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Topic: Iowa Speedway
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Page 1 of 1 of 8 replies
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May 06, 2007 at
02:21:17 PM
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07/08/2006
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Attended the races yesterday and thought the Sprints and Midgets were real good. Lots of passing and 3 wide racing. Silver Crown were just ok. The crowd was light though.
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May 06, 2007 at
03:53:50 PM
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I"ll bet Knoxville would have liked to have that crowd..
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May 06, 2007 at
06:06:45 PM
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Anybody who couldn't enjoy the midget and sprint car races just doesn't know good racing. The midget feature was downright crazy, and the three-car battle up front in the sprint car race was good, too. Watching guys like Swindell and Hessert really made the last part of the sprint feature entertaining as well. Iowa is one of the best asphalt shows I've ever seen....
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May 06, 2007 at
06:09:09 PM
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Nearly 12,000 at Iowa Speedway. Maybe 2,200 last night at Knoxville. If the USAC Triple Crown event was held at Knoxville, I wonder what the attendence would be...
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May 06, 2007 at
06:34:03 PM
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This message was edited on
May 06, 2007 at
06:36:21 PM by BIGFISH
"The midget feature was downright crazy". We call them the " killer bees" at PIR. My dad used to say that sprints and midgets were like fish in a barrel on pavement, but he never saw them on these tracks with the tires they have today.
I love telling the NSACAR boys that the midgets are faster at Phoenix the Jeff Gorden, they are.
Kenny
Half the lies they tell about me aren't true.
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May 06, 2007 at
07:20:13 PM
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Reply to:
Posted By: John Katich on May 06 2007 at 06:09:09 PM
Nearly 12,000 at Iowa Speedway. Maybe 2,200 last night at Knoxville. If the USAC Triple Crown event was held at Knoxville, I wonder what the attendence would be...
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Didn't seem like that many to me as tthere wern't hardly any in the stands was quite a few down low though and my understanding is it holds 25,000.
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May 07, 2007 at
09:46:44 AM
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John K.,
Don't forget that Newton actually counts those that purchase season tickets and booth seats whether they attend or not. If they sold 10,000 season tickets and booth seating before the season began, attendance is 10,000 even if no one shows up. This is something that Knoxville has always seemed to have forgotten.
Now for another point.
2 weeks ago, Rob Gray reported in the Register that less than 1000 showed up the the WDRL race. Funny, I was in the stands and I would have put it at around 1500 in the stands, plus the 52 VIP suites that hold from 8-16 on the Frontstretch and 20 at the Hall of Fame (that are pre-sold at the beginning of the season). By a conservative estimate (using 10 per suite for a count) there are 520 people in the suites (pre-paid admission to every single race, not just the ones they show up for).
No offense to anyone, but Knoxville needs to revamp their entire structure. Eliminate the Fairboard running the day to day business (Brian Stickel is probably their best hire in 20 years). Business people understand that you have to spend $$ to make $$. That means advertising, promotions, giving away free tickets, give-aways for kids, etc..
I have had 3 fairboard members say to me already this season "We are over-budget on advertising. We need to quit spending the money, people will show up." How crazy is that? We are having attendance decline, so lets not let anyone know we are having races???
Time to start over with a new fairboard (and make it fair and have the election held during the general election instead of in secrecy) and let the people of Marion County elect them. Maybe as a bonus, we'd actually have a nice County Fair too (although I wouldn't get my hopes up).
Is attendance an issue across the county, I'm sure it is, but the days of opening the gates and putting on races are over. I had multilpe choices of things to do last weekend alone (I live in K'ville). Go to the races, stay home and watch Napcar, go up to Newton and watch USAC, go watch the Iowa Stars playoff hockey, go to a movie (Spiderman 3 did $150 million over the 3 day weekend, tell me advertising doesn't help you), take my kids to the park, go out to eat with my family.
If I wasn't a die-hard race fan, the races wouldn't even be on my radar, I haven't seen a TV commercial, heard a radio commercial, or seen advertising for the races all year (except in the Knoxville paper that gets maybe 500 readers weekly.
Just my $.02
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May 07, 2007 at
05:08:40 PM
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Reply to:
Posted By: John Katich on May 06 2007 at 06:09:09 PM
Nearly 12,000 at Iowa Speedway. Maybe 2,200 last night at Knoxville. If the USAC Triple Crown event was held at Knoxville, I wonder what the attendence would be...
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Too bad that will never happen..... 
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May 07, 2007 at
05:37:06 PM
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Well said Vande77, but I am sure nobody is listening as they advertise as the Sprint Car Capital of the World and that alone should pack em in....NOT! They could certainly learn some promoting from other tracks that I have raced at. I could write a book about what I think they should do, but it would only take up my time and fall on deaf ears, but I do agree with you. They certainly get the cars and with the right management I am sure they could do better attendance wise, but the fair board don't get it.
Sprint Cars Do It On Dirt!
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