Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
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http://espn.go.com/racing/nascar/cup/story/_/id/6795863/nascar-kasey-kahne-ok-end-end-dirt-track-crash

What made me made was the comments all the NASCAR fans were making.

"Kasey does not need to be racing with lower forms of racing on his off weekend."

What?

Brandon McLain
United Sprint Car Series Driver
2014 Season
National Rookie of the Year!
National Points - 8th
Southern Points - 3rd
Asphalt Points - 3rd
18 Races, 3 Top 5's, 14 Top 10's

When I was allot poorer I spent a ton of money going to NASCAR races. For my first race I bought tickets the day of the race and sat in the 35th row, start finish, in Charlotte. That was 1984 and Cale Yarbrough won. Everyone around me was a "race fan". I stopped giving NASCAR money in 1994. Bought tickets off craigslist to go to Kansas in 2009. Talked to people around me. There were no "race fans". All there was, was "I got free tickets from my brother's friends, sister's boyfriend, who works for....." It is no longer a race it is an event. Indy 500 use to be an event. Now every Sunday NASCAR race is an event.

Who wants to sit next a wine and cheese crowd. On Speed center after talking about the Dream Race in Eldora the chick said something like " Well then we get back to real racing where there are no red solo cups and chicken bones"

Thank God for Turn 2 Media and those like them. Living 120 miles from Charlotte I would rather pay $9.95 for Knoxville rather than go watch NASCRAP ! ! !

mega dittos

Luna's Ford engine style that won 2 WoO titles and 3 
Kings Royals before a weight rule against the best EVER
in their prime and now DOMINATES super dirt late model
racing is no longer allowed/wanted in a WoO sprint
car.... Was Luna a miracle worker?

If it was a lower form of racing why can't NASCAR drivers win Sprint Car races? Think about it.

Stan Meissner

does nascar have spell check ?

Good one Stan! I went to Daytona for the twins in February. It was a whole different bread of "fan" I heard the same thing. Comp tickets, contest tickets, etc.. At Beaver Dam Wi. for the Outlaw show a person next to me said he usually attends Nascar and non dirt racing. He was there on a company comp ticket. He complained about the dust that was coming up in the stands getting his clothes dirty. I did my best to explain things to him about racing on dirt, the format of the heats, B, and dash while filming. Hopefully he went away a fan as he stuck it out till the end.

See more racing videos at
http://www.youtube.com/user/dagunner

+ 100

Also, I am still stuck on the whole 'people calling it a lower form' Well, with awesome grammar like, "Must not got to many". Don't say shit about our racing, yet just make fun of the grammar.

-----------------------------------------------------
A healthy diet of dirt in my nachos and beer.

I'll probably get roasted for saying this, but I agree that sprint car racing is a "lower" form of racing. As far as the way it's looked at from the standpoint of Indycar people or NASCAR people, it's been that way for years. Gary Bettenhausen pretty much ruined his Indy career with Roger Penske because he couldn't stay away from champ dirt cars and got injured doing it. Penske, who Bettenhausen had been driving for, had frowned on him doing that.

The simple truth is that NASCAR is the major leagues and sprint car racing ain't. If sprint car racing was even close to major league, you'd see a bunch more of it on TV. As it stands, sprint car racing has never made it on TV and it never will. Does Dupont spend millions of dollars keeping Jeff Gordon in the USAC sprint series? Nope, that's what he did on his way up to the major leagues. Why does Dave Blaney stay in NASCAR when he's not competitive? Because NASCAR is the major leagues and sprint cars are not! He's staying where the money is. If sprint cars were major league, he wouldn't stay in NASCAR. Sorry folks, it's called reality!

Ok, I am sure I will get torn apart for this. But I will tackle the "lower form of racing" comments. Sprint Car racing isn't a lower form of racing that NASCAR Cup racing? There is more television coverage of drivers waiting in line to go out for Cup practice in a year than there is actual Sprint Car racing on television over the course of five years or 10 years.. A team that shows up and parks after one lap of every Cup race makes more money than the highest earning Sprint Car team does despite running less than half as many races.

If the same question was asked to people outside of a Sprint Car board, you would probably be lucky to find one percent of people that don't think Sprint Car racing is a lower form of racing than Cup racing.

So sprint car racing is a lower form of racing because it doesn't get as much tv time as NASCAR, and it doesn't pay as much as NASCAR....

So, its way more impressive to beat Paul Menard than it is Jason Sides cause Paul races on Sunday instead of Saturday night?

I always thought to be a professional at something, you should get paid for it....Last time I checked, half the field lining up for a NASCAR race paid for their rides and didn't get paid for their efforts... Paul Menard has never gotten a check for Childress. Brian Vickers dad owns CV Products and agreed to provide almost everything to Team Red Bull. Joey Logano dad pays Joe Gibbs for his son to drive the HD car.

Joey Logano's dad built this massive skating rink down the street from my house, world class facility, because he felt so bad that he spends so much money on Joey that his daughter felt left out.

I'm depressed now. I wasted all my life worshipping the ground Kinser, Swindell, and Wolfgang walked on, now knowing they were just amateurs compared Rick Mast and Michael Waltrip.

Brandon McLain
United Sprint Car Series Driver
2014 Season
National Rookie of the Year!
National Points - 8th
Southern Points - 3rd
Asphalt Points - 3rd
18 Races, 3 Top 5's, 14 Top 10's

In response to your first sentence, the answer is yes. I realize this is a Sprint Car board, but if Sprint Car racing was the major leagues of racing in this country, every Outlaw race would be televised and last place would pay $100K instead of $800. The biggest Sprint Car race in the world doesn't draw a fraction of the attendance the worst attended Cup races draw.

If the fan interest beyond this message board was there for seeing more Sprint Car racing on television, fans would not have to beg and plead and hope to see more than a handful of televised races each year.

It seems really disengenuous to compare three of the greatest drivers in Sprint Car history with mid-pack Cup drivers. That being said, who do you think it more well-known outside of Sprint Car message boards, a World of Outlaw feature winner or a guy that runs 30th in Cup every week?

In 1972, 2 years before Syracuse---From there, Gary moved up through the traditional USAC apprenticeship: midgets, sprint cars and dirt cars, spending three years on the gritty little ovals, racing for small purses under glaring lights through the freeway traffic of night competition, before graduating to the "big cars" in 1966. But Bettenhausen still races the small stuff—he was USAC's Sprint Car champion in 1969 and 1971—because he feels that they get him in shape for the big-money races. "It keeps you sharp, it keeps you out of the rut," he says. "When you're running wheel to wheel under the lights with the dirt from the cars ahead splattering off your windshield, you learn a lot about how to go through traffic. And shucks, it's not that dangerous. In the four years I've been running sprints, I haven't seen anyone die."

Last year Gary drove in 60 races, embracing all five of USAC's competitive divisions: stock, midget, sprint, dirt and championship, winning money and points in each. His earnings for the season: $129,433. The practice, if such it was, certainly has paid off this season. Already in 1972 he has won a midget race at San Jose, the sprint-car Penn Nationals at Harrisburg and a repeat victory in the Astro Grand Prix under the Houston Astrodome. Driving Penske's McLaren in big-car competition, he placed fourth in the season opener at Phoenix and then inherited victory in the Trenton 200 when Bobby Unser and Mark Donohue, in faster cars, broke down during the early going. Still, Bettenhausen's winning speed at Trenton—146.211 mph—was nearly seven mph better than the existing record, and by winning he became the first son of a former USAC national champion to win at the tough Trenton course. That means something special when you consider that Gary's best friend is Billy Vukovich, son of another dead racing father who won Indy twice (1953 and 1954) while two-time national champion Tony Bettenhausen never won the big race.

Penske knew who he was getting!!

Half the lies they tell about me aren't true. 

Don't confuse us with the facts.

Stan Meissner

Actually I think you're mistaken. My guess would be that, collectively, saturday night short track racing, nationwide, outdraws the paid attendance at the big league venues. By a bunch. In response to who is more well known, I think it depends on who you ask. If you ask someone who is strictly a fan of the big league crowd then your probably right. But if you ask a RACING FAN then they probably know both. They also then know that Cup racing is indeed a step down, strictly from a racing standpoint, from sat night short track racing. They further know that most, not all but most, of the Cup crowd couldn't carry the likes of our short track stars equipment bags. Big league racing is and always has been, a step down, from short track racing.

REMEMBER OUR TROOPS!!!

LOL Collectively, as in every track in the country combined outdraws one Cup race? Well, I would sure hope so. Sprint Car racing is a very much a niche sport with a relatively tiny fan base. It still goes back to the fact that if Sprint Car racing was more than a niche sport, the television ratings and advertising dollars would be respectable enough to make it worthwhile for networks to carry Sprint Car racing every week of the year..

Thank goodness it is a "lower form of racing"...... Could you imagine waiting in those lines like a Nascar race with over 100K fans.... Where would I sit? Would I sit?

That's a good way to look at it Sidewayz!

Here's another point and then I'll shut up. If sprint car racing was conidered "major league", then why are all of our young drivers attempting to leave for NASCAR? Kraig tried it and couldn't cut it, Tyler Walker tried it and couldn't cut it. Kevin Swindell will run very few sprint car races over the rest of his career. Ricky Jr. definetly headed somewhere else didn't he? Hmmmm.... Wonder why all of them did this? Because NASCAR is the big leagues and sprint car racing ain't! Nuff said