Last week I went to one night of the Cedar Lake Masters.  52 USMTS Mods, 35 Late Models and 17 USRA Limited Lates.  The USRA was the only class with a short field, Mods ran two B's, Lates ran one.  Former Eldora Dream winner Jimmy Mars showed the way in the two top classes.winning the Lates and coming in second in the USMTS Main.

If I'm going to watch Stock Cars and Modifieds that is the type of show I'm going to, not some weekly marathon with junk classes like pure stocks.  I'm a specials only fan after sitting through too many decades of back gate promoting.  Been watching this sport since 1960 and earned the right to ignore weekly back gate promotion marathons and go with specials only.  

Stan Meissner

This is so damn dumb I can't force myself to read the entire article. 

I can't see how this could work.Even if 18 guys "unionize" and "win" the track they are still in to it for 3.2 million after getting second through fourth place money back. It ain't worth that much. Not sure if there would be a way to appraise it for say 2 million and take a tax break on the other 1.2 mil? The guy is a loon  but I'll give him a shred of credit for coming up with some crazy promotions.

The longer it sits idle the more difficult it's going to be to bring it back.  Even though our focus is on the Sprints they still need their Stock Car and Modified class at the back gate.  The Sprints are great to watch, you know that's my deal Mike, but they can't turn their back at the local folks in the entry classes.  They're the ones that are most likely to bring along a dozen relatives more so than Sprint drivers coming in from hundreds of miles away on a Sunday night. 

Those local folks racing in the lower paying classes have all found other places to race or bought campers and fishing boats by now.  Realistically it's going to take anyone who takes over the idle facility a couple of years to build things back up to a sustainable level. 

And that is my uninformed opinion. 

Stan Meissner

     I dunno. Hartford sat quiet for 3 years and got 89 cars for the opener last Saturday night. Yes, it would take time to rebuild things but the fans and a fair amount of racers are still active in the area.

     I'm a sprint car zombie. There- I said it! But I do like watching some of the fendered classes race. I could, however pass on front wheel drives, bombers, enduros, B-mods and anything that starts with 'mini' or 'micro'.

I'm a specials only snob starting a few years ago.  I paid my dues for many years chasing and photographing every imaginable entry class.  Somebody else can support the local weekly shows and I'll reap the benefits of the big specials.  I think there's an exemption after I turned 65 so that I don't have to sit through all that anymore.

Stan Meissner

6 words "Chuck Brenan is a ass hat"

 More info about the race from the Huset's website:

Is this what you would call a classic example of back gate promoting! The entire purse comes from the competitors. Plus all but 4 teams go home $200,000 poorer. 3rd & 4th place win $100,000? Actually they each lose $100,000. 2nd place breaks even on their deposit but loses all money spent towing to the track and racing. WOW

So the winner takes the $3,600,000 because its the better deal and Chuck still owns the track.

How about this. 18 teams form a side deal. $3,600,000 total entry fees. $4,000,000 total purse. Run a good clean race. Split the money. $22,222 profit per team.Thanks Chuck can we do this again?

Alright let's smoke a little smoke, What if you found one guy or a group of guys to buy in all 18 cars .Made a contract that all winning's go back to the interested  group or individual.   And they put up a purse of 50k to win 40 for 2nd 25 for 3rd 20  for 4th 15 for fifth 10 for 6th to 10th  7500 for 11th to 15th and 5000 to start. . That would be 242500 purse. so the investment group would get 157500 back on there deal so the cost of 3.6 goes to 3.5and change. On the Chucks side he will be charging at least 30 bucks a ticket and let's say he has 6000k show up to watch 180000 k and concessions should bring in 120000k more for 300000. more so he is getting 3.9 really. makes him happier. Sure the is some expenses for promotions food and permits, Also we would have to hire track personal and ambulance services. So that would eat up a lot of what the gate makes . I know it's only a pipe dream but I want to see and go racing  so bad again at Badlands It's nice to dream..

      I think you kind of have to look at this for what it rea is, an attempt to sell the track for more than its worth. at the auction no one would start the bidding at $3.1 million. To me that shows the fair mark value to be under that amount; probably less now that we are a year down the road.  Mr. Barnum & Bailey is hoping to make $3.6 to $7.2 million plus the profits off running the race. Anyone with money enough to finance your suggestion is too smart to overpay.

Hes been out of the news for a month or 2 now and wanted people to start talking about him again so they came up with something to make people talk. Thats all I see with this. 18 teams will never gamble on a race like that for $200k unless its something like Points said where they all team up for it. Im not going to get too excited about this actually happening since Chuckles never actually follows through with any of these plans.

I don't debate over speculation.  Past experience says that reopening shuttered tracks doesn't always go as planned.  

Stan Meissner

Looking at the "What you win" part of the website it appears that al of the track equipment has dissapeared...

Also shoulnt the taxable amount of this property be public record to easily see what the taxable value of the property is? 

According to the Minnehaha County 2018 Assessed Values, the total assessed value of 2012 Splitrock Blvd is $3,020,727.00. This information is available at https://www2.minnehahacounty.org/Assessed_Values/details.asp?ParcelNumber=10324.

Just my speculation, but usually assessed tax values are about 15%-20% less than assumed fair market value. If that is true, the Minnehaha County assessor assumes this property is worth about $3.47 to $3.6 million. 

THIS WILL HAPPEN FOLKS! ............as soon as elephants fly.

"Gimme fuel, Gimme fire, Gimme that which I desire!"

I think that this just got interesting.   3.6 million in cash is a lot of money.   I still think that the 200k is a big nut to get over, but we may be surprised.   I also think that the tax man is going to come visit the winner regardless of the arrangement which will limit the above mentioned "conspiracy theories"    

Finally, do not mistake this point as an endorsement for Chuck.   I am like everyone else and have tired of his routine, but 3.6 million to win a race is impressive regardless of who puts it on. 

Can anyone name 18 teams that can afford to lose $200,000?

Because that's what is at risk here. That is what each entrant must ask themselves. 2 teams WILL lose $100,000 and 14 teams WILL lose $200,000.

Who can afford to lose $200,000 if they cut a tire down with 2 laps to go? 

WTF now the winner can just take money?? I thought the point of this was so the owner could get rid of the track, super clusterf now.

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan