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

I like all kinds of racing and have been owner ,driver,father,and still do race  a mini mod sometimes.This weekend between football games I watched a show on Discovery called Street Outlaws somewhat of a reality show about 10/12 middleaged gear heads with 2000/2500 +H.P. high tech drag cars that swear,wear their hats over their ears wearing shorts with more drama than the Kardashians that is on T.V. everyweek and also has been on 24hrs straight this week.They race for as much as $200K purses with other racers from other parts of the country.Then Monster Jam came on with an in depth look at how they race in several foreign countries and have schools to actually groom drivers how to act and drive and actually stand out My point is.the WOO and AllStars dont get near the coverage they deserve for one reason the cars are very similar and drivers act like normal people.Guess they need to be more like Pro Wrestling.

Not sure about the drag racing show as I have never seen it. It does seem like that if you get adults yelling at each other in make believe "drama" then people watch, or enough to get advertising.

Monster Jam is a different story. Feld Entertainment bought the USHRA over 20yrs ago and over time with all their resources they were able to get Corp Sponsorship (Ford, wrench head.com, Advance Auto, Air Force, etc) and got on tv. They also bought a number of trucks such as Grave Digger and was able to in short, control their own show. Now while some drivers such as Dennis Anderson have different agreement that includes merchandise sales, most drivers a crews make very low. 

I stopped at Diggers Dungeon a number years ago on vacation and went into the little diner they have. The lady asked if I was one of the new crewmen?? She had said that they just had 3 that quit recently. I asked why and she said they don't make any money doing this. Did some research and an interview from a driver stated he made about 35k for their season, and got his travel expenses paid for. He said he crewed for about 3years prior to driving to earn the opportunity. 

I would say it is kind of hard to compare Sprint car racing in terms of exposure because it's such a niche market. Tv is so expensive to buy anymore that not too many of the groups could afford it live.

I know less than nothing about monster trucks but if sprint car racing ever becomes anything like Street Outlaws, that'll be it for me. Those guys are all (at least when they are in character during the show) total douchebags. I can't stand drama and I absolutely hate fake drama and that show seems mostly staged to me. The only thing worse was that shitshow about Bowman Gray that was on a few years ago. Turns out that was actually pretty real. Just look at the countless youtube videos of grown men behaving in ways that make anything Tyler Walker has ever done look like a mild temper tantrum in comparison. I like sprint car racing just the way it is. 

Believe they did that on TNN & I thought it was stupid to bring out Dusty Rhodes & others running thier mouth. Didn't need to be mixed with racing. Period.

I admit to watching the goofy "Street Outlaws" series....

A) Just shows how legitimate, sanctioned drag racing has completely reversed its original purpose. I used to like it back in the 1960s. NHRA started in the 50s to get teenage racers OFF the street. There were all sorts of classes, based on body style, extent of modifications, Cubic inch/weight ratio, blown/unblown etc., so lots of homebuilt, creative cars that had a chance to win. Now its just Top Fuel Dragsters, Funny Cars & Pro Stock, all high tech BIG $$$ professional teams. Its gone from a participant sport to a spectator sport, & local yokels who want to race are back on the street risking their lives & endangering others

B) NO WAY are those "street" cars! Purpose built race cars, hauled to races on full, enclosed trailers

C) Races on TV aren't held on the street, that would be WAY too illegal

D) But they are real people.... I saw "Daddy Dave" from OKC group hanging out with Kevin Swindell team at Chili Bowl last year

& yea, they all wear those goofy long shorts (?) (Capris pants???) & EVERYBODY wears black, ALL the time

That explans some of the reason they get so much coverage.I liked it when the WOO had a weekly update show with highlights .The WOO and Lucas latemodels  seem to get more coverage than sprints .The Monster trucks play to full venues all over and the way they destroy things would have take serious money to repair them.The Street Outlaws seem to have  few motor rules except  cetain steel bodiy parts on custom chasis,weight must not be an issue as there are some big overweight dudes that drive some of them. Not that much advertising on cars and $200K to win only 32 cars is good but there has to be some incentive.I laugh at how silly it is but actually did watch it.You are correct The shorts goofy hats and laguage are I guess their way to be differnt from the type of racers I like. They even had Joey Locano as guest commentator.The Memphis Outlaws are pretty crazy too. A little hard to understand all the gangster stuff. You will have to admit 200MPH in an 1/8 mile is moving

So there I was on NYE sitting down to enjoy a quiet evening and there was nothing on TV, save for the NYE shows, but it was too early for all that.  I'm not one for TV to begin with (much bigger music fan), so I went back and forth between Grumpy Old Men (haha) and Street Outlaws.  I was hooked on the "racing drama" of the show. at least momentarily.  I had only seen it once or twice prior.  Regardless a show like that has popularity because it has a much broader audience than say WoO.  Any "gearhead" or wanna be gearhead or a guy/girl that likes cars can at least relate to the Street Outlaw type show because it's easily relatable for someone who is "into" cars or at least dreams of being into cars.  Much broader audience that way.   

I have watched more than my share of Street Outlaws.   A lot of the show is completely staged.   Espically, the stuff away from the track.   Any of the Farm Truck and AZN (sp) stuff is completely scripted.  

So, at some point "the list" may have been real, but now a lot of "the list"   with the rules and procedures are also scripted. 

However, the racing is real.   The passion is real.  The trash talk is real.   While the core of the list has remained the same, there has been some shakeups, and people have moved onto and off of the list.   Watching real people, throw real money at thier cars, only to lose a race is real.   After a while of trying, people have left the show.   There have been several wrecks on the show that showed how fast the cars were going and that the racing was real..   One of the primary stars barrelled rolled his car at a riduculous amount of speed.   The concern for his life was real.   

What the show has are characters.   I may not like Farm Truck and AZN, but I know thier story.   Same for all of the othes with their goofy names.   (Big Chief, Murder Nova, Doc, Monza, Daddy Dave, etc).   It is easy to cheer for them or to root against them.   

The closest thing that we had to this in my opinion was the old Winter Heat (name??) races from Arizona.    Since it was a live program, they had a lot of canned material on the racers from the week before in Arizona to fill in the holes of the program.   It was always at the same track, so there was a lot of consistency.   It was easy to start picking different people to cheer for.  The human story was almost as good as the racing. 

It all comes back to what advertisers think will attract the most viewers.  Evidently they think that a reality type show based on street racing will motivate more people to spend money than dirt track racing.  As far as Monster trucks go when they come to Minneapolis they used to pack the Metrodome and are doing the same at the new US Bank Stadium.  By way of comparison even the biggest dirt races max out at around 20,000 whereas the stadiums fill up pretty well for Monster Trucks and Motocross. 

Dirt track racing has kind of painted itself into a corner as far as TV goes.  Today for the most part the way to watch dirt track racing is on PPV and new fans aren't going to see it.  The way to attract new fans (and keep old retired fans) is for races to be more readily available to the masses.  The closest that dirt racing comes is MAVTV that is not available on most systems or from most providers.  In my case I cut the cord three years ago and the only extras my wife and I agree on are a streaming channel package, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon Prime.  Her reasoning (she pays the bills) is that those channels are sufficient and I reluctantly have to agree.

I think there is a need to make racing more readily available to the masses.  I've been in discussions where people have said they became fans after seeing the old TNN broadcasts and have been going to races ever since so making content available does have a positive effect.  Unfortunately, there isn't anyone willing to back a more mainstream broadcast at this time.

Stan Meissner

A) The $200,000was a special event. Mostly they're just betting against each other. That must have been TV money....

B) It appeals mostly  to modern "hiphop generation"

C) Farmtruck & AZN are "comic relief", kind of like sidekicks on old TV Westerns (anybody else old enough to remember Andy Devine as "Jingles" on the old Wild Bill Hickock show?)

D) But Farmtruck hardly ever loses on his "street" races.... I wonder why & what he's got in there? i'm guessing monster BIG cubic inch engine (with nitrous?) He dropped off the list long ago, all the other cars are super lightwieght race cars

I will have to admit I will tune in to watch next Street Outlaws.Even with all the craziness its about the only racing in January and all the drama and the fact that the cars are bad fast with not many rules driven by people you can somewhat relate to if you love cars.You dont have to have movie star good looks or say the right thing and age isnt a factor and if you are on the chubby side it doesnt matter.

I don't think there are any rules at all.....

I think they have to be cars or those characters would have rail type cars. At some saying 3500 H.P.? they are less than 1/2 of Top Fuel .You can tell what kind of car they are or body style I think that helps their appeal. Cars that fit templates all basically have the same aerodynamics. Drag racing at the NHRA has a very thick rule book and the run whatca brung philosophy is what the first WOO cars that evolved from Super Modified which evoled from street cars that the parts just kept being eliminated or replaced.Tractor pulling has met same fate as it used to be fun and many people did it, to tractors tht cost $300K pl;us that are similar.

For a season, the cars started to drift to being more like a "pro mod" than a street car.    At the end of the season, they said that they were going back to steet cars and eliminating pro mods.    Not entirely sure what defines a pro mod versus a street car.   As mention before, some of it goes to appearance.   However, I think that the rules that they have can be put on a bar napkin.  

With that being said, all of the cars are purpose built race cars that are not steet legal that are brought to the event on  a trailer.   It is funny to see how money has impacted the show.   In the early years, most people had an open trailer.  Now most people have a huge enclosed trailer.  

Cars must have a VIN tag. That makes em street legal.