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

A few years back, folks were worried that when Steve and Sammie retired, sprint car racing would wither and die because there was no one to fill their shoes. How did that situation work out?

The great BigRightRear called the Outlaws "an $18 show without the King". 

Racing is a lot better now, streaming showcased it and now the sport is bigger than ever. Pretty cool. 

Yeah, and NASCAR died with Dale Earnhardt too.   Except it didn't!   No driver is bigger than the sport.   People just like to run their mouths.   

I find those "folks" you speak of to be idiots.  Same "folks" that thought no one would ever be able to play QB once Joe Montana and Dan Marino retired?    LMAO

As pointed out----racing is better now as compared to watching Sammy and Steve "race" cars that were 2-3 seconds per lap slower......................

I find some of the newer fans/folks to be idiots. Yeah we all have to remember that no other cars or teams ever beat Steve or Sammy, they must have raced against a bunch of slugs. Not really sure about your racing being better point, you probably think nascar is better too. Good on you!

Only current WoO driver I put on a level with Steve and Sammy would be Schatz. Not sure on what "filling their shoes" requirement is exactly. 

Absolutely, Schatz belongs right up there with Sammy and Steve. Actually might be second behind the King.

Think Nascar is better than old Nascar?  That's not real difficult to think.   Nascar doesn't really entertain  me much, but it's not because the racing is worse.  There are more cars finishing on the lead lap of a Nascar race today than there was in a stretch of 10 races back in the good ole days everyone seems to think was so great.  Also, I'm not a "new fan" of sprint cars.   The main reason inverts were needed in the good ole days of racing was because of the massive disparity between the top to mid-range cars.  Now they don't work because the disparity that existed before, has tightened up.  You can pretend this is not true, but time trial numbers don't lie. 

It depends how you look at it.  Are you saying NASCAR really has better racing because there's more cars on the lead lap?  On the surface that might seem true but IF you watch NASCAR there is now way more cautions, debris cautions were getting ridiculous so they added stages.  The cars are much closer that "clean air" plays a huge roll these days, I've seen plenty of races where a guy is smoking everyone and then catches lapped traffic and can't even pass the struggling lapped cars.  Plus at every caution they now give the first car a lap down his lap back.  So the rules are a big factor.  I started watching sprint car racing in the 90s, while Steve Kinser definitely was the king back then, the other cars weren't 2-3 seconds slower than him.  At Husets I saw him wreck more cars than win races.  In the 90s it was competitive, there was Sammy, Doug Wolfgang, Dave Blaney, Jeff Swindell, Andy Hillenburg, Jac Haudenschild, etc.  Any of those guys were "capable" of winning on any given night.  The biggest difference I see in racing today vs. back then is, back then it was harder to hit the setup right on a given night.  Any of those guys could hit it on a given night and make the rest of the field look silly, yes Steve, or Karl did it more than the others but the others did it but those guys also made others look bad too on certain nights.  Today there is so much data and different tools at their disposal that they all almost always nail a perfect setup everynight.  The problem with that is, with everyone going the same speed the racing is not as much fun to watch.  But that's subjective, you can look at the "numbers" and say it's definitely a better race or you can go with the eye test.  I don't care what numbers you throw at me, it will NOT determine what I enjoy.  As I've said before, I think it's a sad time when people need to justify their enjoyment of entertainment with stats, if you enjoyed something you watched, thats ok that you did, you don't need to validate it with stats.  I'm not trying to single you out either, there's lots of people that do this, I just don't get it.

2-3 seconds a lap, I do not think so.

The comment about "stats" is excellent.  I too just enjoy the racing. Racing is usually passing cars in my "stats" and nothing else. Breaking the track records are the only interesting "stat" I feel. 

One of the places you can view the records at qualifying time is the Knoxville Nationals archives.  In the 80's and 90's, you can look at the qualifying times from those preliminary nights.  You don't have to go far down the list to see 2 seconds of difference in times on qualifying laps.  If they were turning 18 second laps, there were cars being lapped during the heats at that speed difference.  

So yes, there were places where 2-3 seconds per lap (or more) were common.  Mostly the larger tracks which they ran a lot of back then.  

I enjoy 2 or more cars, running close to the same speed, attempting to figure out how to get an advantage, so I enjoy the competition of today much more-----but that's just me.  

As far as Nascar, I couldn't disagree with you more.  Some of Nascar's "greatest races" are races where 2 cars battled it out on the last lap---and these were VERY FEW and far between.  What they don't seem to remember is that most of these races did not have these battles and the 3rd place car was 2-3 laps down.  Look up the results of some of the races back in the day.  Like stats or don't, you can clearly paint a picture of races that no one in today's world would be even remotely entertained by.  The speed and the spectacle was what ooohed and aahed everyone back in those days.  That has worn off for most of us.  If you set any of us at the average race in the 70's, we'd be bored out of our ever-loving minds watching either Richard Petty or Cale Yarbourough put 10 laps on 9th place, and win by 20 seconds.  Yes, there were some exciting moments, but they were so few many of us would never have stuck it out to witness them.  Whether Nascar manufactured these closer finishes or not, the fact remains that the racing is tighter than it ever has been.  I'm still not a big fan, and only watch about 10-20% of the races, but I can't argue that the product is actually better than what it was when I watched every race religiously.  I see replays of the races I used to watch in the 90's and think to myself "this was a cool race---I remember it!"  Then I watch it, and I realize the race was actually terrible----we were just enamored with the characters is all.  

JMO---you're welcomed to think differently.  

Didn't you mean Elway & Manning?  LMOA...

If they were not injured, I believe Wolfgang &  and possibly Doty would have in the Steve & Sammy bracket.

And the list goes on and on........................

To put things in perspective as a kid one of my favorite drivers was Buzz Barton who spent a few summers racing up here.  I also attended a racing banquet where Eddie Sachs was the guest speaker.  When I was a kid 20,000 fans packed the Fairgrounds grandstand and they raced every day for ten days three blocks from our house.  I could hear them from my house every day if I wasn't roaming the Fairgrounds with kids from the neighborhood.  After the races some of the competitors would park their open trailers on the side street by Auto Repair Service where the #69 driven by Jerry Richert was housed.  
 

Racing isn't all about any driver, series or track.  Sanctions, owners and drivers come and go but the cars still go fast and turn left.  Money and young drivers who couldn't have even gotten into the pits back then have given the sport a whole different feel.  When I was in the middle of my time as a photographer was still the adult drivers of fifteen years ago.  I had a hard time accepting that change at first but my neighbor changed my mind on that.  They went from karts to Micros to UMSS non-wing to winged 305 and finished 4th in that division at Husets along with nabbing ROY.  When I see their hard work up close and how they have found and represented their local sponsors I think the sport is alive and well.

I have been a bit outspoken on this split and how it will affect the live races in our area but the streaming is going to be excellent this season.  I bitch at change, that's expected of us old farts, but there is more opportunity to follow the sport than there has ever been.  

Stan Meissner