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

i was at the labor day show monday and only 14 entries, more than half subpar rides to put it kindly. loosing the beam 88 is a big loss for port royal speedway. makes me wonder how much longer weekly spint car racing at port will continue. cost and the economy has really hit local racetracks around here hard. went down to hagerstown two weeks ago and the grandstands were practically empty and port on monday was not much better. makes me sad to think back on laborday races in the past will full grandstands and pits packed full of cars (back in the old days, when the cars were in the infield at port) and who could forget the old covered grandstands. man those were the days.

The nine scariest words in the english language 
are ,"i'm from the government and i'm here to help" - 
Ronald Reagan

Losing the 88 is not a good thing.

As to the Port, haven't been there in a while but from what I read, they have no one to blame but themselves for poor track conditions which was keeping drivers and fans away in droves (not sure if they got it fixed). 29 cars there tonight.

Your both right on both of these points , losing another good team is not good for local racing in PA . This maybe the start of something , there is many facets playing into the problems that exist today . Track prep , poor promotion , not listening to our fans , the World of Outlaws controlling our local rules on tires and other issues and more . It is time the tracks work more together in sharing track prep information , revising schedules that work to produce big crowds , large weekly car counts even if they don't run every week . Car costs is number one problem , with motors , parts , tires there are answers , but the tracks and snactioning groups are too greedy as to getting a piece of the pie to often .

I wouldn't say the sky is falling because of Labor Day's car count. They had 25 cars for a regular show on saturday night. Williams Grove had triple 20's on friday night plus a regular show on Sunday. Port and Lincoln both ran Saturday. That's a lot of racing in one weekend and a lot of teams would rather take Monday off than run on a daytime track for a not so great purse. There's a lot of big races coming up to prepare and save your equipment for. I'd look for about 32-35 cars for the Tuscarora 50 tonight. The Beam 88 is definitely gonna be missed. However a lot of people predicted the end a few years back when Hamilton and Stewart retired their cars. It always sucks to lose great owners but others will come along.

A

I pretty much agree with Holden here. I don't read anything into the Labor Day car count at Port. The same thing happened with the car count at that race a couple years ago. When Rahmer, Hodnett and Dewease all skip a race in central PA, it's not because those teams are broke and can't afford to race. I actually think the central PA car counts are better now than they were five or six years ago.

There was a post on the Grove board from one of Daryl Stimeling's crew guys saying that Rahmer and several other drivers were not happy with the tire options for a daytime race at Port, and decided to stay home instead. Is there any truth to that? I dunno, but it is pretty much unheard of for Rahmer and Hodnett to stay home when there is a race in central PA.

I don't think you can look to the Port as a barometer for how sprint car racing is doing in Central PA. Frankly, when talking about the 'good ol days', you could argue that for Lincoln, its 'good ol days' are happening right now. I can't remember the track doing any better than it has in the last 5 years or so. The Grove is still a great place, despite some lackluster decision making that occasionally goes on. Selinsgrove is a great story, not too many people expected that track to even be around, let alone thriving in 2010. Also, the racing has been really good in 2010, so all in all, it's pretty good. (I am worried about the Port though.)

Where did they have a grandstand that would hold 35,000 people in 55 or 56

Are you sure you didn't add a 0