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

Like all of you I have spent WAY too much time at home in the last month and thinking about things.

Fox Sports 1 and ESPN are showing "virtual" sports and racing, they have got to be desperate for some live sports programming of ANY kind. Baseball and basketball with players in close proximity to each other probably isn't feasible with this pandemic.

Racing with firesuits and helmets and drivers a long ways from each other makes more sense.

Why not have a few top notch race tracks like Port royal, Williams Grove, Lincoln, Lernerville, Knoxville, Eldora, Jackson, Cedar Lake etc. have live TV races without fans. Make some sort of TV agreement where the network covers the bills. Spread all the racers out with say a 25 foot radius between them all, use the spectator parking area for pits since there will be none in the stands. Even run on a different night for example weekly Wednesday show of 410s and Super Lates at Port Royal  and weekly 410s and 360s at Knoxville on Sundays. Possibly rotate the track used and have Wednesdays for the PA tracks and Sundays for the other 4 or vice versa.

OR start a mini World of Outlaws circuit Sprints and LMs running same night 10,000 to win races, for example Wednesday May 6 Port Royal, Sunday May 10 Williams Grove, Wednesday May 13 Lincoln, Sunday May 17 Lernerville, Wednesday May 20 Eldora, Sunday May 24 Cedar Lake, Wednesday May 27 Jackson, Sunday May 30 Knoxville, and spread it out to some other tracks if it catches on and there are no other sports options into June and July.

Okay hosehead hardcores come out of the woodwork and call me an idiot or a genius!

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

Minnesota and Wisconsin are both under stay at home orders so you can scratch Cedar Lake and Jackson.  I live in Minnesota 32 miles from Cedar Lake.  Our stay at home goes through May 4 but I'm not sure about Wisconsin. 

Stan Meissner

I definitely like the idea if things stay this way...........and I think they're going to for a while.  I do not think this is an idiot idea.  Everyone is starving for live sports with real people/cars/balls/pucks/etc. 

Neat idea but i doubt the people in charge of your nations health care 2 cents about your entertainment value right now. It would work for fans, tv networks and their advertisers, along with the teams and the sponsors. It would fill a huge void and curling and dart fans would likely tune in just cause its real and live.

But now that i mention darts they could have a 2 person play off with each person in a different city. Heck the guys wife could stream on facebook and you could crown the Corona Virus World Champion Dart Player.

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

Fox and FS1 can put on virtual racing at very little cost, and currently the purses are non-existent or very small.   With your example, you are looking at a full racing purse,  full racing costs (track prep, track workers, insurance, emt's, etc)   and a very expensive cost to produce the event.    The whole reason that ESPN got out of the Thunder series was that it was too expensive to produce.   

If you could have it in one location (knoxville, eldora, LOS) that is already TV friendly and have the racers go there every weekend, it may help with the cost.   (Similiar to the winter heat from Arizona) but even with this solution, I think that your expenses are going to be too prohibitive. 

It's a great idea but it's not just about the racers being distant and getting rid of the fans.  The biggest issue to me is what if someone gets hurt?  Kind of hard to social distance in that situation.

True if someone gets hurt you need to break a rule. In this present world we dont need to set ourselves up for injury etc.etc

Ive thot often since this all started what would happen if someone had a seizure in public or something like that? Would anyone help them. I know we need to exercise logic but beteeen aids and blood and covid and human exhaust we still need to value life more than fear death. Imo.

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

this 100%.  As much as I’d love to see dirt tracks back on major TV, the Iracing stuff is going to have to draw a huge rating for that to happen, because these broadcasts are costing almost nothing and production of a show from an actual racetrack costs a hell of a lot more.

Good grief a lot of negative nellies out there.

On shutdown until May 4, like that would be an issue it'd take weeks to get the logistics of this ironed out.

Production costs? With what Fox and ESPN pay for Pro and college sports giving a Port Royal or Knoxville $100,000 for a night's races would be a drop in the bucket.

Our local ND and SD cable company Midcontinent does live races every summer from Grand Forks and a 10,000 to win IMCA mod race that draws cars from all over the country at I think Mandan? The production costs aren't too much for them but Fox and ESPN would break the bank with a dirt track show.

Just saying people can only watch OJ Made in America , the 1990 Super Bowl and Spelling Bees so much, if this stretches on for 6 to 12 months the big networks should probably think outside the box.

What if someone gets hurt? What if somebody gets hurt in a highway accident? What's the difference?

The worst president of my lifetime:
Ronald Reagan

I think something along these lines is gonn happen in May.  Some states are going to start to open up and I think some tracks will do this.  Maybe just a few but in this environment track could make some $ with a ppv stream to offset the costs.  Only takes. Few to do it fo give us something to watch.