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

Sprint car racing returns to live television!

https://www.highlimitracing.com/press/2025/article/176739

Ask Frank

Great news for the sprint car racing. Hopefully, it's just the beginning of things to come

This could be great for the sport.

When was the last time sprint car racing was LIVE on TV ?

I would say the Knoxville Nationals back in the mid-2000's for a year or 2?  (I can't remember, but that rings a bell for some reason)   Before that, probably in the 80's or 90's on Saturday night on TNN or TNT. 

I'd be curious to know as well. 

Not sprint cars but the chili bowl is live every year. Maybe it's good maybe not, I see it as sprint car racing following the nascar model. I lost interest in nascar over ten years ago, I guess it's just too exciting for me.

The American Sports Cavalcabe with Brock Yates & Ralph Shaheen...

That was the Circa of the Beginning of the End for the Wet T-shirts contests, Bus Rides and some of the other going ons. 

I'm glad this is happening but honestly don't see anything big coming from this.   Sprint car racing doesn't go well on TV and I don't think it ever will.    Too little green flag action and killing time with too many driver interviews.    If I'm wrong in this case I'll happily eat the crow but I just don't see it...

I just worry Flo is going to make late model/sprint racing to corporate too polished to white collar like what happened to Nascar

I think the possibility that teams can use this as a selling point to a potential sponsor is a good thing.

I don't know about the last time, but it seems the best time they did it was when they had a winter series of WoO(?) in the winter in Arizona. That was entertaining, but the fact they didn't do it again says something.

The problem with live sprint car racing is that there's a lot of down time to fill. And, let's face it, sprint car racing is a niche market.

"Too corporate" is a good thing if fans are looking for more dollars to pay the teams and drivers.  What happened to Nascar in recent years is a result of corporate America pulling out of Nascar, not getting too involved.  The money isn't there anymore so they dumbed down the cars so rich daddy could get little Johnny racing, and could fund his ride.  When corporate America was most involved in Nascar was its most successful era.  

From what I read is it's a 2 hour live show from 7 to 9 PM only. They are planning on running 2 c-mains, 2 b-mains and an A-main in that 2 hour span on a July night in Ohio, 

What time do they plan on qualifing? 

When are they going to rework the trac so it doesn't rubber up and dust cloud you out? If they are extremely lucky and it's a cool overcast night they may pull it off.

How could they do that? Its still ridiculously overpowered open wheel cars racing on dirt... its always gonna be hairy!

The heats will be set from previous night points  so no qualifying on Thursday.  Heats will be on a baked track unfortunately to satisfy the time slot for tv 

Disagree

When Nascar went corporate it became vanilla and boring. The drivers have no personality now. Back in the 80s 90s early 2000s you had everyday men, guys that looked like you'd run into a hardware store

Now look at the drivers.

The sponsors were looking for young clean cut guys you could put in a commercial

You had Coors light get rid of Marlin for David Stremme to attract a younger dempgraphic. No ofeense to Streeme but Sterling Marlin fit a beer sponsor perfectly!

Also what if they start throwing in gimmicks

Gimmicks?   You mean like choose cones and roulette wheels?

I think the outlaws did a live race back in 2020 during the covid year. I forget if it was on CBS sports or CBS in general. Was it cedar lake or tri city? I think it only took them about 2hrs to get the whole program finished and I believe the telecast started after qualifying. A few years ago when Brent Mark's won the kings royal, they rushed that program because of rain and I think finished a little after 9 so it can be done.

As far as the whole too corporate and changing things. While yes that is a threat, I don't think we are close to that happening. I forget what podcast it was on when one of the higher up nascar people said nextel had a role in changing the championship format back in 2004. Something about if they were going to spend money advertising they wanted a championship battle and eyes on the product but that's more on nascar misinterpreting things in my view. I think if we are comparing sprint cars with nascar, we are probably in the 1970s range as far as being recognized. There's some races on tape delay and people who love the sport know where they can go and watch but, there still is not that tv deal yet. So i think we are a long way off from corporate sponsors playing a role in how the races go.

You realize Nascar became "corporate" in the late-80's and the corporate explosion happened in the early -90's when Jeff Gordon busted onto the scene, right?  That was its most popular time, and the racing was far better then than it was in the 60s, 70s, and most of the 80s.  Corporate America stopped dropping their money on Nascar 10-15 years ago, so we now rely on daddy's money to get 90% of these guys in cars.  You realize you are mentioning times when nascar was most corporate, right?

Nick is correct.  We haven't even gotten to nascar's 1978 yet when comparing corporate involvement.  

As usual I'll disagree with you also. I get that things evolve, is it always for the better? I've seen the corporate thing turn racing into the "have and have nots". The corporate deal takes away from grass roots racing by jacking up the cost to compete so that the napcar wannabees can have their very own rich kid play ground. Remember when napcar had individual teams? Now think of how many sprint car teams can't afford it anymore and have to merge with another team that has been priced out. More corporate is more money, but a sprint car engine will go from 80,000+ to 90-100,000 plus.

Now tell me there are no untalented little rich Jonnys with their families sponsoring their hobbies in the upper levels of sprint cars either, you freakin know that's BS. How many car owners today hire drivers that aren't in the family or come from a family with large resources, how many owners have enough money today to hire on talent alone? 

Corporate money will bring more of those very casual fans that you whine about that don't know the restart rules and should read the blinging rule book if they are to sit near you. You'll have to become tolerant of new corporate racing fan and try not to ruin their experience with your vast knowledge of how the sport is supposed to be. 

The late Ohio State football coach Woody Hayes used to have a saying about sprint car racing on TV and it went like this:

"When you televise sprint cars live on TV, 3 things can happen.........and 20 of them are bad."