms    30
Cole Duncan    25
Lee Jacobs    25

http://www.blumberglegalforms.com/blazer3/Racing/Ratings.html

Just my 2 cents:

1. If Guy Webb were still running the AS, I'd be a little concerned - with Tony Stewart at the helm, I think the AS will be fine.

2. Agree completely on the need for a purse increase.

3. (This is not intended as a slam to the PA folks...) I wish the AS would stay more in Ohio. I think perhaps that is the reason that more teams aren't signing up for the full tour - too much travel, especially to PA.

It may have been just 4 drivers that made every feature but that does not mean that those 4 drivers were the only ones that attempted to make all the features. A number of drivers failed to transfer and make the A-Main each night and ran out of privisionals. I know for a fact that S.Haudenschild, Palker, Henry, Crabtree, Jacobs, Howard all showed up to the track but all necessarily did not make it to each A Feature. Danny Holtgraver and Caleb Armstrong would have attempted to make each feature but both were sidelined at one point or another with injuries. That would mean about 11 Total drivers that the All Stars would bring to the track last year. I think I heard that the 33m also bought an All Star membership as well because it was worth it to them in pit passes with the number of races they were going to run. 

Touring wise I would imagine they will have at least 8-10drivers trying to do the whole tour plus a few drivers that travel here and there like Shaffer, Haud, Price-Miller, etc. I think some teams are waiting to hear if the FL races are going to count for points this year or not. I do not know if any offical announcement has been made yet.

Nick14, my numbers are not only drivers making the feature.  I track all drivers according to the official results.  If a diver is listed running a time trial, heat or A,B,C,etc features, they are counted.  Many results show a driver in TTs as no time, and I still would count that.

But looking at more into my 2016 numbers, these drivers, the only races they missed, were races in FL in Feb.  So I would say, the All Stars had 12 touring drivers...

Caleb Helms
Bradley Howard
Sheldon Haudenschild
Andrew Palker
Cap Henry
Kory Crabtree
Lee Jacobs (also missed 2 races in Aug, at Grandview,PA and Lebanon Valley,NY)

There are a lot of drivers that are kind of waiting to see what happens in Florida.  When its all said and done they'll have a similar number to last year. 

In 2016 there were 13 Members

In 2015 there were 11 Members

2017 will have 12~15

2017 FLorida Races will award 75 Points per race to Members who do not come to Florida.

From Kory Crabtree:

Made the hard decision of not running the @ASCoC schedule this year do to lack of engines. Running around Ohio and a selective large shows.

There are several more drivers rumored to be running the All-Star tour but the four I have listed and the only ones that have officially announced their 2017 plans.

www.ibracn.com
#PaulsToTheWall
GO SAMMY!

Having to run Florida will hurt their final numbers as far as followers go. 

not offended, but where are they going to race? Ohio has quite a few tracks but I think it would get a bit old racing the same tracks every other night. The Pa races were very well represented by the Allstar drivers so Im not sure they would like to nix most or all of the Pa dates, then again I have no clue what the drivers want. Sure would stink not to get to see the Allstars here in Pa as often.

Ohio is flooded with racetracks and series for 410s. I beleive Tony is trying to expand out of Ohio to try to get some cars from other regions to run the series and be able to tell their sponsors that they will still be running X number of races in the area. It will also help Tony expand his reach to promote the seiries to more sponsorship $$$$

The number of registered members and the number who attend a large majority of the events ( for example, 90% ) are not one and the same.  But since you are in their employ Ross, I do give you credit for towing the Corporate line.  Every year since their inception, the All Star roster has been comprised of teams who will race all of the races, and also teams who will race when it suits their needs.  Not sure if it is still applicable, but there was a time when joining produced  an economic payback, via reduced and / or free pit passes .  So, the membership fee produced a benefit that exceeded the cost.  I stand by my previous post, as I've been to probably 1500 of their events over the decades.

In years past when GW had the seires, anyone could buy a mewmbership for $500 (i think).  This allowed you 2 free pit passes.  Some fans even bought memberships.  Many drivers bought membeship in June just so they could run speed-week.When Tony bought it I was given a list of around 30 members, 1/2 of them I never heard of (I assume they were fans).

Starting last year there is now a membership deposit. If the member races for 80% of the races (and is in good standing)  they get their deposit returned to them.

From what im hearing there will be at least 15 members.  I think the list of members will be released in a couple weeks.

Brandon Matus tweeted that he'll be running the series this year. Not sure if it is just him or all of the Matus cars. 

Last year we had 11 members attend all of our points races and in the points fund. 

1881 Racing missed one race in NY, because Lee had to get back for school.  Kenny drove the car at Grandview for him.  Caleb Armstong got hurt in June at Butler but returned from injury 2 months later.  

We'll release the names of member cars in the next few weeks (before Florida).  As Ross noted, we should have between 13-15 member cars...if not more.

Last year we increased start money from $400 to $500.