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

Looks like we go to a lot of the same tracks and a lot of the same outlooks on things. To add/re-emphasize a few points:

- Location: One of the main issues I see with short track racing specifically with sprint car racing is the location of the tracks and this is something that you cannot change. Unlike other forms of entertainment such as movies, minor league sports, pro sports, concerts is that they are usually in some sort of metropolitan location that is located a larger population of people. Most dirt tracks are located in smaller towns that require some sort of travel. For myself, I live in Columbus Ohio so I typically have to travel between 1-2+ hours to get to a track. This usually means that promoters have to work harder to convince casual fans to load up their cars and take a trip to the nearest dirt track for the night.

-Efficency of the program: A couple of years ago when people complained about a race running long I would say to myself, quit whining you babies its racing, go and enjoy it. Now that I have a 2 year old, I would like to apologize to all of you for thinking that! Running a race on time is a big reason and key to get people to come and stay because of kids. Always have something on the track as their attention spans are not that good. I took 3 of my friends to their first race a couple of years ago to 4crown. We did not leave until after 2am that morning, they have not been back to a race since.

Technology: I know I will catch some flack on this one by some of you older fans and I'm sorry but like it or not this is important if you are looking to attract the younger crowd. WIFI, social media, easy to use websites are something that tracks need to look into investing in. The best quote a buddy of mine told me when I was explaining sprint car racing as a whole and as a business was, "It seems like your sport is stuck in 1990." A lot of the promotions that are done and how they are setup does take me back to the 90's and I understand that the money situation does limit a promoter in doing updates to tracks. But this topic is about advancing the sport and how to make it better so that is my two cents.

-Restrooms: Clean them. I know some of the older fans will hassle me on this but sorry it matters, not neccessarily to me but to wives, girlfriends, kids, parents that might be older. My wife for example refuses to go to some tracks because of the restroom situation and to be honest there are some tracks that when I walk into I feel like I need to shower afterwords. It does not have to be a 5 star resturant restroom but for f'n sakes get some soap and wash them.

-Our Responsibility: To go along with the restroom topic, "DON'T P!S$ ON THE TOLIET SEAT." Some simple things that we can do as fans to make other feel welcome would be to treat the facility like its our house. I am all for drinking a few beers and having a good time, possibly putting a chew or a dip in and spitting it out in a cup, but again is it that hard to get a cup to spit in? Do people really have to spit on the stands or where people sit? I see this all the time and drunken morons falling everywhere acting stupid which is not really appealing if you are trying to attract new customers, especially if you act like the morons from Knoxville years ago with the liquor. A personal hatred of mine, again I will probably catch heat on this one but don't care, if you want to pollute your lungs fine you are free to do it, don't pollute mine and my sons. One of the best improvements I saw at Eldora this past year that brought a smile to my face was the no smoking sign in the grandstand. For those of you who may not think its a big deal, it is to a lot of people. My parents who were diehard racefans dont go to races anywhere anymore because they got tired of sitting around all of the smoke.

I know I may catch some heat on a few of these, again it is not a personal attack on anyone, it is just htings that I see that could improve the racing scene and make it easier to bring in other fans

No offense taken. I was merely trying to relate my viewpoint as a semi-insider, and to let folks know that some things just cannot be done and still turn a profit.

I agree with your 4 points wholeheartedly!! You gotta give the masses what they want, but you can only do so much.

Sorry if I sounded high-handed, because that wasn't my intention at all. We at Eagle Raceway try to run a very efficient program, thereby assuring that the fans will be there each and every week. Heck; we had over 500 folks at our yearly banquet and that's more than a lot of dirt tracks get in the stands weekly.

We're proud of our track, drivers and fans. Sometimes I'm a little overzealous in defense of dirt tracks. Again; no offense taken, and certainly none meant.

I am lucky enough to work at one of the best tracks 
anywhere.

People are there to see your head liner class period. The true race fan may stay around to watch a few of the lower classes. I think you'll find say 4 cylinders, those are family, crew and friends. There are very few real race fans, the SLM and SPRINT CAR followers, that stay to watch these classes. A lot of this is determined by people watching there timepieces.  As 1 poster mentioned he drives 3 hrs to go to Indiana. That guy is a true fan of racing, my personal likit was 1 1/2 hr each way. Yea I've made trips to the big E, the grove, Lincoln and port royal, but these are mostly for a larger purse race. 

Gotcha!  

And, you should be proud if your track runs efficiently-----many do not!  When a track doesn't start the show on time, doesn't keep the show rolling, and runs late, the crowd feels like they're being scammed!  

Me on the other hand?  I don't get as worked up personally about start and finish times.  I normally bring my camper along.  So long tailgates and late post-race fires are a part of my racing culture----not long drives home after!!! 

Keeping the show going and the racing surface?  Those are big issues for me.  Keep up the good work at Eagle.  Maybe I can make it there someday!

Hopefully you can make the trek one day. We'll be sure to do our utmost to ensure you a great time!!!

I am lucky enough to work at one of the best tracks 
anywhere.

Could do 100,000 words on this subject but will be to the point.

The too many classes at a weekly show IS A BIG PROBLEM. I believe this started in the late 1980's or early 1990's in the midwest. Boone ran endless classes that paid nothing and put 200+ cars in the pits and made a killing and other tracks thought they had to follow suit. That track got close to 100 hobby stocks weekly racing for $125 to win and it was seen as the "get rich fairly quick scheme" with race track ownership and it emptied out the grandstands almost immediately.

Looking back at the heyday of racing say the 1970's when stands were full almost everywhere for weekly shows tracks like Des Moines had TWO classes (late models & sportsman), Knoxville ONE ( not 410s at the time I think most tracks called them super sprints) Sunset Speedway two ( LM and sportsmen), Flemington 2 ( mods and sportsmen) Reading 1 (mods), Williams Grove (?? I assume 1 or 2) , Lincoln 2 ( super sprints and late models?), Ascot (for Saturday nights 1 super sprints). Program ran quickly started usually at 8 so the track didnt get baked by 95 degree sun for 3 or more hours hours and done by 10:30 or so.

I disagree that starting at 6:30 is a "fix" for asphalt tracks its probably okay for dirt its either gonna lead to a one lane dry slick POS for the features or add time for track prep at intermission and prolong the program.

The 5 to 8 classes and keeping people at a track for 5+ hours has been a disaster and it needs to stop NOW.

Successful special events that get huge crowds and make huge profits Knoxville Nats, World 100, Chili Bowl, etc have ONE class, sprint or LM or midget fans go en masse to see ONLY WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE!!!!

Yes the Boone supernats and Wissota 100 pack the place for a zillion classes but those events are catering to the entire sanctioning body- the exception not the norm.

EPSG I appreciate your enthusiasm for your track but Eagle probably would have been fine to stay with 4 classes and not add the B mods. Havent been to a weekly show there in eons. If the weather behaves might buzz down there for the opener in late March.

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

In the early '70's Knoxville, Jackson, Husets and Fairmont (MN) were still running the modifieds (Knoxville called them super modifieds but they ran against one another often).......as the '70's progressed the modifieds slowly evolved in to sprint cars. Those tracks were able to get by with just the one class for quite a while, as the car counts were in the fortys on a regular basis, and the stands were full. Plus, costs were pretty manageable for the drivers. As the car counts began to drop, in particular Jackson, Fairmont and Husets, those tracks began to run additional classes because the fan count was dropping dramatically, also. Those tracks had to rely on non sprint car classes to survive. Eventually, Fairmont gave up on sprints all together, and Jackson dropped the 410's and ran just the 360 sprints, and the fendered classes. Jackso went down hill in a hurry. Later on Huset's picked up 360's and a couple fendered classes to run with the 410's to survive. It got to the point in the 2000's where the 410 numbers dropped dramatically, sometimes only having enough for two heat races. Knoxville's car count still remained pretty strong through much of those years. strong and continued to run just the sprints. When it became apparant that another class was needed at Knoxville, the 360's had been born, so Knoxville was able to remain a sprint car only weekly event. Now of course, Knoxville runs a weekly show of 410, 360 and 305 sprint cars. Having witnessed the last few years and rebirth of Jackson Speedway....now the Jackson Motorplex, I think it's safe to say that once a sprint car track, always a sprint car track. There are of course tracks in the area that have done well and never ran sprints. But for the traditional sprint car track, rebuilding a sprint car program takes a lot of dedication. The hardest part is getting the sprint car fan to believe that a rebirth is possible, and will happen. Running an all sprint car weekly show is damn spendy for the track ownwer. Sprint car classes need a larger purse to draw cars.And as stated in an earlier post, it takes fans to pay a purse. Knoxville has the Nationals, which I'm sure does help subsidize the weekly show year in and year out. Looks to me like any other track that wishes to survive as a sprint car track will need to do something similar. Not on the scale of the Nationals, of course, but at least something large enough to continue building a weekly show. As the weekly show developes, that too will become self sufficient. We in this area are only lucky that Tod Quiring became the owner at Jackson. It's just too damn bad Husets is no longer an affordable venue to own. Bottom line is that the draw at Husets is sprint cars. Always has been, and always would be.

I'll weigh in and give my thoughts since ESPG already talked about how the program is run at Eagle.  I'm one of the guys on the Eagle Tow Crew.  There's lots of reasons Eagle has been a success over the years but I'll name two that are related.  The first is that the stake holders have bought in.  The employees (not just the track officials mind you), the drivers and many of the fans have bought in.  They don't just view Eagle as another entertainment option or even just their home track.  They have a sense of ownership of the track.  They are all an active part of Eagle's success.  I see fans and driver's promoting Eagle's shows on social media more than I see Eagle itself for instance (Eagle starts it but others run with it usually).  The second is what actually happens during the show.  Once hot laps start there's a sense of urgency, like the rain is coming but we're getting this show in before it hits.  The driver's know if they aren't lined up in the chute and ready to go before their race hits the track they'll be starting in the back.  No favorites played.  The officials have to bust their butts to make sure the lineups are accurate and that the cars are where they need to be (and with 160 cars for a weekly show that's not a small chore).  The driver's again know that if they cause a caution all by themselves they'll get to head to the pits early (the Lone Ranger rule) so they keep it going and try to play catch up to the rest of the field.  The push trucks push off 20 car A features in less than a minute usually, and are often moving before we call them when a car stalls on the track.  And lastly the tow crew and safety crew do absolutely everything in our power to make the show run smoothly.   Not to sound completely arrogant but we've had cars hooked and off the track without an entire lap being run under caution.  Who else can say that?  Our runners (those of us that are on foot) are often on a dead sprint towards an incident before the cars come to a stop.  That's no accident, or fluke, it's because we're all in on keeping Eagle a success. It's an esprit de corps that is totally lacking in every other track I've ever been to.  We have our nights when it all goes sideways and we look like monkeys f'ing a football, but it's rare.  You want to see a track that's working the way it should come out some night.   Or there's YouTube.  Lot's of examples there as well.              

I think one of the main problems is, especially here in California, is that people don't know what sprint car racing is! I live 10 minutes away from our local dirt track and my friends had no idea it was even there. I told them to check it out sometime because it is very affordable family fun and kids under 6 are free.  Then I get "I think my uncle drives those kinds of cars." I think people think I am nuts spending my Saturdays going to races, but I truly think if they checked it out they would like it too. We have great tracks with great racing here and we just need better ways to get the word out. One day I saw a TV commercial for an upcoming Outlaw show at Stockton  and it made me soo excited. 

Looking forward to the new Golden State King of the 
West series schedule! 

Winged sprintcars = the fastest and most exciting 
racecars on dirt!