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

I understand the outlaw shows pay a lot of bills that build up through the year, but that is a poor purse breakdown for a crown jewel event.

The cars keep getting more expensive but the pay stays the same... for nearly 40 years

What is the Tuscarora 50 going to pay for fourth if total purse is 106 thousand they must also have a big dropoff.

Knoxville pays their great purse but four noghts of gate plus other things and sponsors keep making it profitable.

With 50 cars for the weekend I dont think they need to do any changing of the purse. The drivers are well aware of what the race pays before they roll in the gate. Same reason NOSA still pays in the neightborhood of $1250 to win a weekely 410 race at Grand Forks, the cars show up, and they have  a B main most nights, so there is no reason for them to pay more. (At least that is what it paid 2 years ago, might have changed since, but just an example.)

That's what I love about these high school chicks man. I keep getting older, they stay the saaaaame age. 

That's exactly where I was going!

Other high paying 4th place payouts...

• $26,000 Knoxville Nationals ($150,000 to win)
• $12,500 Kings Royal ($50,000 to win)
• $9,000 Sprint Car World Championship ($100,000 to win)
• $9,000 Jackson Nationals ($40,000 to win)
• $6,000 Knoxville Nationals Prelim ($12,000 to win)
• $5,250 World of Outlaws ($20,000 to win)
• $4,000 Don Martin Silver Cup ($25,000 to win)
• $3,500 Tuscarora 50 ($51,000 to win)
• $3,250 Dirt Classic ($25,000 to win)
• $2,800 Regular World of Outlaws race ($10,000 to win)

http://www.sprintcarratings.com/

So what do you propose here?  That they pay less money to win and spread it out better through the field?  Or, do you propose that they take away more of their profit from this program and pay it back through the field further?  

I have to think that this race weekend plays a major role in Williams Grove's financials for the year, so I doubt they are ponying up more money in the purse unless either: 1) they are able to sell more sponsorship dollars or 2) they offset the increase in purse by an increase in ticket prices.  Obviously, an increase in sponsorship dollars would be ideal but we all know how challenging dollars are to come by in motorsports these days.  If you raise ticket prices, you know fans will raise hell.

Interested to hear your thoughts on how you come up with a solution with the problem you are putting out there.

Actually selling reserved seats online and thereby actually having someone purchase the tickets might help. I digress but I got there late on Friday, place was packed, had to park in timbuktu, but when I got in, I walked over the bridge, through the infield, to the frontstretch where about a hundred seats went unoccupied. Why? Because it’s allost impossible to buy a reserved seat unless you’re local.

also, the purse increased 6k from last year only because the grove wanted to have the highest paying winners share in the state. 

Personally I'd like to see the top pay less and spread it back through the field to help more teams.  $40k would be a very good payoff for winning.  Then spread the additional $16k back.  The winner wouldn't be any less happy and many others would be happier.  I don't think that difference in winner's payout would have discouraged any teams from attending.  Most know they have little chance to win anyway.  You might even get more if they know they have a decent chance of making a little more money.  

But I get it.  Tracks like to push a big top number to make it sound like a big race.  I just don't think that's usually in the best interests of the teams participating.   

You have to make an old fashioned phone call to get reserved tix, & hope they answer. It worked for  me. But you're right, there were plenty of seats available in SEASON TICKET area. You can't get those for single shows, but I just slid up there for the A Main

     I'm not following. Is there a bridge on the back stretch and a tunnel under the front stretch, or were you playing frogger to get to those seats?

That's because you have a whole lot of people that like to spend a lot of money to buy extra seats so they have more room. I know a guy that has about 8-10 seats but is usually there by himself. A lot of people buy season reserved and never even show up. Makes no sense to me. Maybe these people like to waste money? If that's the case maybe WG should jack up the price of season reserved. IMO WG has way too many reserved seats anyway. It's bordering on ridiculous. I've heard that Silver Springs had a policy that reserved seats were available to anyone after the 1st heat took the track. That would work too.

A

Bingo. You’ve never been to the Grove? I always assume the long time posters on here have been everywhere. You should go to an Outlaw show some time, the racing stinks but the atmosphere is like a college football game. 

One thing to think about......you don't fix something that is not broken.

• you pull about 50 cars for the show with the current payoff.
• you also have what results in a packed house with the current process of selling tickets.

If I was the promoter, it would be very difficult to change any of these things with the results you are getting.

As a race fan, the National open is one of my favorite events and I had to miss both nights this year because of work commitments and I certainly would have rather been at the track.  I am 3 hours away and hope I can get back next year.  

Congrats to Lance and my sympathies and prayers to the family and friends of Greg Hodnett.  A great sprint car driver and an even better man!

Thnaks for the reply. I'm out on the upper plains. Pennsylvania will have to wait until I win the lotto. I'm sure the atmosphere at WoO races there is pretty exciting. I've been to a couple dozen WoO races in my corner of the world. I think a couple had fairly good racing.

Oh for sure, the WoO can have great racing, just the last 5 or so years at the Grove, the racing has been so-so there. 

My first National Open was the last time Sammy won (2010 i think?) The atmosphere was electric. Not so much this year... it was fun, but I think  the loss of Greg put a damper on the vibe

Fans seemed more hyped up for mid summer WoO/Posse race last hear too.... (missed it this year)

Right. At Speedweek, a guy was sitting by himself surrounded by empty seats, so I moved up & he gave me an attitude. (no wonder he was by himself!) Then a couple of other guys said "Just sit up here".  Eventually i started a conversation with "the attitude guy" & he was OK.

This time nobody minded at all...

50 Cars was great and 56 Grand to win is where it should be, with the hwlp of the Beer Hill Gang Selzi made out better for being the Rookie than some who finished ahead of him and Trout made out better for being the car that just missed.

Wonder if some of the provisionals would have been better taking that.

I dont have the anser but there has to be a way to get guys that just took the week off 87Rueitzel, 2 Masden 70 Blaney and others that ran lesser paying shows closer to home. Over the 56 opens I wonder how many did not have a Blaney racing.