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

     You have seasons tickets to this year's IROC races?

It's absurd to think that skill and experience costing $100,000-$200,000 a year might not be stopping the next low buck guy like Wolfgang or maybe even Kinser from getting a shot. Unlimited with less tire takes MORE SKILL and less money.

 
 
 
They don't even know how to spell sprint car 
much less chromoly...http://www.ycmco.com

Silly rabbit- Tricks are for kids!

      Your Harrison Bergeron Sprint rules would have the same issues that every other cost-saving rule package has. The people with the money will hire the best drivers and use their money to make the fastest cars within the rules package. If you need examples of that, look no further than 360,358 and 305 rules.

     I'd like you to name those low buck owners that were succesful with Wolfgang.  Was Weikert's Livestock one of them?And how come Steve and Karl had sponsors if they were operating off their winnings? Methinks you're letting your own version of the good old days taint your perception of reality.

Can you tell the difference when you are at Port Royal or wherever between the 410s and 305s? You can obviously tell the difference and since most of us on here are fans you saying fans couldn't tell the difference is obviously wrong. This post is now irrellevant considering every since early in the season Port, Williams Grove and Lincoln have had good car counts (full fields or close to it). Knoxville had decent fields of each type of Sprint, and the All Stars had close to 40 cars too. 410 racing is healthy and there is no reason to neuter them with this rules package. If the SOD formula is all there is for Sprints in your area then go watch them, but don't ruin the areas where regular sprints are doing well. 

It's not 410's vs 305's. That's not a valid analagy. The discussion is about todays 410's vs. 410's(or a LARGER CI sprint) with a more sensible rules package which would unhook the cars a little and save the teams a lot of money in tire and engine bills. Yes it would slow them down a tad but not like a 305. Do you leave before the feature because feature lap times are usually a couple seconds slower per lap than hot laps and heat races? That's when the best racing usually occurs, when you actually have to drive the car. Since you mention Port Royal, they had the biggest crowd of the year last night ($3200 50/50)for a late model show. Late models are easily 2-3 seconds slower than a 410 sprint but fans still come out to see the best drivers and the best racing. Might as well just get rid of bullrings altogether because they don't hit 140 mph. That can't be any good. 

A

I think it is pretty similar. Just looking at laptimes at Merritt when SOD was 360s, vs when SOD became Unlimited the difference is over 1.5 seconds (from Heat 1, to Heat 1). The difference grew even more to 1.8 seconds from A-Main to A-Main. (6/18/16, and 6/20/15 were the dates used). I think that difference is pretty similar to the difference between a 305 and a 360 as well. When compared to 410s I'm sure the difference would be a good bit more than a couple seconds. Probably closer to three or more seconds considering that the 360s are at least 1.5 seconds or more off lap times at most decent sized tracks (I looked at lap times at Hartford from the GLSS vs WoO Sprints which was a 17.0, vs. a 15.6 for WoO). 

If someone asked me if I thinked crowd sizes and general interest in Sprint racing would suffer if the top Sprint division suddenly became 3 seconds slower per lap I would say absolutely. In my opinion there is just one or two things that Sprints do better than Late Models and the biggest thing is their speed. If you suddenly slow the Sprints down to the Speed of the Late Models I think you would have some competition on your hands for which division would be most popular. Late Models have the advantage of being able to race close for laps, make/use contact over the course of the race, etc. In addition the races are a bit longer so sometimes fans feel like they get their moneys worth more from Late Models than Sprints (this is still an issue for me occasionally on quick nights at Lincoln, its nice to have a quick show but paying $15 for 2.5 hrs of entertainment at Lincoln, vs. $15 for 4.5 hrs of entertainment at Hagerstown can be a factor in some people's decisions as well). Right now fans choose Sprint cars because of their speed, if they didn't care about that then Path Valley would have more than 100 people in the stands on Saturday night when they run Micro Sprints and 305 Sprints.

Just an FYI: I have always been a Late Model fan, until this year I didn't really go out of my way to catch Sprint Car races (living in Littlestown, PA only 10 mins from Lincoln I would routinely drive to Hagerstown, Winchester, Bedford, etc. rather than go to the Sprint shows closer to home. I've taken a much bigger interest in them this season and am enjoying it. But I still love Late Models and bullrings.) 

Also, the Late Model show you are refering to is pretty much the only big show Port has had so far. They drew a ton of fans that normally go to other tracks since it was a Sunday. In addition it was the LOLMDS which is basically the equivalent of the WoO Sprints (except probably even more enticing to Late Model fans since the LOLMDS is only here in the Mid Atlantic once or twice per year whereas the WoO is around very often). It was a great race, and a great crowd and I hope they race again next year. In fact I would love to see Port have a second LOLMDS show rather than WoO LM. Its nice to have LOLMDS close to home considering I travel to places like Georgia, WV and Ohio on a regular basis to see them.