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

Tonight was a fantastic night at Knoxville Raceway.

Double Features night as well as Wells Fargo Night.

Best crowd of the season, including Outlaw night I would say.

The show started close to on time, and even with some heavy duty wall testing and a few totaled race cars, Double Feature Night was concluded before 10:30 PM.

MAYBE they are listening to us fans, good job guys, now just try to think about spraying to rid the place of those pesky DLM's on normal Sprint Car nights.

I know a Sprint Car Fan that is a Crop Duster pilot, that I am sure has some kind of a spray for them.

Save your butt, get a colon screening TODAY

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Duane Davis

Laser Engraving 
641-751-7777
101 N Center
Marshalltown, Iowa 

Outstanding night all around. Well run program, great racing all night and a big crowd. The good racing and finishing by 10:30 may turn some of those fans who were first timers into fans who attend more regular. Only bad part of the evening was some of those hard crashes. Rager Phillips cartwheel down the front straight scared everyone. How great it was to see him walk (stagger) to the ambulance.

As for the DLM's, I think your friend used the wrong spray. All he got rid of was the DLM fans. The cars & drivers were all that was left.

I agree with Nodust, I give big Kudos to Knoxville on getting the twin features done by 10:30.  Heck, if it were a normal race night, we might have been out of there before 10! 

Great job Knoxville.. keep it up!

16 and 12 lap features though? Those seem more like heat races than features.

Duane, as much as tho protest....I still haven't seem a DLM race scheduled on a Saturday night (normal race night) in Knoxville...only on Friday nights and the end of Sept when K'ville is usually dark.

Interesting crowd last night. It was "buzzing". The regular crowd kinda sits on its hands all night but the people last night seemed thouroughly entertained. There seemed to be many, many first time fans or very occasional fans. Good job in partnering with Wells Fargo Banks. While I know many of these people were there on free or discounted tickets (somebody told me every WF employee got six tickets...and they have a lot of employees), you have to figure some new fans were made last night and plenty was made at the concession stands. A lot of people brought kids.

Good job by Knoxville to run a very efficient program. I got there at 9pm and they were starting the first 410 feature. Had it not been for some nasty multi-car crashes, the whole program would have been done before 10pm. As can be expected with fans with free or discounted tickets and families with little kids, there were some folks who were gone by 10pm. I do think that ties in with the idea of getting done at a reasonable time, especially if you want new fans to return and bring the family. Especially when the vast majority are from out of town like last night.

Last night's crowd was probably 8-9,000 and louder than any non-nationals crowd in years. All-in-all, a very successful night from a marketing standpoint.

You bring up a good point in the volume of the crowd. I loved it a few years back when everyone voiced their opinion as the lineups were being announced and as the races went on. It makes things more fun. Now it seems like we're lucky to hear some clapping from the crowd.

I thought it was great someone walked up and gave us 3 free tickets. Has anyone heard how Rager Phillips is doing?

I think he's a little sore. Check out his website because they posted a message. http://ragerphillipsracing.com/

http://ragerphillipsracing.com/

Save your butt, get a colon screening TODAY

For complete line of Sponsor Awards check out 
MarshallTownLaser.com

Duane Davis

Laser Engraving 
641-751-7777
101 N Center
Marshalltown, Iowa 

I guess I don't care how many $50,000 purse races they run for the 6-800 DLM fans that show up. But it is total crap that in order to get a season ticket to the SPRINT CAR races they force you to buy tickets to their DLM shows!

I'm curious, do Knoxville Speedway season ticket holders have to buy the IMCA Modified race during the fair or the enduro at the end of the year? Do they make you buy ALL of the LM shows or just the two Friday shows in the middle of the year?

Originally you could get a ticket that included only sprint, midget or silver crown races. You also had the option of a ticket with all the other races also, inc. the DLM nationals. A couple years ago you could get the ticket with or without the DLM Nats and the mods & enduro was thrown in on either ticket for free. Last year I called for my season ticket and was asked if I wanted the DLM nats also. I said no. The price still seemed a little high. When I compared the ticket to the schedule I realised I had spent $40 on the 2 Friday night LM shows. Nothing was said about those when I called the ticket office. Those HAD always been WoO prelim shows. I was not informed of the change. When I called this year I asked if the LM shows were included and was told yes. I could get a season ticket with or without the LM Nats but NOT without the 2 Friday night LM shows. They said it was included in the Sprint car season ticket because the show had 305 sprints as a support class. I do not know if the mods & enduro are inc. this year cause I lost interest when they said I had to pay for the taxi cab races.

I just shake my head in wonder when I read in the paper that Cappy's complaining about smaller crowds and loosing money on weekly shows when they are pulling that kind of crap on the people they have been making their money off of for years. If the fair board is loosing money on the weekly sprint car races then why a $50,000+ purse LM show that according to all I have talked to who were there drew less than 1000 fans????? They have had a lot of DLM sanctions there; UMP, Nascar, IMCA, Lucas oil, WoO, and NONE have drawn a crowd. But they keep putting up big purses for these events!?!? And now they want their core group of die hard Sprint car fans to subsidise these LM races???

The LM Nat's will start pulling it's own very soon. I am positive of that.

As far as having to buy tickets to races you will not attend.....sorry but I do not feel sorry for you. NASCAR fans have to buy tickets to IRL and Silver Crown/midget races they don't want to attend, NFL fans have to buy tickets to preseason games they don't want, concert goers can usually buy season tickets for the major outdoor venues that usually include crappy country acts. It's part of the game and I will NEVER believe that Knoxville's weekly attendance is seriously affected by the number of season tickets they sell.

Besides....if those TWO day WoO Sprint shows were making a profit on both nights then they never would have felt the need to try something new. There are at least 5 times the number of late model fans in Iowa compared to sprint fans and they are just beginning to wake up to the greatness that is Knoxville...it takes time, most of them never thought about Knoxville before the first LM Nat's 3 years ago.

(I do miss the Silver Crown and wingless shows in Knoxville though...would gladly trade LM's for those two if it were financially feasible)

And like Duane pointed out on anouther thread, those 5 times as many LM fans have a weekly track they attend, favorite drivers that run that track, and thats where they were those friday nights. When you schedule DLM's on friday nights that have never drawn a crowd for the last 5-6 years that you have been scheduling them, and still pay them a $50,000 purse, don't cry in the Des Moines Register that your Saturday night sprint car show isn't making money!

If the Friday WoO shows didn't make money with a few thousand fans attending run a LM show instead for a few hundred fans. Great idea!!!!

Nascar, the NFL and big time concert acts are big enough to screw their fans and get away with it. If you don't want to buy Green Bay Packer tickets cause they include 2 preseason games, there are several thousand people who gladly will to get their hands on the tickets. Knoxville isn't that big. When Cappy says they are drawing 2200 and they need 3000 and he has 25,000 seats he can sell that puts Knoxville in a little different situation than Nascar and NFL.

I don't think it would be a finacial disaster if they would have blacked out the LM dates on a season ticket and sold it to those who didn't want to attend the LM's for $45 less. I doubt they sold enough LM tickets to season ticket holders to make those LM shows profitable.

No need to feel sorry for me, I didn't buy a season ticket this year. I wouldn't have last year if they had been up front with me when I said I was not interested in LM's, and told me the ticket included 2 LM shows in place of the usual Friday night WoO prelims.

Hopefully when Bruce leaves the late models will go the way of the silver crown shows :)

I don't care how many DLM shows they run each season. Run them on Sundays or Tuesdays but just don't take away sprint car shows for them and don't ask me to pay for them.

Oswald,

You do realize that the WoO chose to eliminate prelims don't you? They want all nights to have a big purse, and we (the fans) weren't supporting the prelim nights in the past, so why wouldn't Knoxville (and virtually every other track across the nation) just reduce to a 1 day outlaw show.

As far as the LM's go. Their racing has been much better than what the WoO have put on (until this season) over the years.

Season tickets? There is a reason it is called a Season ticket, the racing season begins in April and runs through September (only shows not included in season tickets even 5 years ago were the Nationals and Enduro, now the LM Nationals have been added to that list.

A season ticket has never meant that you could drop shows that you wouldn't be able to attend or wouldn't attend.

Just my $.02

7000 tickets purchased by Wells Fargo for their employees, not by their employees.  Was the grandstand buzzing, yep!  Did I hear anyone saying they were going to return, nope.

I did hear that Wells Fargo has went into a cost cutting mode and cut all of their employee events for 2007 with the exception of the races @ Knoxville and tickets for their employees to the State Fair (they based it on attendance from last year and only the top 2 made the cut).

Program was run very efficiently (like it has all year), and if you listened to the radio (KNIA) they stated that hot laps were going to be delayed by 15-20 minutes in an attempt to keep the track from drying to quickly in the 90 degree + heat. 

I would rather they delay the start by an hour than watch a one lane rubber-down track (hopefully they remember that for the Outlaw shows next year, if there are any).

Just my $.02

vande77 says,

"Season tickets? There is a reason it is called a Season ticket, the racing season begins in April and runs through September (only shows not included in season tickets even 5 years ago were the Nationals and Enduro, now the LM Nationals have been added to that list."

Leave out the shows YOU SAID were not inc. in a SEASON ticket ( also imca mods) and what do you have left? A ticket to ONLY all the sprint car races. Thank you for making my point for me. They should not have changed the policy on season tickets that they have had for years. Buy a Sprint car ticket only or a ticket inc. all the junk classes also.