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

Great night to race...

Muddy, and all other Knoxville fans

I was there last week and I must admit, the crowd was pathetic at best.

Yea, I know, it was graduation week, and gas is 3.39 a gallon, blah,. blah blah,  That didnt stop us from driving 200 miles last week. (edited to add:  one way, and drove home afterwards)

Husets had 3 times as many fans in the stands as Knoxville last week.... on a Sunday night.. with a third of the population base. 

You folks are spoiled rotten, with the racing that you have available to you on a weekly basis, but it appears that only the true, die hard  sprint car fans take advantage of it.. 

If not for the cash cow in August, I doubt your facility would survive, without finding a way to put butts in the seats

Possibly, it was as much a damage control decision as a weather decision.

From the rock band Cinderella: 

Don't Know What You Got, Till Its Gone............

Yeah good call Knoxville.

Guess you can't lose money when you cancel due to partly cloudy skies.

The late model shows don't draw any fans either do they?

I think it was a good call at the time. Just before 11 am it looked like a lot of stuff was going to blow up from kansas way for a while.

I really like it when they cancel "early" like they did. For a racer, I think it's a pain to load all your stuff, burn up your gas, and then set down there or get started getting all your stuff muddy (not just a car mind you, think truck, trailer, etc) and then have them called. When they call it early the Souix Falls guys probably haven't gotten very far and people can make other plans.

JMO

www.Numbersusa.com  

i know its no excuse...but last week the local Domino's pizza's had free admission coupons for Husets

and i know i personally saw about 15-20 people in the line in front of me who had them

maybe some local business's in other areas need to explore this option

Gimme a break!! All indications were for 70% chance of rain ALL DAY and EVENING!! Knoxville made the right decision. After all, if they wouldnt of cancelled and the teams showed up only to watch it rain, many of you would of been back here saying.. "sheesh Knoxville, why didnt you cancel early ... it was 70% chance of rain!!"

Its a no win situation for the track. I talked to several car owners that were racing at McCool Junction and the comments there were, "lets hope they call it early so we dont have to tow all the way there to watch it rain. Knoxville made the right choice, like it or not.

I hear there are some tracks in Southern Iowa that are going to be looking for promoters at the end of the season, make sure you get your apps in early. Chad VanHowling...er I mean 
muddy"... cause promotins easy!!

A large crowd at knoxville looks small because of the size of the stands though.

I have been going to husets all my life, and trust me, we have no room to talk bad about any other fans, we have even once been called the worst fans in the nation by a race goer (Who had been all over the country to see races) in the letter to the editor section of the local paper (Argus Leader).

I don't know about knoxville but in albia 20 miles south it started to rain at 6 and rained until about 10 don't think they run in the rain do they?

KNOXVILLE MADE THE RIGHT MOVE.

We had a litttle over 2 inches of rain Friday and 4000 plus in the stands at Eagle last night. The track was rough but wicked fast. We would have liked to see a few of the K-ville 360 folks to add to the mix. Lack of enthusiasm amongst racers leads to the same in the crowd, but the porch does offer shelter from the rain.

I have been in the pits every week since the beginning of Knoxville's season this year. I don't know the numbers, but to the naked eye, it appears the stands look better than the last two years that I have been in the pits looking up. I thought last week was even better than the week before. It is hard to tell because the stands are so large and everyone spreads out.

I would rather a track call a race instead of hanging out all afternoon in the mud, get in the pits and then a down pour hits and everyone is stuck and a muddy mess. Then they would say, I wish they would have made a decision and called it so we could have gone to another race.

I think Knoxville does the best of any other tracks that we go to and every time we go to another track, we say how spoiled we are to race there.

Yes they did make the right decision. You travel for 5 hours,400 miles to get Knoxville and do the same coming back to Sioux Falls. That's is a waste of time if they would have waited till later to call it. All of the SF racers did go to other tracks to run. So 400 miles is a big difference than 200 miles like some one posted above.

Hind sight is always 20/20, muddy.

Savage

What typically happens when a track isn't making enough money to support the weekly show at the front gate is the addition of more classes to pad the back gate and attract more local fan support. On the one hand you've got ultra expensive machines like Sprints hauling in from hundreds of miles away with few if any family and friends attending races on a weekly basis. On the other hand you've got dozens of local residents who could afford to field a hobby stock or some other entry class who would be bringing three or four guys through the pit gate and a dozen friends and relatives every Saturday night. Do the math, what makes more sense from a promotional standpoint assuming the tracks are in the business of making a profit? Another thing that usually happens is the tracks will make an adjustment to their top class such as going with a more limited motor which enables them to reduce the total purse which in the case of Knoxville would transfer to 360's at $1,000 to win with 305's, stock cars and limited mods and a show that pushes the limit of endurance. Problem is that kind of a lineup would alienate the hard core sprint fans but there would probably be a lot more people in the stands because it would be an affordable program to get involved in for the average person who wants to get involved in racing. Look at the rest of Iowa and what the tracks are running, IMCA and USRA stock cars and modifieds, Knoxville is on an island compared to what the other area tracks are doing. What some of the Fairgrounds facilities will do is stop running a weekly show and go to Specials only. That's the kinds of things we have seen in my area when tracks struggle with attendance.

The days of places like Knoxville running one or two expensive classes appear to be coming to an end. I'm not going to predict the outcome but regardless of one's opinion of whether big oil companies are padding their pockets or there are legitimate supply problems doesn't really matter, the high costs are here to stay. Travel expenses aren't ever going to be what they once were and it's not going to get any cheaper to race or run a race track.

Stan Meissner

Perfect call Knoxville. I am 35 minutes from the track and it rained all morning and it looked bad to the south all afternoon. Race fans with in a couple hours or so of a track many times let THEIR local weather dictate their attendance. Fuel for the rigs and the fans are going to dictate attendance for weekly shows everywhere. Big shows/specials will get a small break from this problem as you may not see the event again this year. Weekly shows ..... "I'll just wait til next week and if they do race and we miss it ...no biggie."

R.A.

S.H.S.