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

I see on their site they had 16 sprints and close to 50 B mods last Saturday.

Are the hard core sprint car purists that a lot of Lincoln race fans are really gonna go for this on a weekly basis?

What exactly do ya do about it? Stop supporting the sprint car teams that are showing up?

To many close paying traveling series that pay better are killing Local tracks,tell me that I'm wrong!!

Then I would say that the local tracks need to pay better. I'm sure that most teams would rather race close to home and save on the travelling expense. Does Eagle have a decent weekly purse?

A

It makes me sick the car counts not only at Eagle but all over the country.....seen on the ASCS speedweek that they had 20 cars the first night and 21 last night, Knoxville is around 20 360`s, Husets didnt have very many 360`s at all sunday. Could take the damn wings off and quit making this a moter game.

While loose rules have allowed motors to get out of hand that's not the main reason for lower car counts. It's just costs too much money for the payout you get. Too many tracks today are so dry and abrassive they just kill tires. If you're trying to win you need at least 2 new tires every night. That's about $450 today. Look at Eagle's payout. 4th place pays $400. That doesn't even cover the two tires you used up. Add pit passes, fuel, diesel, car maintenance, etc, and you lost quite a bit of money even after a decent run. Knoxville is slightly better on the top half but worse on the bottom. And everyone knows it takes a ton of motor to have any chance there. People can only lose money for so long. More and more are picking and choosing how they spend it.

The purse cut made by ASCS is no doubt having an affect on their car count. Everyone is getting less money this year but the cost of racing sure didn't go down any. Their top 10 cars have a small cushion with the tow money but everyone else just went further in the red. That's a big reason why you're seeing less cars and I don't see it getting any better.

It's not just 360s either. Farmington has only had 2 heats of 410s the last couple of weeks and I'm not even sure they've had a B yet this year. And they're the only weekly 410 track south of Knoxville and east of Ohio. The car count that the MOWA series gets proves there's plenty of 410 cars in central IL but not many of them will make the 3 hr drive down to Farmington anymore.

Racing a sprint car costs quite a bit to be competitve and the current state of the economy just doesn't allow people to spend like they did in years past. It's very discouraging if you like sprints but I don't have an answer.