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

it was great to get back to racing at Knoxville.  Great field of cars, good racing, but agreed on running to late and jacking around to much. Its been that way for along time. TIme trials didnt get over till 8:30. Heats over at 10:00. Twenty minute intermission. Dont get me wrong, I LOVE Knoxville but no reason they cant hurry it along better. (They do when rain is threatening) Its a shame so many people left before the 360 and 410 features. Not going to Win any new fans this way.

This being said, I cant wait for next week!

I had a great time just like I always do, I don't give a damn when it gets over and I have a 2-1/2 hr drive home. If you want entertainment with a controlled end time, Go catch a Movie! They give you the start time and end time and you can plan your evening to the clock. 

Funny that I usually pass Race Haulers off and on sometimes more than half of the way home on Hwy 92, I am assuming they are going home from Eddyville, Sigourney or West Liberty so evidently Knoxville isn't the only race track that don't get the Program finished by 10:00!!!

When I go to the Races I don't go there hoping the Show gets over with Quickly, I go to the Races to take it all in and make an evening or a night out of it.

Once again THANK YOU KNOXVILLE I had a Great time and Well wishes to Terry McCarl on a quick recovery.. That looked very rough.

but not everyone is a "Die Hard" fan. Getting to be fewer and fewer. Like I said, not winning any new fans this way. Yes, they had a huge crowd but how many times in the last few years have they been complaining about nobody in the stands.

Trust me I am a Die Hard but its frustrating at times when they jack around like they do. Had some newbies beside me and they left after the 305 main as they had a hour and a half drive home

You are correct,  I was not at the races in Knoxville on Saturday.   (I sure wish I was) 

I am glad to see that time trials didn't contribute significantly to the length of the show.    The only problem seems to be poor planning with 3 support divisions and an unneccessary intermission. 

I'll admit I wasn't at Knoxville . But I was listending to it on the radio(Internet) in my motel room in Rchmond Indiana after leaving the Eldora USAC/outlaw show. The time change made it REALLY Late!

LOL it's all about the concessions......they could time 100 plus cars with one on one off and one on if they wanted tooo.. It's been done in the past and can be done now...the group quals were suppose to save time.... ya right.... Kids night and it was over super late.....It's all about keeping people there to spend $'s..... Gotta build that wonderful new building in turn 1, you know the one that will have a target on it for flying pieces and parts...

With that being said, they wasted a lot of time, plus they got started late.  They could have easily got the program over by 11:00 pm with a little effort.

You are not being unfair at all.   Your expectation is certainly reasonable and could have been accomplished pretty easily with a minimal amount of urgency.

98 sprint cars in the pits...... But lets b*tch about everything. Yes they could have ran the show a little tighter. McCarl's nasty wreck took some time to get cleaned up. It wasn't that many years ago that Knoxville would get 45-55 cars a night (410 & 360). They brought in the 305 class and put 98 sprints on the track for $15. Every track in the country would die to have that many sprint cars in one night.

$15 to watch 98 sprint cars including the strongest 410 class in the country. 

Count your blessing

I mean, you can point to McCarl's wreck extending an already late night but the fact of the matter is that the first 305 heat didn't hit the track until after 9 p.m., and the 410 A wasn't out until after midnight. And there wasn't a ton of on-track stuff that caused big stand stills up until that point. 

It seems counter productive to have a night that allows for kids 19 and under in free to end the final race at 12:30 a.m. Hell, if a 17-year-old attended the races on their own, they'd be breaking curfew to watch the A-Main. I think it's fair to say the show could and should have been ran in a more timely manner. 

ive been going to knoxville for 25 years and the only time they start hot laps at 6:45 like they advertise is if there is rain in the area. Its all about selling more beer and hotdogs. And they wonder why they cant keep a good crowd on a weekly show.

Yes so silly to take kids to races.    Really, not getting kids coming to the races and hooked on racing is EVERYONE'S problem, esp the race tracks.

You see, if you don't take kids to races when they are young they won't want to go when they get older.  Kids that have never been to the races don't wake up on their 16th birthday, suddenly realize they are sprint car fans and ask their buddies if they want to go to the races Saturday night.  

Some say "go to a movie if you want to get home early", well that's exactly what most people do and why attendance at race tracks has been on a steady decline for decades.   Other than the die hards, most people don't want to sit at a race track for 5+ hrs to see what they paid to see.

Who's gonna replace the old diehards as they get old and die off?    They only way to make new "die hards" is to get new casual fans to come and turn into diehards.

If you didn't have your head so far up your rear you would realize that getting races over late is a real problem for getting new fans and it happens for a reason or reasons.      To much screwing around and too much back gate promoting are the two most common causes.  Yes, sometimes wrecks and mother nature play a part but more often than not there are too many classes on the infield and too much time wasted between races.

Both are easily preventable but most "promoters" can't see past the back gate $'s to notice that age is killing their fan base off slowly but surely and they're not making enough new fans to replace the old ones.

As for the rain moving "kids night", it doesn't matter whether it was kids night or not.     There is absolutely NO reason to have dirt trucks at Knoxville when there is a special sprint car show.   IMO, they don't need 305's on those nights either.

Same as Huset's doesn't need to have 3-4 classes of crap on the nights they are hosting the NSL.  

When you have a special sprint car (or late model) show, sometimes "less is more".   I don't go to a special sprint show to see 4-6 classes of cars, the "special" class + 1 support class is perfect.    Anything more is back gate promoting and wasting time.

And No I wasn't at Knoxville Saturday night, I started the night wishing I could have been there, unfortunately I don't get to many races early in the season.    When I got done working and in the house at 11pm and saw how much racing they had left to do I was kinda happy I was at home and for sure happy I didn't take my kids to the races.

Here are a couple questions I am very curious about.

1. Do you like the 2 sets of hot laps for the 360s with the second being their time trials instead of passing points?

2. Do you think we really need a break between the heats and the mains?

For me I like 410 qualifying and it being group qualifying (410 qualifying needs to stay). As for the 360s... its okay but i think i'd prefer passing points. The break between mains when there are so many cars and classes some nights (like Saturday)  arent really needed IMO or could at least be shortened considerably. If the 305 B rolls out right after the 410 heats its okay with me. I am still seeing the same amount of racing just in a shorter span.

Don't get me wrong I am fine with how they do it now and really enjoy going each week. If time was an issue for some I see these as two ways to shorten the program if needed. Saturday was a beautiful night and a good time. Ready for next Saturday already!

for christ sakes the free kids night wasn't suppose to take place on Saturday in the first place. They did this, because the

two previous kids nights have been cancelled. Car counts were high in all classes as it was the first race of the season for

alot of these guys. Numbers will continue to fluctuate as teams deal with financial and mechanical issues. They got a bit of

a late start but with 110 cars in the infield they had to put extra water on the track to avoid losing it mid program.

We had 98 sprint cars in the infield on Saturday for $15. 85! If you didn't like it, Boone is about an hour and a half north. I hear the hobby stocks put on a great show.  

-Austin Rankin

-Austin Rankin

"The fans need to come first at the race track, or there simply won’t be a race track.  The people running the show need to keep this in mind."

Not sure I've read a more true statement on here in some time.

I wonder what Tod Quiring thought of the show Saturday? I thought I remember reading that he had some requirements to get an NSL date that called for timely running of the program and support class limitations? Might be mistaken, but he seems sharp enough to understand that the proper way to grow a brand and from what I'm seeing here, there is a sizeable portion of the fan base who disliked the late finish. 

-Austin Rankin

And as a note to that, I was in Boone on Saturday (Boy Scout Camporee) and the races were still going there well after midnight as well as you could hear them at their fairgrounds on the opposite side of town.  My guess is they had no where near the quality of racing that Knoxville offers weekly.

Wasn't in Knoxville to see the races last week, but early season shows always seem to be the later ones (they've run ZERO races thus far this year, so until things get into a routine, it's hard to know when to send push trucks out to pack to start at 6:45 (I would say last season, they started at 6:45 over 90% of the time, the only exceptions seem to be the first few races of the season and the WoO show).  Heck, there were a couple races the past couple seasons that got over BEFORE 10:00 PM.  But I guess everyone on here knows how to prep the track perfectly and can run a show off without any hiccups even though they haven't ever done it or if they have, it's been over 6 months since they did it.

we should be happy that there is a track that can get 98 sprint cars for a weekly show.   Are there things they can improve on?  Sure there are and there always will be.  No different than any other live sporting event (no matter what it is, College FB games used to last 3 hours tops, last year they were pushing 4 hours, same goes for college basketball, used to be 2 hours on TV and they had 10 minutes at the end to recap, now it's 2-1/2 hours and you miss the first 8 or 9 mintues of the game that is scheduled in the next 2 hour TV time window) and they don't do any game recap.

A complaint I heard Sunday was that they only had 3 of the 4 lines at the main concession stand open -- everyone must forget that it's that way EVERY YEAR until school gets out and the high school kids are done with activities and are able to work.

Should they have had the dirt trucks this past weekend?  maybe not, but they were part of the schedule before the NSL was (they've raced that weekend for 4 or 5 years now at Knoxville), but let's not let facts get in the way of complaints....

So, what was it like at Eagle on Friday?  Did they drag the show out with a long intermission to have a re-draw (I seem to remember seeing pictures of that very thing) -- same as they did in Burlington BTW.  Did they do driver introductions at Eagle (don't know, wasn't there) and Knoxville (dont' know, no one has stated and I wasn't there).

It's no different than the World of Outlaws.  If they have made the decision that he NSL is going to have the redraw every night they run and proling the intermission, that is on them, not the track. If they choose to make driver intros part of their program, that is on them, not the track.  If the NSL has made the decision that they sound a horn and the teams have XX time to get to staging for the first heat, that is on them if there is a delay between the support class heats and the NSL heats (and features, dash, etc.).

I'm sure that the shows will get tighter as the season progesses (there were times last season when they gave them the going green signal the first time the cars came down the frontstretch after pushing off for heats (which is really good compared to many moons ago when they'd idle around for 5-7 laps before lining up and then run a 6 lap heat race).

People must forget the past quickly around here, I don't ever remember the races getting over prior to midnight when I was a kid (and back then there were maybe 35 410's and 20 360's (or limiteds they called them)) and many nights it was 1:30 or 2:00 AM on a REGULAR basis.

Yes, they were behind about an hour from what it should of been given the # of entries 100+. However I will never complain about seeing more sprint car racing. 

From what I can tell new people who casually go or are first timers don't necessarily care who wins the feature. How their night goes was already decided before then, regarless of how the features goes. 

Maybe I wasn't paying attention at that point but I had thought 305 hot laps and time trails are the same thing? 

Keep It Real

I have no dog in this fight because I live 500 miles away. I'm a die hard fan, and have been since I was kid. I never thought we would see the day when our local track would close the doors!! Wrong, Red River valley Speedway closed the doors! Many reasons can be attributed to why? In the end it was the decline in the fan base, point blank pure and simple. Most of the average fans quit coming because they said it took to long to get the show in! Are they right or wrong? The doors closed, so I would say they were right!?

Along comes the Schatz family, stikes a deal with the fair board and opens the track back up. They changed the race night from Friday to Wednesday. Good move, bad move? Still being debated to this day. The race fans were excited and returned in very good numbers. The new promoters said they would run the show in a timely fashion and have the fans out of there early. That didnt alway happen, and all the sudden the casual fans are gone again the the die hards are once again trying to keep the place open. Didnt happen and the track is closed again!

Don't think that this cant be your home track!! Times have changed, and these young kids have many ways to spend their time now compared to when we were young. If we dont get these kids to the track NOW, your home town track could be in real trouble! Don't alway take some of these comments as bitching! Take it from a fan that used to watch a bunch of fans walk out the door early. It means the show has gone to long, and they might not be coming back and quit bringing the future fans with them.

Take it from us race fans in Fargo ND, it can happen!!! and its a sad day when it does.

do what I do if I'm unhappy with a restaraunt. I DONT GO BACK. Problem solved . They never get any of my $$$$ again.