but ya them car countS keep

[TwistedNate01]

Fading away. Was watching a race on youtube the other nite, A woo race. An the one race i was watching was their highest car count of the 2022 season! Said about 30ish cars was singed in for that one race!!!

[bleedblue55]

Huh, put down the crack pipe Nate.

[Raceready]

Gone are the days for the most part when a newer DLM pilot would show on up at a track with the idea that he would thrilled just to make the feature . Nows a day mostly there are not enough cars to fill a 24 car feature. In some cases there might be 18 or less and I went to a show that only had 12 cars show on up ? Even the crate lates car counts are down.

[waaac77]

What are we going to do? No other posts until we figure out how to raise car counts. We can do this let’s hear some ideas…

[Rajflyboy]

East bay had 70+ per night last year

[Black F]

thiS guy caN counTs carS?

[play4kps]

Car counts will continue to go down! Racers arent stupid, they are not going to race where they dont have a chance. A lot of tracks are going to have their group of drivers that are happy competing locally. They are smart enough to know they cant run with the big dogs, and 95% is financially. That will become the new normal. The high dollar scene resembles Nascar, almost everyone in the same chassis, a few engine builders, high dollar engineers, wind tunnel testing, and extremely top heavy purses is going to keep a lot of drivers away. There have been a select few on here warning of this, and nobody paid attention.

[BloomerHarvickFan]

Car counts look cool, but in all reality, even back when Eldora had 200+ cars what did that matter? There were probably 100 that had zero chance of making the show, and out of the 120 that advanced to the heats back then, there were probably 10 that had a decent shot to win, and probably only 40 that had a real chance to make the race.

[lokwaidid]

what bloomerharvickfan says is true. the problem now is where would you even find 200 cars? ohio, indiana, and kemtucky have a total of i think only 3 tracks that run late models weekly. lucas, woo, southern all stars, mars.... , all the series probably get paid first when they put on a show. dirt racing is just part of there advertising budget and not what keeps there business alive. you would think the chassis and engine builders would see there business drop off with a lot fewer cars. you would think they might get together and write a rule package that would benefit them and bring more guys back into racing. go back to something like we had in the 90's and bring the engine hp back down to the 700's. now someone will say that the money will just be spent on something else. make limits on these high dollar parts or say goodby to late models. how much money are you willing to pay to watch 3 heats and a feature?

[bleedblue55]

As long as there are around 50 for most big shows with 6 heat races I'm happy

[Tireguy17]

From the local to national level......costs have skyrocketed, yet the pay has stayed virtually the same. The math isn't difficult.

[ride height]

Unless you’re independently wealthy, or have some very serious backing…I don’t see how anybody does this anymore. We ran B Mods, and while we did have good equipment, I would be embarrassed to tell you how much money was spent to be a front runner. We finally had to stop because it got out of hand, plus we raced for peanuts. I can’t even fathom how much money a front running late model costs to campaign. 10,000 to win for a SLM is jack squat in todays world. I’ll bet that doesn’t last a 2 weeks to stay up front. ( just guessing)

[MasterSbilt_Racer]

^^you can spend as much or as little as you want. No different than golf or fishing.

You can keep your old car and update it as needed, or you can buy a new roller. You can still run your gen1 ohlins shocks, change the damping curves as needed, or a new set from a new manufacturer every 3 months. You can buy a new engine every time yours hits 900 laps, or you can keep rebuilding it. You can run the 20 year old engine that makes 780 hp or you can buy the new one that makes 900 hp and run half throttle after qualifying. You can burn $19/gallon gas or you can run E85 from the corner gas station pump. You can tow with an old pickup and equipment trailer or you can buy a new S&S toter. It goes on and on.

[Rajflyboy]

Maybe just put Freddy Carpenter in charge of all the top late model series. Make everyone use his basic chassis 😁

[lokwaidid]

there are very few tracks that have weekly late model shows. where are the cars going to come from in a few years? putting more money in the purse isn't going to magically produce more cars if they don't exist now. are all the crate guys going to run out and drop a big engine in there car? money has killed racing. this use to be a fun family weekend hobby. it still is for the lower classes, but how many years does that have left. everything about today's late model rules needs to be thrown out and go back in time about 30-35 years if you want to save racing and start over.