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

What does a track have to provide to host a WoO sprint car event?

Same question for Ascoc?

Even though I may not know you, I 
care what most of you think!

I just did a quick google search but could not find the standard WoO payoff.  I’d guess to do a standard 10,000 to win show the track would need to cover somewhere in order of 50k to cover the purse, sanction fee and some event costs like promotion. Purely a guess on my part. 

All Stars wanted 50k for a show, and that was several years ago (from the Waynesfield owner). USAC sprints are around 30k.

Thought I read that a one day WoO race with a standard $10K to win purse would cost a promotor $75,000 including the purse and sanctioning fees.?????

Unless you get a promoter on here to confirm no one knows for sure. Johnny Gibson at one of the Knoxville fan forums estimated all in; purse, sanctioning fee, advertising etc... is about $100k. 

I heard on one of the open panels a couple years ago at the Knoxville Nationals, one track promoter said the cost of the entire show with the purse was between $70-80k depending on how many cars you get. 

On pitgate earlier this year the old Fremont promoter stated it was around $75k with about $45k going to the purse. I just added up the A-main total and it's $46200 for a $10k to win show. I added the Tulare b main & it was another $1575 for a total of 31 cars. So it would appear the sanctioning fee would be around $30k for a WoO show

From when I raced at Knoxville it was $25,000 for the fee plus purse

It's not always a money maker either. Around the year 2000 Portland Speedway in Oregon tore up the asphalt so they could run the WoO Sprints and closed down in 2 years.

So, I think everyone is being very short sighted in this conversation.   The purse numbers are the purse numbers anybody can add them up..  Around 50K.   The sanction fees are debateable, but lets agree with the 25K to 30K.

At this point, you have around 75K for the show, but yet you have not spent a single dollar to put on the operations of the track.   Track prep, insurance, ambulance crew, safety/fire crew, track personnel, security, concession staff, etc......   All of this also assumes that you are the owner of the track,  Several of the shows have to also throw in track lease/rental.   

So, yes, it takes 75K just to start the conversation, but it cost a lot more than that to finish the conversation. 

I disagree that the Outlaws were to blame here, seriously.  I spent a decade doing a majority of the Outlaws shows each year and the crowds were great at virtually every show, in fact I can't even remember a single poor crowd in all those years.  I am surprised when there aren't that many touring like this year that they still fill the seats, not going anymore I don't know if this is the case or not.  I do watch on Dirtvision and most tracks look awfully full....