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

It seems like right behind starters would be rear view mirrors, 2-way radios, doors,fenders, and rear-engined cars. ;)

To be honest, I've seen both a rear-engined sprint and a 4 wheel drive sprint, back in the early 70's. They didn't do well . 

I dunno, would it be more of a pain in the butt than B-mod features with 20 spins before they time out at 20 minutes?

You must be one of those wild eyed radicals!

The whole sprint car world is hung up on tradition & thats the way we like it! ;)

Brad-

How 'bout you get creative with tow money and make it more of a carrot than a stick? Here's an idea. Make tow money amounts progressive. (Note: these are not real numbers. I use them as an illustration of how things could work.) The first show a driver races, no tow money. The second race,$100; the third race, $200; the fourth race, $300, etc. A racer who follows the whole series could reap some rewards that add up. A racer who only races H-L half a dozen times gets a reward not offered by others series.

You should listen to what the NASCAR owners have to say.  These new cars (COT, Gen 6 and whatever this crap is today) have not made things cheaper for the owners, that's always the idea when a new car comes out but it doesn't ever work out that way.  There is no way any team is spending less than they did in the early 2000s.  I don't see their books but every owner talks about how expensive it is, not how it's cheaper.  Maybe I should've clarified how money ruined NASCAR.  in the 2000s NASCAR teams were getting more money than it cost to run a race team, so they started spending stupid amounts of money for miniscule advantages.  Now those huge sponsors can't afford to sponsor a race team (or they don't see the value in it) but it costs more than it ever has.  Teams have to cut corners and it's turned into a pay to race kind of a thing, which I don't think anyone likes.  Do we see the best drivers in NASCAR anymore?  Or the richest ones?  The same thing is happening in sprint car racing too.

You're right bringing motor costs down will NOT save sprint car racing but it will help a whole bunch.  I don't have the numbers but I don't see any way that there are more "outlaw" or 410 teams than there was in 1990.  If you continue to ignore the problem there won't be sprint car racing in 30 years.

To make the cars able to start themselves you would also need a clutch.  That would change a whole bunch of things.

There's some really interesting ideas in this thread.  This is sure to piss someone off because it always does.  But I think a new format or format tweaks would be ok with a lot of people.  Here's some ideas I like that I've read on here or thought of after reading other peoples ideas.

Get rid of time trials.  Personally I hate time trials and always have.

I think a lot of people are tired of the heats being a freight train race.

I like the draw for your start and passing points format.

Another idea could be double heats (draw for you start and then start inverted of how you started in the 1st heat for your 2nd heat)

If you were to get rid of qualifying how about having longer heats?  12-15 laps but the kicker would be that there would be a caution every 4 or 5 laps and then line them up double file for a restart.

I liked the idea of two dashes, one for the inside row and one for the outside row, passing one guy means a whole lot more than.

I also liked the idea about two B features where both advance to the A.

I know it's more than one suggestion but I guess my suggestion is to tweak the format and these are a few ideas, I know not everyone will like them.

I was going to suggest that H-L limit their racers to only being able to race 75 non- H-L races per year, in order to protect the brand value, etc. But I see Brad isn't down with that idea. ;)

I never liked passing point races because you never know what is going as far as where anyone will lineup for the feature until all the heats are over. I don't like needing a scoreboard to keep track of what is going on. It makes it hard to place your bets. LOL

I'm confused. No matter whether using passing points or time trials, don't you still not know where anyone will line up until after the heat races are over?

Brad-

Please limit H-L to having only one support class. ONE. This will make some people testy, but I feel that support class should be some kind of fendered car. It should be highest fender class raced locally. Those guys can help you get the track in good racing condition, and won't be the spin every other lap show. 

I have crewed for late models, and sprint cars. Not just a grandstander. & would Chris Madden be crying if he was going to start 6th on a one lane track and drew the #1 at the pill draw? Would he refuse it as unfair and demand to start 6th? Would really love to hear the answers to those two questions from Madden himself.

I can understand that.  However for the first 5 years I went to the races, I had no idea how they lined up the features.  But I loved it, listening to the lineup was huge every night I went.  That's nearly 35 years ago now and I understand a lot of fans today don't like the not knowing.  But I guess I never found the passing point format real difficult to follow.  Not saying I could predict the perfect lineup but if a guy comes from the third row to win his heat, there's a good chance he's got the pole.  However in today's world, I can't understand why series or tracks don't make an app for your phone that everyone could easily see people's point totals in less than a minute after their heat.  If people don't like that, the track or series could put a "tweet" or "X" out (whatever the hell they're called these days) with a running total IF people care.  Personally, I'm just fine with hearing the lineup as the cars are being pushed off.  But as Murphy said is it really anymore difficult to follow with what's going on in other lineups?

I like the passing points format for competition, but you're right, its confusing for fans

Exactly! Thats what I love about the Nationals, you get what you earn! I don't think the fast cars should be penalized for earning the pole in their heat or feature race!

With passing points you don't know where guys are starting until the announcer gives the starting lineup before the A main. Even diehards like us have no way of following unless someone moves forward big time in a heat. It's an awful format to use as your base, for special events over multiple days it's fine.

Yes you do. in a WoO race, 3rd in the first heat starts 9th in the feature. 4th in the second heat starts 14th in the feature. The top 2 in each heat go to the dash. 5th on back to the B-main. It's actually pretty easy to figure out.

Why do you say "It's an awful format to use as your base"?  I've known plenty of tracks that have used it and never heard anyone complain about it.  As a fan, why do you need to know the lineup before the announcer announces it?  I've been told I'm good at math, whether I am or not, this isn't a real tough thing to follow in my opinion.  Jackson had this format years ago and if I remember right it went something like this.  The heat winner got 70 points then it went down by 7 points for each position (2nd got 63, 3rd got 56 etc) and you got 3 points for every car you passed.  Maybe it seems a little complicated at first but you just need to take a shortcut, if a car doesn't pass more than 2 cars he will have less points than the guy that finished in front of him, for instance if the guy on the pole wins and the guy who started 4th finishes 2nd, he's going to have less points than the guy who won.  If he starts 5th and finishes 2nd he will have more points than the guy who won.  That was the only way I ever looked at it and even with 3 heats I could pretty easily figure out the first 3 or 4 rows before the last heat even got off the track and I was almost always right.  I just paid attention to the top 3 and would just remember 2nd gained 3 points or 3rd gained 6 points or whatever, like I said not real hard.  And I If this is still too complicated or you want to know where everyone will start, bring a pen and write out where everyone starts and finishes on your program and pencil it out.  Otherwise if this seems like too much work follow their Twitter or X account I know lots of tracks list the starting lineups and finishes of every race.  But I'm going to ask again, why do you need to know the lineup before the announcer announces it?  Actually why does anyone?  If you're starting on the outside of row 3 or row 5 is that really going to change your setup that much?

I think a passing point system to line up the feature could be equitable for the racers and add some excitement. As you describe above, there could be an electronic way to keep track of the points through the heat races. Here's my rough idea of something I think would work. You'd need to play around with it a bit to get the right balance of things.

The Murphy lineup system: Let's say you have 32 cars.

* Luck plays a part in racing and there's no way to get around that. Everybody draws for position. Some will get lucky, some won't.

*Heat race points are awarded for 1) Finishing position and 2)Cars passed. Add those two together and that's your heat points.

*Give the two racers that drew the front row the option of starting in back. If they do, they also get some bonus points added on. The bonus points should be sufficient that a racer who opts to start in back and finishes say third, would have more heat points than the racer who won from the front row.

*Post those points on the marquee, online, whatever

*Heat two lines up the same way, but the points are just a bit higher, like 1 point. For example, if the first heat is won from the pole and the racer has 200 heat points, a racer doing the exact same thing would get 202. Third heat same, 204, etc.

* The increasing points would eliminate ties and give sort of a man on the bubble vibe until the heat races are done. 

*After the heats races are done, the A and B features are lined up by points-straight up.

Rather than just say this idea sucks because you don't like passing points, try looking at this from the fans point of view and from the drivers' & team's point of view. What are the good and bad aspects and how could it be improved?

I like it.  Except the increasing points aspect.  I get your reasoning but I have two issus with it.  The first would be that I don't think it's "fair" that all heats don't give you the same potential points.  But if you wanted to do this I would do it the opposite for this reason.  I think we all agree the race track gets racier as the night goes on so since it would theoretically be easier to pass in the third heat vs. the 1st heat maybe you give the guys in the first heat the bonus.

After reading this thread, this would be my lineup system.

- First and foremost, Eliminate time trials.  I don't think most fans enjoy it, the ones that defend it see it as a "necessity" to "seed" who the "best driver" is (If you like time trials please explain why if I'm wrong).  But I don't think anyone really enjoys watching one car go around the track by themselves.

- Draw for heat starting position.

- Have a passing point format.  I liked the old Jackson format personally.  Ties are broken by draw number.

- Since I think most of us agree that most heat races are snoozers, lets try to help that.  Heat races would be 12 laps long but there would be a mandatory caution at lap 4 and 8.  Restarts would also be double file.  This would should help give more passing opportunities in heat races.

- Lineups would be set like this.  The top 16 cars would be locked into the A main.  Drivers who are in odd position of the top 16 in points (1st, 3rd, 5th etc) would be in the first dash lined up on points.  How you finish in this dash would set the inside row.  The same would be done the same for the 2nd dash, or outside row.

- Drivers in 17th 42nd in points would be in one of two B mains.  The first B main would contain the odd number guys in those point positions, top 4 would lineup on the tail of the A on the inside row.  The 2nd B main would be the same but with the even numbered points guys and then line up on the outside of the A.

-C, D, E features could be treated exactly like they are now.

- In the feature have an initial double wide restart and after that have single file restarts, WITH lapped cars in between the lead cars (I know it's kind of confusing for fans but it does reward something for having a big lead).  With outlaw restarts.

The current system is terrible for the fans, I'm not saying this is a perfect system but I think it adds some entertainment for the fans.  But as I've read on here it seems a fair amount of fans will pay $30 - $50 to sit for 3-4 hours through time trials, then heat races that most would agree aren't very entertaining, potentially a C and B feature, which don't really add a lot to the show.  All this to potentially be entertained for 7 and a half minutes or less if a feature would go green to checkered without a caution.  To add to what Murphy said in his last paragraph.  If you're an owner or driver, why wouldn't you like this format?  What would you change?