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

I watched the press conference live and other than the top heavy purse for the Rock and Roll Gold Cup championships, I can’t find a single thing that anyone should be complaining about; fans or drivers.  I guarantee the drivers love the new payouts and that is evident in the video showing the drivers’ reactions.    There is one question however that I wish I could have asked if I was there in person and no one seems to be bringing this up anywhere yet….

With the track now paying a $2,000 qualifying purse for the 410’s including $1,000 to quick time (basically guaranteeing that driver a minimum of $1,700 for the night assuming they make the A and take a green flag), where does quick time start the feature?  It better be nowhere near the front!!! 

Too many tracks have gone away from the real racing, and are putting the fast cars up front and this leads to the most boring races ever.  This is happening in all classes too, not just sprints.  Having lived both sides; driver and fan, I can honestly say I would much rather start in the back and put on a show for the fans as I work my way up the field. 

I'm not sure what Husets has been using for their format, but at the very minimum, I would like to see something similar to the Knoxville Nationals format that would invert 8 in the heats (hopefully a full invert) and then a minimum of an 8 invert in the feature but I would really like to see a deeper invert than that (like all B main cars transfer to the tail of the A and quick time starts in front of them).   I know there will be people that will argue sandbagging, but the qualifying purse is a good deterant for sandbagging but it still may not be enough if the majority of the field was inverted in the A so perhaps something like an 8, 10, or 12 would be perfect.

Also I would love to see B-mains (and C-mains if needed) not lined up by qualifying time, but rather heat finish.  So if quick time had an issue in the heat and didn’t transfer to the A, they aren’t automatically gifted a front row starting spot in the B, they may even have to run a C , or start deeper in the B.  The whole premise is providing the most entertainment possible.  If the car is fast enough to be quick time, then they should be fast enough to pass a few cars in the B to earn their spot in A, thus providing a little more entertainment value to the fans, rather than to be basically gifted the spot based on their qualifying time.  And don’t even get me started on provisionals those should NEVER EXIST IN RACING, PERIOD!! – but that’s an entirely different topic.

What do you all think?

I watched the press conference live and other than the top heavy purse for the Rock and Roll Gold Cup championships, I can’t find a single thing that anyone should be complaining about; fans or drivers.  I guarantee the drivers love the new payouts and that is evident in the video showing the drivers’ reactions.    There is one question however that I wish I could have asked if I was there in person and no one seems to be bringing this up anywhere yet….

With the track now paying a $2,000 qualifying purse for the 410’s including $1,000 to quick time (basically guaranteeing that driver a minimum of $1,700 for the night assuming they make the A and take a green flag), where does quick time start the feature?  It better be nowhere near the front!!! 

Too many tracks have gone away from the real racing, and are putting the fast cars up front and this leads to the most boring races ever.  This is happening in all classes too, not just sprints.  Having lived both sides; driver and fan, I can honestly say I would much rather start in the back and put on a show for the fans as I work my way up the field. 

I'm not sure what Husets has been using for their format, but at the very minimum, I would like to see something similar to the Knoxville Nationals format that would invert 8 in the heats (hopefully a full invert) and then a minimum of an 8 invert in the feature but I would really like to see a deeper invert than that (like all B main cars transfer to the tail of the A and quick time starts in front of them).   I know there will be people that will argue sandbagging, but the qualifying purse is a good deterant for sandbagging but it still may not be enough if the majority of the field was inverted in the A so perhaps something like an 8, 10, or 12 would be perfect.

Also I would love to see B-mains (and C-mains if needed) not lined up by qualifying time, but rather heat finish.  So if quick time had an issue in the heat and didn’t transfer to the A, they aren’t automatically gifted a front row starting spot in the B, they may even have to run a C , or start deeper in the B.  The whole premise is providing the most entertainment possible.  If the car is fast enough to be quick time, then they should be fast enough to pass a few cars in the B to earn their spot in A, thus providing a little more entertainment value to the fans, rather than to be basically gifted the spot based on their qualifying time.  And don’t even get me started on provisionals those should NEVER EXIST IN RACING, PERIOD!! – but that’s an entirely different topic.

What do you all think?

The foremost question that I'm wondering is how they're going to pay that kind of a purse?  Competing tracks in the upper Midwest would have upped their purses a long time ago if they could do it without raising ticket prices to the point they'd chase out families and longtime fans.  I'm not saying that the new program down at the former Husets is a bad thing, just saying that my obervation has been that purse money doesn't always result in a successful racing program and the money has to come from somewhere.  I'm seeing a lot about the purses and there is a lot of excitement and that's a good thing but I know track owners personally who are wondering the same thing as me, where all this money is going to come from.

There are only a few posibilities, either the owner loves the sport so much they're willing to sink their own money into the purse and take a loss.  Or they raise prices to the point where your typical dirt track fan with family in tow gets priced out of spectating more than a few times a year.  Dirt track fans are typically blue collar working people, many who attend weekly, so we're not talking about a pro sports type market where $100 tickets are sustainable week in and week out all season long.  The third scenario is that sponsors step forward and guarantee the purse.  Sponsors have their pick of tracks and other types of racing that are less costly than Sprints.  Most of the tracks up here in Minnesota for example run Modifieds as their top class and they come in at around $700 to win a weekly show the last I heard.  In other words if this abnormally high purse (as far as weekly racing programs go) is sponsor backed there are lower cost options for sponsors that would get their name out in front of an equal number of fans.  That's a lot of guaranteed sponsorship to have lined up already before they have even turned a lap under the new banner.

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that it won't happen but I can't see how that kind of money for a weekly show could be sustainable.

Hey Stan!  So based on my interpretation of Chuck's statements on Sunday, it sounds like (at least for the 1st year) the purses are fixed and he'll pay full advertised purses and if the cars don't show up, it's his problem to worry about how he is going to pay.  It also sounds like he is banking on all the reserved season tickets to sell out, every year.  I think those season ticket options are an awesome deal and would be all over that if it were offered at my local track.  Just some quick math on the limited number of season tickets available and that revenue gained (before the season even starts) is more than double the advertised purses for the year.  So any other GA, back gate, concessions, etc is just gravy every night.  Food for thought.  I'd really love to see how many pre-sale season tickets have been processed already.  

Our biggest local track has empty booths for most weekly shows and there are three million people within an hour.  I wish them well if that's going to be the source of their revenue.  Every promoter I got to know during the years I was chasing around writing for the racing paper could not pull this off.  Trust me, if there was a way to make it work they'd have jumped all over it years ago.  I'm a skeptic with most new ideas but I already ate crow on some of my points on how the NSL would do in their first year.  I'll stick my neck out and ask the tough question and hope that Badlands proves me wrong again. 

Our biggest local track has empty booths for most weekly shows and there are three million people within an hour.  I wish them well if that's going to be the source of their revenue.  Every promoter I got to know during the years I was chasing around writing for the racing paper could not pull this off.  Trust me, if there was a way to make it work they'd have jumped all over it years ago.  I'm a skeptic with most new ideas but I already ate crow on some of my points on how the NSL would do in their first year.  I'll stick my neck out and ask the tough question and hope that Badlands proves me wrong again. 

Maybe I'm missing somthing, but the way I have it figured is this guys has it figured out! He has 3,000 reserved seats he's selling dicount seaason passes for, if he sells half of those he's more then paid his purse for the entire regular season before it even starts! That's half and not even counting back gate, general admission or selling a single hotdog! I know there's insurance, payroll and all that other good stuff but come on people, it just seems to easy to me. If anything this open book that he's giving us is showing us just how much the past owners stuck in their pockets every weekend.

Another thing to you folks wondering "How's he going to make this work".. Why do you care about "How"?? This guys doing things for this sport that haven't been done in 50 years! Let's be greaful and enjoy the show! It's funny how I've never seen a single post worrying about how the Rubins we're going to pay the bills....

Stan, I think your points about the "local" track to the Twin Cities are a bit of a stretch.  From downtown Minneapolis, which is the population hub, Cedar Lake is almost an hour away(about 50 minutes).  Both Owatonna and Princeton could also make the claim to be the "local" track for the TwinCities based on that logic.  Cedar Lake is a long drive for a Minneapolis resident.  While it is fair to say that the eastern metro is closer, it is still in excess of a 30 minute drive for over 90% of the 3million population.

Husets is within a 30 minute drive for 90% of the Sioux Falls population, and while the population is smaller, there is also no competition from other sports in the summer other than the Sioux Falls baseball team, which is frankly much worse run than the Saints. 

Now if someone were to build a track in Lake Elmo, that would be a different story.

Maybe I'm missing somthing, but the way I have it figured is this guys has it figured out! He has 3,000 reserved seats he's selling dicount seaason passes for, if he sells half of those he's more then paid his purse for the entire regular season before it even starts! That's half and not even counting back gate, general admission or selling a single hotdog! I know there's insurance, payroll and all that other good stuff but come on people, it just seems to easy to me. If anything this open book that he's giving us is showing us just how much the past owners stuck in their pockets every weekend.

Another thing to you folks wondering "How's he going to make this work".. Why do you care about "How"?? This guys doing things for this sport that haven't been done in 50 years! Let's be greaful and enjoy the show! It's funny how I've never seen a single post worrying about how the Rubins we're going to pay the bills....

The foremost question that I'm wondering is how they're going to pay that kind of a purse?  Competing tracks in the upper Midwest would have upped their purses a long time ago if they could do it without raising ticket prices to the point they'd chase out families and longtime fans.  I'm not saying that the new program down at the former Husets is a bad thing, just saying that my obervation has been that purse money doesn't always result in a successful racing program and the money has to come from somewhere.  I'm seeing a lot about the purses and there is a lot of excitement and that's a good thing but I know track owners personally who are wondering the same thing as me, where all this money is going to come from.

There are only a few posibilities, either the owner loves the sport so much they're willing to sink their own money into the purse and take a loss.  Or they raise prices to the point where your typical dirt track fan with family in tow gets priced out of spectating more than a few times a year.  Dirt track fans are typically blue collar working people, many who attend weekly, so we're not talking about a pro sports type market where $100 tickets are sustainable week in and week out all season long.  The third scenario is that sponsors step forward and guarantee the purse.  Sponsors have their pick of tracks and other types of racing that are less costly than Sprints.  Most of the tracks up here in Minnesota for example run Modifieds as their top class and they come in at around $700 to win a weekly show the last I heard.  In other words if this abnormally high purse (as far as weekly racing programs go) is sponsor backed there are lower cost options for sponsors that would get their name out in front of an equal number of fans.  That's a lot of guaranteed sponsorship to have lined up already before they have even turned a lap under the new banner.

I'm not saying that it's a bad thing or that it won't happen but I can't see how that kind of money for a weekly show could be sustainable.

^^^^ 

What he said... It's a win-win for fans even if Chuck looses his shirt and I doubt that'll happen.. If you've got no skin in the game why worry about it? The way I see it is we're going to have a world class WoO type field at a 50% discount of a WoO show every damn Saturday night.. Sounds terrible doesn't it???

I think you are wearing rose colored glasses. I think you'll see a show of North Dakota drivers and few others sprinkled in. I don't think the program will attract near the field of top notch drivers you are anticipating, like Knoxville has for the past several years. I only hope that all the fields don't now become dilluded of the top drivers. One or two here and there won't do anything for the spectators. Big shows will draw cars, of course. But the wekly show is what rebuilds fan base, and I think that is diminishing at an alarming rate. I go to Knoxville and Huset's, and the stands are not near as full as they once where. I sometimes wonder if that is the reason ticket prices go up, but purses don't. Increase prices to increase revenue, but that's only a short time fix for the track owners....but as the fan base continues to fall off, it becomes time to focus on what has caused that, and fix it.  Even the Nationals don't draw like it used to. I've been going to the Nationals since '72, and the crowds are down significantly.

Stan, what difference does it make to you. You never even go to this race track, or own a car. So I just don't see why you would be concerned about where the money is coming from. That is Chuck's, and Bandlands race track to worry about that.

So now it is just a wait and see what happens. I hope it goes good, I will be there more in 2016