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

It will help cover the losses when a show gets rained out. Advertising, track prep during the week, etc then rain on race day = money down the drain for the track. T mac told me he lost $8 - 10,000 when his Danny Young Memorial race at Davenport got rained out. That was prior to when he started running the FRC at Osky. 

I would be at 34 raceway sat if it was $48 to get in.

LET GOOOOO RACING!!!!!

I don't think Tod is covering the $20k purse (or whatever $3k to win and $500 to start comes to) ... but he is paying the year-end point fund, which is pretty rich for a regional 30-race series.  I don't think it was in Tod's plans to charge a sanctioning fee, because he wants the midwest promotors to make some money too.  A series needs promotors just like it needs drivers and fans.  If the place is even half-full at $28 a pop, 34 Raceway is going to make money.  If they're working really hard to make this a success by promoting the crap out of it, then they should make money.  I don't know what all went into getting Steve & Sammy there, but the promotors maybe had a hand in that.  I don't know if they should make '$28 a ticket' kind of money, but I won't judge.  I'll be there and hope it's a great show!

If it cost to much stay home and don't go and shut the f###### up.

i will be traveling from northern Minnesota to see this show.

I plan on hitting 6 different shows! Maybe more!  Racing can't get here fast enought for me! 

Pevely is $30 for WOO in May. That's $10K to win and much higher total purse and much higher sanction fee.  $28 seems really high for the purse being paid.  Good for track if it works out.  Might have a neg affect later tho.  

As far as ticket prices go I defer to the IRA as a long standing well established series that typically brings in around 30 cars.  Their ticket prices at Cedar Lake top out at $25 and one of their two shows is a co-sanctioned NSL deal.  Their Outlaw shows come in at $35.  Pretty much all of the top NSL drivers have run with the IRA and won at one time or another so the IRA does offer a good entertainment value.  It's normal for people to think the grass is greener with the new deal in town but the fact that IRA has been soldiering on putting on great shows for decades in this same regional touring niche NSL has stepped into can't be overlooked.

Personally I don't chase racing but prefer to let it come to me and if it looks like a good show I will attend.  My wife and I recently discovered that a non-racing week in March in southern California tops any race weekend this Minnesotan has experienced.  I'm not what anyone would consider cheap or poor but on the other hand I can't afford to drop $200 or more per week per summer chasing dirt track races. 

As someone who prefers to wait for racing to come to me rather than chase it my observation so far about the NSL is that they're the most successful series ever that has never run a race.  They're going about putting the pieces in place in a professional manner but experience tells us that when the tires hit the track they'll get good and bad reviews, every track and series does and the NSL won't be exempt from customer review.  They haven't fought the weather, uncooperative promoters, disgruntled racers, poor track conditions and all of those challenges every track and series faces year in and year out.  It will be interesting to see what the general concensus is after operating for a year.

Only time will tell.

Stan Meissner

I don't see how $3000 to win is a average weekly purse.  I can only think of 2 places that pay 3 grand or more to win weekly, Posseland and Knoxville.  I would guess the average weekly purse is about half that.

I find it amazing that not one person in this thread has mentioned a potential 'show-up fee' for Sammy and Steve.  I have no idea if they are getting one and it wouldn't matter, I would go anyway.  But if I was a promoter I would most certainly pony up some cash to have either of those two behind a wheel at one of my races and the thought that both are there is definitely a BONUS.  Enjoy all.....

A non-racing weekend in southern Cal is better than any race weekend you have ever experienced? You need to attend more races! Chasing races and finding some local gems or things to see is also part of the enjoyment of a race weekend. I suppose you are entitled to your opinion... even the poor ones in my mind.

I do not see it as an average weekly purse either.  $3,000 may not sound like that much, but if a driver is in the top 15 in points they will make at least $800 just to make the feature, $500 for finishing 21st through 24th plus $300 tow money.  In addition if a driver wins the championship they will receive $75,000 less $3,750 (5% of point fund) for each race that the driver does not attend.  The 5% penalty for missing a race should be a huge incentive for the top drivers to participate in each event.  Plus the longest tow is only around 350 miles from Knoxville.  Also, you need to remember that most of these drivers will be racing at Knoxville every Saturday for a similar purse.

I just wrapped up sixteen seasons as a racing writer/photographer here locally.  I chased around Minnesota and Wisconsin for all those years and would attend other classes besides Sprints so I have seen my fair share of racing.  It got to be too hard on the family budget and to be quite honest I have no desire to chase races anymore.  I've been watching Sprints starting with the IMCA cars of the 60's with no roll cages or wings and injector stacks sticking out of the hood all the way up to today's machines.  My wife isn't a racing fan and she put up with me diverting our family budget to a bottomless money pit for sixteen years so I have no complaints.  I'm on my third camera body since 2004 and it's on it's last legs so that was the end of the line when I could no longer afford a reliable comera.  Unlike a lot of photographers I didn't sell but I shot for the tracks, sanctions, and publications and posted them on my website so people could see them.

I plan on getting out to a handful of local races this season, IRA, WoO, USAC, UMSS and one NSL show in September.  I will be doing it on my own dime and will shoot some pics for my personal collection and hang around the infield for the night.  I don't enjoy watching racing from the stands as my cobbled together neck can't take more than a few minutes on the hard benches.  Quite honestly, if I had to watch racing from the stands and not shoot photos I wouldn't bother going.  I don't go anywhere besides Cedar Lake and St. Croix Valley anymore, both are a little over a half hour, and don't travel.  The non-racing vacation out west used up a few grand that most years would have funded my racing so it pretty much left me without the means to chase races this summer.  I think I've got six or seven total races and a big car show at the Minnesota State Fair called "Back to the 50's". 

I guess the short version is that I have been there and done the race chasing thing as a writer/photographer and that is the what I enjoyed doing is being involved with the sport.  A lot of drivers are like that when they get away from it, they don't care to sit in the stands and watch, they derived their enjoyment out of participating. 

A new camera body is on tap for me before I retire but that one will never see a dirt track because it chews them up within a few short years.  I want something to use for vacations, street rod shows and family shots after I retire from my day job.  I've got a couple bodies I used at the tracks that will last a few more years. 

So yeah, I have been to a few races.  Going on 500 in the past sixteen years.

Stan Meissner

It would be redundant redundant to mention.   Sammy has done it for years.  Schrader has done it for years. Now Steve gets to do it.  No new news here.

It was the 80's and yes they ran for 3 grand for a regular, nothing special, show back then.

How old am I randy? I can't remember and my sister won't tell me.

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