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

56 yrs ago I got the chance to clean a set of quick change gears. I was hooked, but, I'm picking the 70's as the greatest period in dirt racing. You had soooo many guys that could win, we could race 4 nights a week, pits packed,  open trailers. Ours was a 1 ton wrecker with the car sitting on a set of dolly wheels. The ramp trucks would wait in line to back up to the dirt mound. I've turned wrenches on BB late models and mods to porting brodix 12 heads for the sprint car guys.  You get to a point where you say I can do that, it looks easy. My 5 yrs driving taught me one thing, don't ever think it's easy.  Being able to do many things myself is the only thing that carried me. Ah the 70's were fun.

I am 84 yrs old.  I would say the 1960-1970s.  Alot of big name drivers with personalities.  Drivers that drove in the Indy 500 would be also entered in dirt track races.    Those drivers did not have big money advertisers behind them.

The 70s for alot of the same reasons you stated. I used to think the bigger the tire rack the bigger the team. Growing up in Pa at that time I got to see the area grow into one of the best. Drivers would come from all over to race around here. The 70s were the glory years imo.

2000-2009. Being from PA , that time period had some really good racing . Most of the big named owners were still in it , and the really top drivers were plentiful.  You had the WoO , the Gumout series , AND the All Stars , and briefly the NST having races in PA. The weekly competition back then was probably the toughest era ever around central PA.

For me it was the period between 1994 and 2004. Ron Shuman was trying to build the SCRA into an organization that would rival USAC for wingless sprint cars. He very nearly accomplished it, too. The group had some great cars and drivers and the racing was the best I ever saw over a sustained period of time. Even the glory days of CRA at Ascot didn't have as many potential winners as SCRA had. At the time I was living near my parents was still single, so we went to nearly all the races at Perris and Ventura and even traveled to follow them to the central valley the midwest.  Unfortunately, some of the car owners and track promoters were unhappy and brought in USAC as the sanction, which oversaw the decline of wingless sprint cars in Southern California.

I think you're right. And when Ron brought the SCRA back east he always had a large group of cars. Damion Gardner in his own #20 winning at Williams Grove, it was something else. And then Earl having the Mopar Million in 2003 kinda capped off the era.

I actually have a theory that all of sprint car racing peaked around the late 90's to about 2004. 

80'S. Ronald Reagan. 

Within hearing distance of Tri City Speedway

The best race I ever saw was at Terre Haute during the 1999 SCRA tour. It was a 3 groove track. Mike English was running the bottom, Frankie Kerr the middle and Jac Haudenschild the top. Both Kerr and Haud came from way back. Kerr ended up winning. 

Decade? Prob 2000-2010 seem to be peak. Year?? I'm going with 2016 for me. NSL was awesome and I miss it greatly. We had 30-35 410s at every event all summer. Knoxville was hopping. Husets was hopping. I all of a sudden had a handful of pretty good quality shows at nearby tracks that usually didn't run much 410 sprints at a reasonable price. This was also my last run of races without kids as one was in the way and so my goal was 100 races in a year. Counting things like chili bowl, battle at the barn, IMCA door banging races and all sprint races I almost cleared that number. Think it ended up being uppers 80s for races attended. 2016 was just a good year.

I would say for me the end of the 80's and up to 2000 were the best for me because it was all new to me. Obviously it was before Cell Phones and Social media and my 1st 10 plus years of Sprintcar Racing to me was some of the best Racing years of my life. The big dogs at the time were Steve & Sammy (Only saw Doug a handful of times), Andy Hillenberg, Joe Gaerte, Jeff Swindell, Dave Blaney in the Ford, Kenny Jacobs in that awesome Motter car, Dean in the Fridgeadaire car on a National level, And then Knoxville had so many that I really liked such as Lasoski, Marlo Jones, John Sernett, TMac, Tony Norem, John Kearney, Lee Nelson, Dollanski,Skip Jackson, Don Droud in the Burger King car, So many more, My 1st few years were awesome..... (Other than Steve Kinser winning the 1st 5 Nationals) Jeez I didn't think anyone was ever going to beat him!!!!

I'm sixty seven years old Would have to say the seventies eighties and part of the early nineties Jackson Minnesota, Husets And Knoxville always had great fields of cars. Plus I traveled all over the country.

Many years back than I made it to a 120 to a 130 races a year.... Probably 99% of them were midgets and Sprint cars. From the Chili bowl in January.

To west coast trips in November Would love to go back to those times

The Non Wing World Challenge was the best