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

Thanks for your point of view, I bitch when there is 3 divisions and the show run for 4 hours , I can't even entertain the thought of 9 classes starting at 9 or 9:30 at night. 

Haven't looked on that track's website so not sure what the rules are for Plymouth thunder stocks are.

 But if they are racing for 300 to win they cost MUCH more the 600!

Funny story about a friend of mine that owned cars that raced at Park Jefferson in the 1990's. They had 4 classes late models, modifieds, street stocks and the bottom class was chargers probably comparable to hobby stocks at other places. I think this was around 1998, He had the fastest charger car there- they had $23,000 in the car. It had a $3700 crankshaft. I think they ran for $150 to win at that time. 25 feature wins would have covered the cost of the crank!

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

Yep just can't make shit like that up.

They just pushed off the last "A" Main...

Member of this message board since 1997

 Did anyone consider that their idea of a little something for everybody is just that, and the back gate money is sorely needed to keep the joint open? Man I'd I hate it too if it was my home track, but if it helps keep racing alive during these times.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

I hear what you are sayin, not many track owners have an easy life and they still keep their places open for the love of the sport

 We did the impossible here in AZ when Kevin Montgomery was running Canyon Speedway Park, we talked him into running the Sprints main event before whatever was with them. More people stayed than you might imagine.

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

We left a track one time vowing never to return back in the 80's.  We told the promoter that the Human Cannonball shouldn't pay to get into the circus.  We went another 10 minutes in the other direction from the shop the next week and found a great track with better payout and fantastic promoter.  Promoter came up as we pulled in the week after we took a very bad hit and slipped us a couple hundred.  He thanked us for getting the car back together.

I wonder what the fan attendance is like for some of the tracks that have the 5,6, or 9 classes. By fan attendance I mean people that don't go because their son, cousin, baby's daddy, best friend from their 2nd year in 6th grade, or next door neighbor is racing. There are tracks here in Ohio that have multiple classes that are basically for people that just want to race something. Street stocks, bombers, b-mods, mini mods, some other mod, and multiple lower tier late model classes. From their standpoint I think the main focus isn't to get more people in the stands, but more people in driver seats and get backgate money. They may never get a WoO, USAC, Lucas Oil, or whatever regional series at their track but I do not think that is what they are going for.

However, I think tracks that try to do both (front gate & back gate) when they try to get 5 classes but have a good front gate as well. I have gone to All Star races at some tracks that have had nearly 50 cars or over 50 but yet they had 3 or 4 support classes as well. By the time the features came around the racing was not the best as the track was all rubbered up. Attica is a track that typically has 1 support class for their All Star shows or none for the Brad Doty classic. The fan attendance is normally great, they usually have time to prep the track again, the features are great, people end up coming back for the next event. This past week at I 55 they had 61 cars, no support class, was able to prep the track multiple times, and the features were great. That as a fan is what makes me want to go to the track which I 55 is on my bucketlist

Someone in this thread said they went to a race with 38 people in the stands, including baby mammas, 6th grade 2nd year BFFs and everything else.

One thing everybody's least favorite track owner "Chuckles the ass cancer clown" did right was his weekly shows only had THREE classes. A couple times he added Late Models on Sundays and had a 4 class show. Generally he ran a pretty quick moving program and had it all completed in 2 1/2 hours. 

I think I read somewhere years ago that Ted Johnson's rule was ONE support class for his WoO shows.

I remember 18 years ago I went to an IRA show at Hales Corners. They had like 52 sprints which was very impressive, they timed them the LMs like 26 of them and the sportsman stocks like 25 of them, you could imagine how long that took and of course the feature was checkered early due to the 11:00 curfew. 

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

     I'll admit I'm a sprint car zombie, but I can tolerate fenders in moderation.

      What about those people that are really big into dirt racecars with fenders? Do they like watching 5 or 6 classes of fendered racecars?

    What if it was 5 classes of sprint cars? Would that make a difference?

     Boring story from when I was much younger and much better looking: About 30 years ago I went to Sunset Speedway near Omaha for a show put on by the Nebraska Modified Sprint Association (?) The program had about 30 360 winged sprints and only one other class running- some sort of street stock cars that all looked like cameros. They had 55 of them! That involved something like 7 heat races, a C, a B and and A Main. 

Try tracks in the south when USCS comes through.

- 360 USCS Sprint Cars

AND!

- Street Stocks

- Street Stock Bombers

- Street Stock Renegades

- Crate Late Models

- Mini Crate Late Models

- Mini Stocks

- 4 Cylinder Stocks

- IMCA Crate Modifieds

- 602 Crate Modifieds

Then they brag they have over 100 cars in the pits. 

10 classes? Even with 100cars in the pits that would mean that multiple classes had under 10 in the class. 100cars with 10classes broken down evenly would be 10/class, 120 would be 12, 130 would be 13 and I would imagine some of the top classes would bring more than that which would drop the car count in other classes. At that point, what is the point in running that class especially if you have a traveling series come in?

At that point I think the track's focus is on keeping cars on the track rather than fans in the stands which is ok to an extent. I mean their are recreational basketball, soccer, football, hockey, baseball, etc facilities specific for adults and children to play and enjoy. The way they make money is by participants signing up for leagues or groups renting the facility, etc and  not by selling tickets to spectators. Professional or minor facilities may have a team or two that play games and they sell tickets for that 1 game since people want to see them. During that game during pre game, intermissions, half time, and even post game they may have a quick scrimmage with some adult team or often kids teams. But they do not have the pro team play a quarter/half/period/inning then have 1 beer league level play then another lower tiered league play, then another and another..... and then the pro team comes.

I am fine if a track wants to focus on the backgate if that is the model that works best for them to operate. They just cannot expect fans to buy tickets if they pay for a traveling series to come into their track with that many classes. Or they may get fans in the 1 time but not the second time after they deal with all of the complaints.

Just read the subject but IMHO racing is too expensive for the purses paid and that is mainly due to the racers themslves.Most every class has a thick rulebook that also costs.Look WOO motors are close to $70K and even Knoxville 305s Pace 376cu in motors are $16K. Racing will never be cheap except the ticket to wat

Back in 2002 or 2003 I was racing street stocks.  I towed to a track in North Carolina, for a Friday night show.  I had to work the next day.  They had a couple of different classes of street stocks, and I thing 9 classes total.  A lot of those classes were under 10 cars and it still took for-ever to get the show in.  At about 11:30 I asked the race director/promotor if they could bump my feature up in the order so I could get to work in the morning.  He told me it was imposssible, they had a schedule, they couldn't deviate from it, yada, yada.  So I told him that I was loading up and leaving.  The pits were in the infield, and he replied "You can't leave during the program, so you might as well wait around and race".  I ended up loading up, and as I tried to leave, he rode his quad over and parked in front of my truck, so I couldn't leave.  I got out of the truck and said I'd wait, at least I'm going to be the first out of the pits.  As the field rolled down the back stretch, he rode away, I hopped in the truck and crossed the track in 1 as the field was in turn 4.  Mr Promoter was racing back through the infield yelling something I couldn't hear as I went over the banking and disappeared.  I didn't even go home, I just drove straight to work and slept in my truck in the parking lot and got about 3 hours sleep.  I also never went back to that track again.