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

Just today I brought some tapes in, getting rid of my late Father's stuff to make room

Too much of a war to get rid of Mom's stuff

George Carlin: "Whats the difference between "sh#t" and "stuff"?

                        "Easy: "Move your sh#t, I have to put my stuff there"

Similar to the antique dealer's saying:   "We buy junk, and sell antiques"

My only concern is that I can continue to watch races at a reasonable price that fits my budget and to see a few live each summer.  Its up to the racing industry to find a way to shed their "ya' gotta' be there to be a fan" 1950's business model.  If they don't figure out a way to do that they'll end up going the way of the drive in movie.  After years of photography and writing for a racing paper I'm at a place in my life where I just want to follow the sport without putting too big of a dent in a retirement income.  Seems that there is a die hard group in racing that considers stremaking to be a bad thing and wants to see it go away or jack the price way up as an incentive to attend.  It's not as complicated as that.  As someone who followed racing since 1960 I just want to keep up with the sport for another ten or fifteen years or whatever I have left on this rock.  If I can do it I will do it and if at some point its no longer sustainable I will find something else to entertain myself.  I think that is how most people who can't get out to many races and are getting up in years feels.  My suggestion to the younger folks who think us old guys should attend, pick us up, share the expenses, do most of the driving and give us the opportunity to attend that we wouldn't otherwise have.  It's Fathers Day, take your dad or grandpa to the races.  When we get to this age all we need is a little push and some company so we don't have to go it alone.

Stan Meissner

Well the only way for tracks to do what you want them to do is for them to get a larger share of the streaming money and that will increase the cost to veiw. I am 67 and get tired of hearing the fixed income story. If someone who wants something cheap and can't afford it that is sad but businesses can't give their product away and stay in business. I am lucky to be in good enough health to have a full time job as well as two sideline businesses. One of my businesses is selling metal crafts that I make. I am approached all the time to attend events where I know I won't make money because it is for a good cause. I have done many but I can't run up and down the road all year around losing money besides the fact that I am not 40 anymore. I also feel that if attending races live dies so does local racing.

On another note I went out of my way to pick up my Dad and took him to the races every Sat. during the season for the last three years of his life when could not get there by himself.

I don't think Stan was asking for a handout.  I think he was making the point that the business model is changing as it does with every business in the world.  With the new business model, and the future of this business model, it will give older fans a chance to still watch the races they normally wouldn't attend.  He has stated many times he can't get to all of the races he had in the past.  He is also encouraging the younger crowd to attend in person as they still have the ability to do so without an extra "push."  The dirt track racing world and the streaming services are going to have to work hand in hand to make sure the revenue is shared as needed to keep the tracks running.  Let's be honest----racing attendance in most corners of the country was tanking prior to the mass streaming services going online.  This has been a topic of discussion for the last decade or more on Hoseheads.  I attribute it more to club sports than anything else, but that is another topic.  The PPV world has opened an entirely different avenue for viewing races, keeping up with races, and generating new revenue.  It is up to the parties involved to make sure this revenue is spread as needed to keep everyone in business.  It would be foolish for the dirt track world not to embrace this new revenue stream.  

Crowds haven't been fantastic at Husets but the crowds have been good.

The amount of racing you get for a $150 flo subscription is astonishing really.  

A

If I lived near you, I'd drive & we could share expenses.... & your wife could watch my Mom!!! 

no such luck.....

You've been going since the 60s & have "been there, done that"

I started in the early 60s & then didn't go to ANY races from early 70s until 2010, so I still have the bug to see live racing. PPV is OK, better than nothing, but not even close to live action...

I am not looking for a handout.  Great for you that you're healthy and are able to work full time and run side businesses.  My mother passed at 37 and father at 44 so I have been on my own and made my way.  I think you missed my point, I am perfectly fine with where streaming is at right now.  $150 for Flo and $40 per month the next couple months of Dirtvision and I have all that I need.  My point is thatI can afford it at this price point.  Maybe railroad retirement isn't the best but it sure as hell is a lot better than many others.  Another point you likely missed is that for me attending live 410 races is about 6 hours to Knoxville and River Cities and about 5 to Husets and four to Jackson.  I don't know about you at 67 but for me at 70 I wouldn't even think about it without getting. Motel.  Again my RR is good but not $300, all the driving and expenses every weekend good.

I am not ashamed of my finances.  Matter of fact I'm proud that I found a way to join the service to get the GI bill for schooling and proud of supporting a wife and four kids on one income.  If somebody wants to give me shit about how much money I have in the bank then we do not see eye to eye.  Personally I think it's a very arrogant attitude.  Try picking up an old friend or relative and help people get to the races instead of ridiculing them.  

Stan Meissner

It's kind of humorous to me watching you try to describe the difference between live and televised racing and the vibration in your chest. I hooked up F4 Phantoms to the catapult on an aircraft carrier in the early 70's.  Also spent seventeen years taking racing photos and stood in turn one when they took the green.  There is nothing in my racing experience that even comes close to being underneath a jet when they turn them up and I have shot WoO Sprints many times.

Your assumption that I prefer watching from home ignores half of what I said.  Six to eight classes of stock cars and Modifieds locally, I do go see the Limited Sprints once in a while and local 410 shows and I do know what "that feeling in the pit of the stomach" feels like.  If I had access to 410's every weekend I would go every Saturday night  could make it work.  If my damn knees didn't bother me so much I'd charge up the camera and flash batteries and do what I loved doing for years.  Unfortunately time waits for nobody.

Stan Meissner

I think you missed my point. You can't ask tracks to give up their business model of having fans in seats and think Flo can only cost $150 a year. I think a lot of people over estimate the amount of money the tracks are getting out of that. I suspect that Flo is going to cost more than $150 next year. I know a few races ran with sponcership and pay per veiw during the total covid shut downs but people were desperate for something to do then. That was an anomaly. 

I understand what you're saying in principle but I haven't been around the tracks enough to know what management is thinking of their share of streaming revenue.  I'm just an old guy who fell in love with racing in 1960 and think it's awesome that I can stay connected to it without having to devote every weekend of the summer to it.  I did that for years, writing, photography, started a racing website in 1999 and ran it through 2016.  As a customer I leave the pricing up to the people running the tracks and streaming services.  If I can afford it I will continue to get streaming channels and if I can't I will watch YouTube hilites and look at text updates like I did before streaming took off.  I love the streaming because it keeps me connected that I have watched for sixty two years and had the opportunity to be involved in for a time.  If they raise the prices we will see what they come up with and make a decision.  

Stan Meissner

I agree, but think you should stop bragging about your sex life....

Your reasons for not going are perfectly valid & nobody should give you a hard time about it. So are my reasons, but as soon as the situation changes for me, I'm going to a bunch of races!

Bad knees? I know what you're going thru.... I dragged around one bad knee since 1977 & the other since 1986.... but in 2014 I got them both replaced the same day & its been GREAT! Titanium, same thing as the finest race car parts. I was on the bike in 6 weeks & dancing hard in 4 months..... DO IT! We're lucky to live in the age of modern medicine, no reason to suffer.

I ride my bike 8-10 miles or swim a half mile almost every day.... we have to FIGHT BACK against our eventual demise. We're all gonna go, but I saw my late father get pathetic & am currently watching my Mom do the same. I wanna ENJOY whatever time I have left!

I've been reading more and more about tracks re-thinking the streaming model. When FLO started, it was a combo of the SpeedShift stuff, the DirtonDirt stuff and some other cool shows from Eldora etc... Then it morphed into literally everything not WRG...

It's not just that a Port fan can stay home and watch Port on TV, it's that he can watch Lincoln, watch the All Stars, watch some LMs, some mods, some sprint cars from Cali. And if he has DirtVision, forget about it. You can watch everything. So even if Port leaves Flo (not saying they will, just for argument sake), I don't think fans will just return altogether. Some will, but many are now conditioned to want to stay home and have 20 different options to watch every night. 

Threads like this are what keep me coming here after all these years. They are getting more rare, but they still happen. It reminds me of those times when we're all sitting in the grandstand watching the water truck and the grader circle the track… And all the familiar guys around are giving each other the business, waiting for the racing action to get started ... or restarted.  Nothing like a bit of b@ll busting among track friends that hopefully ends with a good belly laugh by all.

For a couple of you that suggested taking an aging family member or friend to the track when you get a chance… Thank you for that! I also spent the last few years of my dad's life shuttling him out to the track, and I gotta say the rides to and from and the conversations that we had at the track, and his appreciation for the whole deal are some of the things that stick with me most. If you get a chance to make that happen for someone… Please do it.

Sometimes the more I say to clear my points up the deeper in I get.  Here are a few key points.

I just got cataract surgery on both eyes last year so I can see to drive long distances and do most of the driving on road trips.

I have a good retirement income and investments but after years of chasing races and buying camera gear I am putting the emphasis on her since retiring in 2018.  Two weeks in Norway, new kitchen cabinets and counters, a trip to Texas and she has taken two trips with my daughter.  We give generously to the kids and grandkids and check of all the family boxes.  It's not that I don't believe the racing industry should give me a free bee, I am just hoping that the streaming prices stay within a range I can continue to manage.

Bottom line is that I have been a Sprint Car fanatic for 62 years and hope to continue through a combination of streaming and live races.  Seeing as I prefer classes that are specials only at my local tracks I have to travel or watch streaming.  If my interest in racing had to involve Hornets, Pure Stocks, Street Stocks, Super Stocks, B Mods and the like I wouldn't bother watching and would find other interests.  
 

I am not the enemy, I don't want anyone's local track to go broke and I don't wish bad on older fans like myself.  I just want to continue to follow Sprint Cars at an affordable price like the ones the streaming services have charged the past few years.  If that was to change and I could no longer afford to stream races it has been a great few years while it lasted.  
 

I will always love racing but family priorities and expenses come first.  I binged watched most of Stranger Things season four last night and enjoyed the hell out of it and that is the competition racing is up against nowadays.  There are other options if the business model to watch 410 Sprints and Super Late Models prices me out of the market.  So far I have only ever seen certain fans who have a bug up their ass about streaming throwing out rumors of massive price increases.  It's never the car owners, sponsors, family and friends who are now able to follow them. I'm not saying it can't or won't happen but if it does I will see then what we're dealing with.

There is a bit of irony with coming on here as an advocate of streaming and getting chastised for wanting to watch Sprint Cars as much as possible?  Seems to me that is why we are all here in the first place so why piss in each other's Wheaties?  

Stan Meissner

I hope you don't get in much deeper. You should write a book and make people pay to read your yarns.

LOL, my late father-in-law used to say that "I have the gift of gab".  Basically his watered down way of saying I'm full of shit and can't keep my mouth shut.  I did pump out a few multi page articles in Flat Out back in the day so I do tend to get carried away with the writing.  If people don't want to read my posts I don't blame them. 

Stan Meissner

I just watch the A feature highlights of the Dirt Cup turn up at Skagit Speedway . Race was on Monday night 37 410's I know it was a Monday Night . But you could have shot a cannon off in the in the stands and not hit anyone . There couldn't have been 100 people there . I also saw a video of the Thursday night at the Masters at Ceder Lake Wi and the crowd was terrible there too . I can remember in the past before this tv stuff if you had a special on a weeknight you would get people in the stands if you ran a fast show . Now with tv no one shows up in books they have to be losing money . I wonder what the crowd will be like at Husets on Wednesday and Thursday June 22/23 . Will they go to the track or sit at on the couch in the AC if they sit at home Tod will lose money    Glen Murra