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

With the announcement that the 2KS team is going on an outlaw schedule and a few others indicate the same, I am trying to figure out why more teams don't try and run both?  It seems like only 2-3 teams per year run both, yet when I look at the payouts for Knoxville and Husets they are better than almost every series except HL/WoO and the point funds are also really good.  Is it the travel between the 2?

It's 5 hours from Koxville to Husets.  I'm sure that has a lot to do with it.  Some teams don't want to commit to that travel weekly.

For as long as I can remember, there's always been a large percentage of drivers between the two tracks that don't race both tracks. 

This year, by doing a basic Excel copy/paste/sort, 13 of Knoxville's top 23 in points raced at Huset's at least once. (Don't know why, but MRP only posts the top 23 in Knoxville 410 points. Huset's MRP shows 66 different drivers received points - and certainly Knoxville's points list is even more than that.)

There are a number of reasons why, including the distance/economics of traveling. Also, if you're not from the Sioux Falls/Jackson area, it's probably going to be around sunrise by the time you get home on Monday morning.

Some of the northern drivers (MN, SD, ND, Jackson area) already race at other tracks on a lot of Fri/Sat (such as NOSA and MSTS) that are located more in their area.

But really, 13/23 isn't too bad, and it certainly is more than it used to be back in the 80's and 90's, when I bet it was a lot lower than that, as Huset's didn't have too many Knoxville-type invaders.

I don't understand why either. Knoxville/Husets have very strong weekly purses and have 2 of the 3 biggest shows. 

All the local teams that have funding to do both year round choose to go with traveling series and the rest are local guys who have jobs come Monday morning and can't run too many times a week. 
 

Local teams capable but chose traveling series this year: KCP with Gio, TKS with Eliason now, Country Builders with AMAC, Ridge with Reutzel, Garet Williamson, Emerson Axsom, The Beaver Tools car with their new driver. I'm sure there are more.

Most of these guys could stays back and win a lot of races but I'm hearing huge dollar incentives from these series to commit to traveling with them outside of the normal tow money. I'm starting to almost resent these traveling series.

Knoxville to Husets every week is a haul. If nothing goes wrong Saturday night maintenance alone plus travel is hard for a local team mostly made up of voluntary help. Especially when most have to be at work Monday morning. Outlaws usually don't travel that far overnight. And some of the teams appear that they'd rather close down the Dingus than race Sunday night. 

I'm a little confused on what the payouts have to do with anything?  No matter which one of these two tracks (or both) a team decides to run, it won't be because of the profits made in the payouts.  It will be based on how much funding the team has to pursue racing events.  There's no profit in traveling from Husets to Knoxville (or vise-versa) for the car owner, even if they win both events.  They just have to have the funding, and have a group of individuals who are willing to kill the entire weekend.  

My main question would be:  Are there many teams out there with the funding to run both Knoxville and Husets on a weekly basis?  Probably not.  I can't imagine the purse makes much difference at all.  

The distance isn't nothing. Look back 25 plus years ago. You had a good hand full of drivers that raced both tracks.

Some teams seem like they only liked the bigger tracks.

Aka: Brian Brown.

Maybe that could be a bonus. If you win Knoxville Saturday Night, and race Husets Sunday Night and Win, you get a $5,000 Bonus.

But that requires a BIG Sponsor.