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

With COVID and my choice to not attend races, I have followed the sport more in 2020 than I have in at least 15 years?

Member of this message board since 1997

Flo made it a great season for me, and like you Hawker, I didn't mak any races this year either. I enjoyed the All Star, USAC, and the Lincoln and Port Royal weekly shows as well. I will probably add DV next year too.

Plus it was fun following Larson too.

Right there with you. Attended 1 race but watched every outlaw race, a few late model races and October fast on dirtvision. 

I probably followed it about the same which is pretty frequent. I have had Dirtvision the past 3seasons now & try to follow a number of teams & tracks. I attended about 20races this year but definitely different than normal. Typically, I only go to WoO & All Star races as traveling 2hrs, it gives me more bang for my buck. This year while I still attended all Outlaw races in Ohio, both in Lernerville, and Knoxville I went to more "local" type shows at Attica Fremont and a couple down at Portsmouth & Atomic. 

Other different thing was where I sat. Typically I am a front stretch guy but most races I attended this year I sat closer towards the turns in order to stay away from people. Got to see the races from a different angle which was neat at some tracks. 

Same with me.  I did the photography every weekend for seventeen seasons and couldn't hear what was going on with ear plugs and all the noise along with not being able to hear the announcer.  I would get so focused on what I was doing and getting certain shots lined up that half the time I'd get half way home and forget who won until I got home and saw the victory lane shots.  This summer I sat in the recliner with headphones on so I wouldn't disturb my wife and the only distraction was an occasional cat demanding scratches.  I'm sitting looking at my friends social media post where they'd drive a couple hundred miles to the same races I was watching from home.  I was totally absorbed when I was doing the photos and writing a column but in retrospect now I see why the column could be so stressful having concentrated on watching so my ass didn't get run over.  You are a photographer so you're experiencing those same ah ha moments with streaming racing as I am.  I know ten times as much about what's going on out on the track but I am out of touch on all the pit gossip that I used to hear every weekend.

Stan Meissner

Granted, 2020 was a different race season with attendance, etc., and should really not be looked at as an example, HOWEVER, if fans across the country begin to use PPV as their sole dirt track racing experience, tracks will eventually run out of income to support the race teams and to run the track.

Yes, I have a Flo yearly subscription too, but I still attend Selinsgrove/Port/Lincoln weekly and watch the All Stars and USAC when I can.  But at $150 for a family, per year for Flo, that is a ton of money lost by the speedways.

Yes, Port and Lincoln get world wide viewership now, but that doesn't help them stay in business.

Flo is making money I would assume, but for that $150 membership, I have always wondered how that is split across the many tracks that have Flo as a provider on any given Saturday night.

I go to the Grove every week but Flo has definitely stopped me from going Saturdays. Being able to watch both the Port and Lincoln features live is arguably better than being at either track. I also wonder though as far as the split with the tracks. With a fee per race, or a monthly sub even you can imagine tracks get a good split but Flo has dozens of races a week in some cases and 52 weeks in a year they cant be providing each track with much.

That said I have been to very few races with a bad crowd this year (the two Wed. shows at Lincoln come to mind). It seems every time I got to Port it is packed so its possible the extra exposure is helping them?

Really good comments.  Yes, the crowds were definitely up this year, there is no doubt about that.  Selinsgrove had The Cushion so PPV at Selinsgrove is completely different and hard to gauge.  Kinda horrible to say this, but the Covid thing ended up being good for Port and Lincoln once racing resumed, fans wanted out, and boy, they went out.   Hagerstown even had possibly their biggest sprint car crowd ever, and that was on PPV too. That's kinda why I mentioned that 2020 would be hard to use as an example as far as PPV goes for 2021 and beyond.  And I'm sure with the national exposure Port and Lincoln got, fans from out of state said "hey, my state can't race so this is a perfect time to visit Central PA, I've always wanted to go see racing there."

My concern for the tracks arrangements with PPV is proportionate to their concerns about about my financial status and my ability to do the late night drives home after the races.  Their concern about whether someone like me can continue his 60 year love affair with racing hovers between zero and twenty below if that puts it in perspective.

At my age I'm running out of years and getting to and from race tracks will only get more difficult each new year so I am a big fan of affordable streaming racing channels.  Netflix is standing by if they decide to change their business model and raise prices to the point I can no longer justify having the racing channels.  I love racing but I don't love it as much as I love staying warm and well fed. 

I had both Floracing and also Dirtvision from May to September and plan on renewing Flo in February and reactivating Dirtvision next Spring.  I will try to get to some races next season with the emphasis on big special events and some local shows as well.  After standing back and observing his outdoor events went this year it looks like a go for next year for a handful of live events.  I'll never be one of those fans who can afford to drop $150 on entertainment every weekend.  when I read these kinds of posts that is what I see between the lines " f you if you can't get to the track old man, it sucks to be you" is what I see.  Great sport if the only way I can be a fan is drive a couple hundred miles and spend $150 every weekend.  It's hard to believe that anyone would want to go back to that.  I sure as hell can't afford to be a fan of anything that costly.  I'll gladly do $150 per year plus $39 per month May through September but that is pretty close to the max for a retired person on a fixed income.

At the end of the day dirt track racing is just another form of entertainment and as such I feel no special obligation to it at this point in my life.  That basically means that I treat them like any other business and they treat me like any other customer.  

Stan Meissner

Really good comments as well, and by no means was I trying to say if you can't afford to go out to the track each week, then don't.  And meant no disrespect to elders or handicapped persons who stay at home more than in years past.  I do hope PPV continues, because as I said, I use it and buy it too.  That may sound hypocritical, and to a point, it is, but I guess I'm just saying I hope PPV doesn't put tracks under in the years to come because of lack of attendance.  I did hear a rumor, yea a rumor :-), that PPV prices may be going up next season.  But all in all, in a horrible year, dirt track racing had one of the best seasons ever in Pennsylvania.

If I was old enough..  I could recall how baseball had this exact conversation in the 1950's.   and then Johnny Unitas opened the world of sports to the NFL in 1958 and by 1960 football was on every TV in the land and baseball never recovered. But even football started with "local blackouts".    What's "best" for a sport is a avery subjective opinion usually based in our own preferences and what's "profitable" is not always based on everyone's wallet....  How hard is this math..... 100,000 subcribers...  a lot by local race standards but not so much on a national level.....   100,000 at $20 per month....     is 2 million dollars...  a race at 10k to win will have a total purse of around 60k ... do that 3 nights a week... maybe fri-sat-sun... or how about tue-wed-thur....thats 12 races or 700k for a month... in other words it pays for itself and some left over.... that means you can tell the track operator to keep all of the gate and hot dog money..and he is happy..... Change the show... outlaw warmups, time trails, 2 minutes in the pits,, brief delays and anything and I mean anything that delays the show. make delaying worse than an illegal engine...and while we are at it.. get a tow truck that can lift a sprint car in 30 seconds and get it off the track without anyone going a lap down.... do it all in 2 hours and say thanks for coming.......get a couple knowledgeable announcers who can talk just like the pople beside you at the track. knowledgable, informative and enjoyablle without endless irratating discussions of how the cars are entering Joe's Hubcap Sales turn 2 and heading down the Bob's lawn mower service back sretch 12 wide......  In other word.... start being professional with the broadcast and let the track announcer talk to his audience while they take to the the people at home.....             and a personal favorite.. wait until we actually run the race before we declare it to be great....This is not hard..... This is the future.....