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

Really sad to see no one was in the grandstands last night at the HL race in MO. Haven't been to the facility but it looked nice.

WoO, looked like a nice crowd in ND. Hats off to track crew for turning around the track after the rain.

Maybe they don't need the crowsd to be huge the first season if they're working with TV revenue and investor money. HL is, after all, a startup business in its first full year of operation.

Track was Really Fast last night, with even feature lap times below 10 seconds. Obviously after track was reworked it started a little one lane ish but was still a great race with top 5 within striking distance at the end. Stands were 3/4 full, i'm sure weather played a little part as 50 percent chance of rain all night. Well worth our 3 1/2 hour  drive both ways. Got home at 3 a.m.

HL had a good crowd Friday at I-70.   I-70 has a ton of seating.   When looking at the stands from TV, I am sure it looked sparse, but when you looked at the parking lot, there was a ton of cars.   

The drone shot of the feature finish gave a clear view of the stands and it was indeed sparse. I'd bet a hot fudge sundae that whoever made the decision to use that shot was told not to do that again!   
crowd does look much better tonight tho. 

Don't let the video coverage full you. It was a real good crowd Friday and even bigger crowd tonight (I was there both nights). Took me over 30 minutes to get out off parking lot Friday night because I decided to wait and watch driver interviews after the race. The place is massive. They also have a bunch of suites that were almost sold out and rooftop party deck that was packed. Racing was good, but overall was just missing that wow moment.  Can't wait to go back in October.

I initially thought not a good crowd either until I tried to get out of parking lot.

HL also had weather in the area Friday night. They rushed the program through. It was sprinkling the 1st 5 laps of the A main and started raining 10 minutes after the checkers fell. Good job to get program in. It they would have run it like normal, A main would have been rained out.

My son attended the USAC show at Knoxville last weekend.  I could not make it, and watched the features at home.  I texted him during a break and told him I thought there would be more people there for a USAC show.  He said what do you mean, this place is packed!

Camera and drone footage is deceiving at some of these places.  That said, there have been some venues the HL has been at where folks in attendance say it has been very sparse.  I don't know the business model, but I would assume these places are expected to be busting at the seams in that business plan.  I'm glad I just get to watch and don't have a $kin in the game........  

Ogilvie was standing room only last night.  It's an hour north of me but I was on the graduation circuit over in Wisconsin and watched when I got home.  I flipped to Flo and watched the High Limit race, flipped to Knoxville and watched their Feature then back to Ogilvie.  Brooke lives nearby and I know Duane Nelson the owner of the 14.  Gravel got crossed up on the start and caused an eight car disaster.  Brooke got the worst of it and went end over end while being pummeled by the field.  I felt bad as they haven't had much luck so far this season and they have nowhere near the budget the Big Game team has as local racers.

Aside from that there were good fields and good racing at all three events.  No complaints or comparing crowds here.  Maybe HL doesn't quite have as much name recognition with the masses but word will get out.  It's a great season to follow the sport.

On a side note one of the announcers (can't recall which race) was talking about everything being backlogged and harder to get.  I can see why.  I have never seen so many Sprint Cars all over the country as this year.  

Stan Meissner

Seems like High Limit crowd last night was pretty good and made up for Friday. Even the Outlaws have some light crowds on the Friday night portion of a 2 day show. They just need to stop drone shots of a 80% percent empty grandstands and Chases annoying "grandstands packed" slogan when the green flag drops opens themselves up for easy criticism. 

Next year I'm sure they'll learn from some of these mistakes with the schedule and have more tracks interested in having an event. To me the Rudeen show should either be in Wisconsin where sprint car races seem to get good crowds no matter what, or at Skagit. 

Remember HL was blackballed from certain markets like Wisconsin because of traks and sponsors being loyal to WRG. While at the Rudeen race this weekend, they did say they want to keep moving that race to spread the word about drug addiction, but I think they want to keep it in the midwest. Again, the crowds at I70 were deceivingly good. I made the mistake of hanging around Friday to listen to the victory lane interviews. Also, there was only a 50/50 chance of geting races in Friday.

I believe the crowd was pretty light the last couple years for this race when it was all-stars. Saturday's crowd looked decent. Looks like a nice facility. 

A

If it's anything like last year won't be an issue of a sparse crowd at Eagle.Tuesday night. Been going to races there since the early 70's, including many Outlaw shows and never seen a crowd as big as the HL show last year.. It helps that we're short of viewing good Sprint shows the last few years in the area with some track closings. Not knocking the 305's because they put on one of the best shows anywhere in the country with the Racesaver Nationals over the Labor Day weekend bringing around 100 to 110 cars each year and close racing.

Back to the HL race, never seen so many people last June they had to park families in the back of the pits and usher them through to the grandstands. I think they ran out of food and drink if I'm not mistaken. Weather shouldn't be an issue and if the fans learned a lesson, they'll take off work early and hour or two and avoid some of the rush.

On another not, viewers watching any race on TV at Knoxville would always think the crowds are thin. The problem there is they all sit toward the top half of the grandstands where the cameras don't show. With the haulers parked on the infield, you can't see squat sitting below row 20. Post script, wish I would have thrown my hat in the ring to sing the National Anthem, some of the HL selections have been "awfully" weak lately.

Another podium sweep for HL drivers at Eagle.

Let's go Sprint Car Racing!

Knoxville - Best Track In the USA!
Eldora - 2nd Best Track in the USA!

ooooooooooh big bad HL 

With the big, high-dollar event at Husets, we'll see every High Limit team exercise their free-range status to be there and show up the WoO- right?

I know it's hard and sometimes it's fun to banter with a fool, but ignoring WingedStrawser's nonsense will greatly limit his posting frequency. Trolls need attention to keep going. 

Haha now thats funny SprintFan16

It was a good race and in now way was Rico trying to take anybody out. Dude a solid racer and been winning races all year.

Love Larson interveiw hearing how stoked he was to knock the WOO guy's off the win and the podium all together.

Even went as far as saying just shows how much stronger HL drivers are then WOO .

Also Larson said ," see you at the Nationals."

Boom he's going!!!