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

I'm 63 years old and lived three blocks from the Minnesota State Fairgrounds as a kid.  The place was dirt up until 1963 and continued to host both USAC and IMCA Sprint Car races after the track was paved.  Some of the drivers I saw there are like a who's who of racing history.  Meanwhile during that time my cousin used to wrench a local Supermodified that HOF member Jerry Richert Sr. drove.  There were a host of other talented local drivers that you might have heard of including Scratch Daniels who did some traveling.

My purpose for giving my background is that I've seen a lot of drivers come and go during the 50+ years I have been following this sport.  Steve and Sammy have their place in history but my life experience has taught me that time marches on.  Hell, I'll be retiering myself in a couple years and I'd like the think the railroad will have a tough time after losing their "best" rate analyst but I'd only be fooling myself.

The WoO will do just fine.  Give it a few years and the old guard of fans will give way to the new, many of them will profess to never having seen Steve or Sammy race.  That's the way time marches on.  Give your pillow an extra hard squeeze then get out of the fetal position.  It's going to be alright. 

Stan Meissner

Maybe the WoO should setup a camera at their retirement residences and they can pipe it onto a Jumbotron so that the fans can watch them sitting in their rocking chairs.  That way the small segment of fans who think two individuals are bigger than a sport that has thrilled fans for a century and counting can still see Steve and Sammy.  Steve and Sammy were big in the history of the WoO but they're only one small piece of what has come together to form modern day Sprint Car racing. 

NASCAR was going strong after Dale Sr. passed away right up to the bottom dropping out of the economy in 2008.  It certainly didn't help that they started messing with car design and hit it wrong a few times.  I think there's some intangibles involved as well, money is tighter and a lot of NASCAR fans in the past could afford the travel, tickets and lodging.  Attending a NASCAR race is a much bigger deal than going to a dirt track out in the middle of nowhere for a WoO race.  There are dirt tracks all over the country so a lot of people can attend a couple WoO races per season without having to travel very far.  The two closest NASCAR races for me (Kansas and Chicago) would cost me well over $1000.  I could attend WoO races at Cedar Lake, Deer Creek and I94 for $100 max and be home sleeping in my own bed a couple hours after the races ended.  While NASCAR's troubles extend to short track racing to some extent there are a lot of differences in cost and travel.  NASCAR is a big ticket item for most people and I think that's what's affecting their attendance more than the loss of Dale Sr.

Stan Meissner

Up until the last 5-6 years you would of been lucky to even see Steve or Sammy in the pits after the races. They were long gone out the back gate before their "fans" even set foot on the infield. Steve was worse than Sammy but neither were usually ones to stick around. If they did stick around, you were lucky to even get them to make eye contact with you let alone crack a smile or strike up a conversation.

Times change and the series will move on with their new stars (Schatz, Saldana, Pittman, McMahon, Etc.). Schatz has won 7 of the last 8 Nationals (without a motor going sour it would of been 8 in a row). That is something even the KING never did. With how even the competition is now, that is very impressive. Schatz has no signs of slowing down, Steve's record 12 Nationals titles is a record that we could see broke.

Schatz is only 37. Steve won 20 A mains and a WoO title at age 51. Schatz would need to average less than 10 A-main wins between now and when he is 51 to surpass Sammy at #2. Sit back and think on that a bit. We are watching possible history in the making!!

And I am not even a Schatz fan, but respect and understand what he is doing right now!!

Forgot to add, Steve was 37 years old when he won his 7th Nationals. Schatz tuned 37 the day after he won his 7th.

World of Donny will survive just fine.

 Its funny that that incident/accident never blew the fuck up like the recent tragedy. 

 Its funny that that incident/accident never blew the fuck up like the recent tragedy. 

i think the WOO will go on ok,but i think young stars will do like Larson and move to nascar quickly which may hurt talent level,only time will tell

Actually winged sprint car drivers have never done very well in NASCAR.

You maybe think what about Blaney, but you have to remember he also won the 84' Silver Crown Championship!

Matter of fact most the guys that make the transition to NASCAR are good at non wing & silver Crown cars!

WoO will be just fine, Schatz is by far the man right now, but there are alot of young drivers up and coming that I believe are gonna do great things(Gravel/Abreu/Sweet(once he leaves KKR / etc.)

   The Outlaws need a real rivalry like Steve and Sammy had. You could feel the excitement in the air at the track when those two kept hammering on each other race after race for years and that rivalry sold a ton of tickets and "made" the Outlaws. It wasn't called the"Steve and Sammy Show" for nothing. You could like one of them but definitely not both. I'm a Sammy fan but always respected Steve and especially Karl. They'd have a fight every now and then and were a promoter's dream with true diehard fans on both sides. The Outlaws will only survive if enough young fans are interested and if the middle class in America is not financially destroyed. If the money dries up for fans and owners bail out then it's over.

I also think the series is less about 1 or 2 stars now and more about US vs THEM in certain parts of the country. Donny Schatz isn't popular at all in PA, but people come to see him (and the rest of the crew) get beat. I think there's a budding rivalry going on in Cali and potentially in Ohio as well.

I think nascars popularity died because of the other changes within the sport, not losing one person.  They alienated the Winston/Busch crowd for a cleaner image, then went after the stick and ball sport crowd while alienating true race fans with car and format changes.  Anyway, I'm sure the WoO will be fine.  For years and years Sammy didn't even run with them and nothing really changed.  Id be more worried about losing both those cars full time than the drivers at this point.  Not that I don't respect them as greats because they both are and Ill get to say I was fortunate enough to see them both win live, but racing, like life, goes on.  

People say that the popularity of NASCAR died.  That's not the case.  It just returned to where it should've been all along, to more of a niche sport than a mainstream sport.  I'm guessing that there are still between 60,000-150,000 people at these races depending on the event.  The boom and greed of NASCAR in the early 2000's is why it looks like there isn't anyone at these races.  They built too many tracks that are boring and put too many seats in them.  Just because there are empty seats doesn't mean that fans don't show up.  60,000 people at a sporting event is still a helluva lot of people.

The WOO will be fine without Sammy and Steve, at least in parts of the country where local sprint car racings is big (CA, Midwest, OH, PA).  The fans will still come out and pack the stands to see how the local guys can compete with or beat the Outlaws.  Where they may struggle is the parts of the country where 410 racing isn't prominent.  They already struggle to get full fields in those areas.  Now, without the two biggest names in the sport, they may struggle to pull fans.  It'll be interesting to see what that dynamic looks like next spring.

The foundation of the WOO or any other racing circuit are the individuals who spend their hard earned dollars to purchase tickets. 

I think the big issue is if anyone can consistently challenge Mr. Schatz. Pittman's not quite there, IMHO

Donny is dominating right now, but let's remember, he didn't win it last year

Will def. miss the King and Sammy. IMO neither really competitive lately.

If it wern't for merchandise sales i doubt either one would stayed this long

Jezz, i hate the comparison between Nascar and WoO. The 800 lb. gorrila has died over the past few years.

WoO could stand some growth(insert, bring younger fans) to the WoO shows

I believe the WoO will be fine.

Sorry to ramble

I love it when people post that. ' I have my doubts about the future of the WoO'

So, what are you going to do about it? Not go? really? That's a mindset I can't appreciate. Like a butt-hurt Packer fan that stopped watching them when Favre was let go. A true, logical, well informed fan wants to see good races, and doesn't get too emotionally attached to the individuals involved. 

I think, somehow, you'll be OK. I think you'll still enjoy watching the WoO race. There are still plenty of great drivers left with their own futures unwritten.

I'm more concerned with the human race as a whole to be honest! 

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WoO knew that the point system was flawed after last year, thats why they changed it.