How do we Make local Short Track Racing Great Again (Dirt & Asphalt)?

[HoosierDirtFan]

How do we Make local Short Track Racing Great Again (Dirt & Asphalt)?
Obviously, Prices and tech seem to be the biggest issues.
Any Thoughts?

[zyoung25]

I think it is just lack interest anymore. I don't think there is a way to make it what it was from the early days, til the mid 00's again. You look around, and a lot of things that were once booming are also struggling. Outside of racing, I am big into old cars. We have a local show here that used to draw 300-400 cars each year. It now does good to get 60-70. A lot of things contribute to the fall off. The main reason IMO is street rod guys are dying off, and you have a select few around my age (30-50) that are interested in that kind of stuff. It goes the same way with racing. You look around at the track, how many groups of 16-25yrs do you see there in a group? Unless they are like many of us and was born into it, they probably do not have the desire to want attend a race or apart of it at all.

I just know when I was growing up, I knew where my friend group was going to be every Saturday night. It was more than likely going to be at a one of the many dirt circles around here. Which are now mostly gone.

[ftfiowa]

racing is dying on the vine...and if "great again" is borrowed from m.a.g.a.t. land it will be quickly killed off. maybe its for the best. weekly racing peaked in the early 2000s. guys running mods with $50k+ in them for $400-600 win and $60-80 to start was the signal for all to see. Trumpism is for the mega wealthy only and most racers i ever knew arent mega wealthy But then again you cant fix the issue when people wont admit the problems to begin with. Trickle down economics is a joke played on the working man & unfortunately alot of them ate it up. Im just an old school guy who knows history and history keeps repeating itself....whats the saying? "Religious dogma keeps the poor from murdering the rich". The rot in racing is a mirror of the rot in the system. The fox got "voted"(with elons help) to watch the henhouse and the steal is on.

[riddle28]

racing is dying on the vine...and if "great again" is borrowed from m.a.g.a.t. land it will be quickly killed off. maybe its for the best. weekly racing peaked in the early 2000s. guys running mods with $50k+ in them for $400-600 win and $60-80 to start was the signal for all to see. Trumpism is for the mega wealthy only and most racers i ever knew arent mega wealthy But then again you cant fix the issue when people wont admit the problems to begin with. Trickle down economics is a joke played on the working man & unfortunately alot of them ate it up. Im just an old school guy who knows history and history keeps repeating itself....whats the saying? "Religious dogma keeps the poor from murdering the rich". The rot in racing is a mirror of the rot in the system. The fox got "voted"(with elons help) to watch the henhouse and the steal is on.

this is a boomer rant if ive ever heard one, thankfully yall are nearing the end. I think most promoters are lazy or maybe just dont care to adapt. The ones that still actually promote and not just post their A.I. flier on facebook seem to be doing ok. It starts with getting fans in the stands, it makes it exciting for the racers to run in front of a packed house. And i dont think the racing has to necessarily be good to bring fans in, its about the total experience these days

[chathamracefan]

TDS from a prior poster aside, racing is dying cause the "weekly show" at most places just isn't all that good anymore. Precious few tracks any more put on a weekly show worth attending. Living in central IL, I know Fairbury draws solid fields. Same for Jacksonville on the sprint car side. But most of the other tracks weekly shows have devolved into 7 or 8 classes each drawing between 10 to 12 cars. That is just not a compelling product. Especially when the top division on the card is mods or crates. I have gone to some big modified shows where they were the top draw but I'm a hard core fan. A weekly show without late models or sprints (or an occasional midget series show) just isn't gonna put enough casual fan butts in the seats. And it's not economically feasible for the Fegers, Unzickers & Babbs of the world to haul their stuff to say Macon on a Saturday night to run for $1,500 to win. Hence they dropped supers several years ago.

And a lot of that decline traces back to the tech getting out of hand. A mods were a claimer class 25 years ago. That kept the costs in check. No more these days.

[MRM]

Here in the South, we have too many classes and it makes from a really long program. Fans don't want to spend 5-6 hours at the track.

Another problem here is not keeping their facilities up to date or improved. I can name a few tracks nearby that haven't done any improvements in 20 years. It's one of the primary reasons Lucas Oil no longer schedule races around here.

[EvelB7]

I have been running some form of late model since the mid 80's, started in the midwest and moved south about 35 years ago. Tracks here closing down, all of the problems we have discussed- sad to see the midwest copying some of the things that have not worked here (adding all of these classes).

I honestly do not think there is a cure; I always remember the use to run horses at every county fairgrounds, moved on to cars, now it appears the tracks will start to shutter and society will move in another direction.

[chathamracefan]

There are pockets where it is still successful. The big events draw bigger crowds than ever. Eldora, Knoxville, Fairbury etc are all packed to the gills for their biggest shows. There are also some pockets where the weekly racing is strong. Fairbury for late models, Knoxville & PA for sprints. Iowa has several tracks that do well under the IMCA sanction and their supernationals at Boone Iowa in September draw north of 1000 entries over 5 classes. 300 plus in both mods & stock cars.

One thing IMCA does is they tech the crap out of the cars. I think that is key at the local level for a resurgence to happen. Make everything play by the rules. More guys feel they have a shot then. Also weekly formats as a general rule are not good. Most tracks in Illinois qualify the late models, A mods & crates. That does nothing but guarantee the best cars start on the front every week.

I'm just fine with qualifying for a series or a big $ event but on the weekly shows, draw for heats. Gives a mid pack guy a chance to win a few heats & maybe start up front in some feature events. Keeps more guys invested & makes for a better product for the paying customer. Showing up to watch the same 1 or 2 guys win every week gets boring fast. That happens more often when you time trial. Not to mention it burns up both the track & time.

Of course there is no 1 perfect answer, but there are enough remnants of successful products being put on display that tracks could stand to learn from.

[Danimal67x]

imo the main reason is the powers that be want rid of us.. they would rather we save the climate while kicking a ball into a net.
sad to see the way things are going, just glad I lived the years I did.

[HoosierDirtFan]

There are pockets where it is still successful. The big events draw bigger crowds than ever. Eldora, Knoxville, Fairbury etc are all packed to the gills for their biggest shows. There are also some pockets where the weekly racing is strong. Fairbury for late models, Knoxville & PA for sprints. Iowa has several tracks that do well under the IMCA sanction and their supernationals at Boone Iowa in September draw north of 1000 entries over 5 classes. 300 plus in both mods & stock cars.

One thing IMCA does is they tech the crap out of the cars. I think that is key at the local level for a resurgence to happen. Make everything play by the rules. More guys feel they have a shot then. Also weekly formats as a general rule are not good. Most tracks in Illinois qualify the late models, A mods & crates. That does nothing but guarantee the best cars start on the front every week.

I'm just fine with qualifying for a series or a big $ event but on the weekly shows, draw for heats. Gives a mid pack guy a chance to win a few heats & maybe start up front in some feature events. Keeps more guys invested & makes for a better product for the paying customer. Showing up to watch the same 1 or 2 guys win every week gets boring fast. That happens more often when you time trial. Not to mention it burns up both the track & time.

Of course there is no 1 perfect answer, but there are enough remnants of successful products being put on display that tracks could stand to learn from.

I would love to see IMCA here in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio. The way they tech cars makes other sanctions look completely stupid. Tech the hell out of the cars period! Don’t let the big names dictate what you do for rules, tires, payouts, etc…

UMP DIRTcar isn’t what it once was. They Should have stay out out of the lower tier divisions. Super Late Models & Modifieds only. All those drivers, teams, & tracks that clamored for UMP to sanction the lower tier divisions, look where it got you. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.


Open 305 Sprint Cars > IMCA RaceSaver 305 Sprints
DIRcar Pro Late Models > IMCA Late Models
DIRTcar Modifieds > IMCA Modifieds
DIRTcar Stock Cars > IMCA Stock Cars
DIRTcar B-Mods > IMCA Sport Mods
DIRTcar Factory Stocks > IMCA Hobby Stocks
DIRTcar Sport Compacts > IMCA Sport Compacts
Mod Lites > IMCA Mod Lites

A lot of things could be fixed. It would take times but anything is possible if the effort is there.

Hold the teams, drivers, and tracks to the rules posted! If there is a change in rules vote on them together!

Unified rules across the United States & Canada would be the absolute best. Problem is there are to many promoters and sanctions that are to dumb to understand that original concept.


Just my opinion….

[3 wide]

I have been running some form of late model since the mid 80's, started in the midwest and moved south about 35 years ago. Tracks here closing down, all of the problems we have discussed- sad to see the midwest copying some of the things that have not worked here (adding all of these classes).

I honestly do not think there is a cure; I always remember the use to run horses at every county fairgrounds, moved on to cars, now it appears the tracks will start to shutter and society will move in another direction.

I have a formula I think that would work kind of complicated but here goes first no ,ore than 4 classes start your late models at around 2 thousand pay 20 places raise total puse 10 percent a week race every week rainouts will give you plenty of days off ai the end of the year your at about 6 thousand to whe depending on rain outs to like a snowball going down hill gets a little bigger every week then in your lower run them an extra purse in one class once a month to keep then happy this would keep people interested in coming,

[play4kps]

I think its easy to see that technology has hurt dirt late models the most at a regional level, while the top 2 touring series are hot, grass roots is dying or dead. It doesn't have to be that way. Look at winged sprint car racing, Full fields at plenty of tracks across the nation, excellent payouts compared to late models, Knoxville, Huset's, Skagit, plenty in California, Attica, Fremont, Sharon, Butler, Port Royal and all across Pa. Most of these tracks are paying 4-6 thousand to win weekly and a generous points fund at the end of the year. You will be lucky to find 10 tracks across the nation with a full field of late models every week, Attica, Oakshade, 3 or 4 in Michigan and Part Royal, That may be it, Illinois is losing tracks and none have full fields, the south has crates. Do we run a lesser late model rule package for weekly racing to stop the out of control spending, limit shock packages, somehow control wind tunnel testing and so on, I hate this but maybe a claimer rule to help enforce it. Just thoughts but the sport on a local level is on life support.

[chathamracefan]

I would love to see IMCA here in Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky and Ohio. The way they tech cars makes other sanctions look completely stupid. Tech the hell out of the cars period! Don’t let the big names dictate what you do for rules, tires, payouts, etc…

UMP DIRTcar isn’t what it once was. They Should have stay out out of the lower tier divisions. Super Late Models & Modifieds only. All those drivers, teams, & tracks that clamored for UMP to sanction the lower tier divisions, look where it got you. The grass isn’t always greener on the other side.


Open 305 Sprint Cars > IMCA RaceSaver 305 Sprints
DIRcar Pro Late Models > IMCA Late Models
DIRTcar Modifieds > IMCA Modifieds
DIRTcar Stock Cars > IMCA Stock Cars
DIRTcar B-Mods > IMCA Sport Mods
DIRTcar Factory Stocks > IMCA Hobby Stocks
DIRTcar Sport Compacts > IMCA Sport Compacts
Mod Lites > IMCA Mod Lites

A lot of things could be fixed. It would take times but anything is possible if the effort is there.

Hold the teams, drivers, and tracks to the rules posted! If there is a change in rules vote on them together!

Unified rules across the United States & Canada would be the absolute best. Problem is there are to many promoters and sanctions that are to dumb to understand that original concept.


Just my opinion….

I went to the IMCA Supernationals in Boone last year for a couple days. Had so much fun I'm doing 3 days this year. I was extremely impressed with their tech process. Admittedly that's a huge event that has lots of staff but they were teching cars in the infield after each heat race & after the qualifier features the top finishers go for what appears to be a somewhat complete tear down.

Several guys were dq'd. They also suffered no fools when it came to reckless driving or rough driving. Spin a guy out, black flag. Take a guys front clip off from a dirty slider. Black flag.

I'm sure there are still shenanigans that go on at the weekly tracks but IMCA does have some sensible rules in place that seem to somewhat level the playing field & keep the costs from being completely stupid. Hell they had over 600 cars just between A mods & stock cars. And the mods only run for like 10k to win on the Saturday finale.

I'm not a tech guy so I don't know all the specifics but I think there is a lot of spec parts & spec tires at play. So yes its not an open show but it was pretty darn entertaining.

[TheJet-09]

I've ranted about it before and will continue to, but we killed weekly racing when we went to straight up starts. It took away passing, which reduced the entertainment value. And it took away any chance for the average racer to win so much as a heat race.

With inverts, you could be the slowest qualifier, yet still win your heat....maybe finish 10th in the feature. But it didn't matter, because you couldn't wait to get to work on Monday and talk about racing. You were excited, and it kept you coming back. What idiot (like me) wants to spend that kind of money, put in those kind of hours, and sacrifice your weekends knowing you stand zero chance of winning anything?

And the best part??? It would cost absolutely nothing the change.

[Morgs153]

Money is fungible. If you save a racer money from his front left pocket, he will find a way to spend it from his right rear pocket.

I grew up around asphalt racing in Central Wisconsin. The late 70s early 80s was a time of ever escalating engine costs. Racers were spending loads on high RPM high compression small blocks that were expensive and often blew up or didn't last. Back during that time if you had an engine from Prototype or Ray Baker, you really had something. But not everyone could afford that something. Weekly racing was really starting to hurt. A man that I later went to work for, Clem Droste, came up with the concept of the 9:1 engine. During that time it really saved weekly racing around here and it became widely adopted around the country and also in touring series. At its inception it was fantastic. Guys were putting together their own stuff, often from salvage parts and they were racing. Some guys were winning because they were getting the weight breaks to run the 9:1 stuff and it became popular. Guess what? It also became popular for the premier engine builders to build you a 9:1 and ultimately those engines also down the road became expensive. The 9:1 became so expensive the rules makers had to come up with an ACE engine, which was another concept engine to be more affordable than the last affordable engine.

When I went to work for Clem in 1998 he was the Technical Director for the NASCAR MW Tour (at that time ReMax Challenge Series). He had to write the rule book for the tour and help out with some of the other tours in their rule formulations. I still remember hearing him tell me more than once, "I try to figure out ways to save these guys money so they can race and they figure out more different ways they can spend it." If you save them money here, that frees up some money to spend there (there's some awesome haulers out there) and they are often their own worst enemy. There were all sorts of ideas. Gear rules, heavy weight crankshaft rules with an oil pan plug to easily inspect the crank shaft, carb rules, tire rules, etc. Not every idea seen the light of day but believe me, he wanted people to be able to race and afford to do it. I really appreciated that guy and the things he did for racing and what I learned from him. There's a whole bunch of people out there like him who do understand the things that need to be done.

I still look up rule books online from different racing series. I looked up the Short Track Super Series book from the Northeast Mods. They have a concept engine available from Wegner Automotive Research with a current listed price of $25,500. You can still run the big block at a certain weight, you can run a small block at a certain weight, or you can run the WAR concept engine at a certain weight and it appears they all run together on the track. I've watched them on Flo and they seem to put on some very good shows.

I'm not a big fan of exclusive crate engine series. I do like the idea of finding where you can still find a formula for a "build" engine at an affordable (what that might mean) price that might not be a a top to bottom aluminum open engine and have that engine available to compete in the crate and limited classes. It might be a steel block, it might need the heavy crank with a part number visible through the oil pan inspection hole, it might need a rev limiter or a restrictor plate in some applications, you might need different weight breaks or spoiler limits to equalize the different engines but it might make for a better show than seeing a half dozen 604s race it out and then a few more 602s race it out and so on. Engine rules should not eliminate your local engine builders by going just to crates. Rule makers need to find ways to allow some of these cars to all compete together and then tech them. Figure it out. It can be done. Perfect, maybe not entirely, but don't let perfect be the enemy of pretty (not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word)(not a nice word) good. The easiest thing to tech is how much a car weighs.

Tires are expensive. I laugh at some of the posts I see on here where people say, just open it up and let them buy what they want and juice them if they want. Sure. Remember what haulers looked like in the 80s when there were 30-40 tires up on the top racks of open trailers? Guys going to buy every tire they could just so the next guy couldn't, and then returning them after the race or being stuck with them. For weekly racing you need a good tire that will last more then one event. If that means it is sort of a "puck", so be it. Everyone will be on that puck.

As far as a chassis goes, that might be the least expensive part of the equation. A bunch of tubing welded up in a jig is really not the highest cost. It should last from season to season without wrecks so there is value in a good build that is a safe piece. It is the bolt-ons which cost the money. Limit the exotics where you can for the weekly racer. The next easiest thing to tech is things you can touch with a magnet if things need to be made of steel.

The thing to remember is that you are trying to put on a show. A show for the fans. Will the fans really notice that this class of cars is only one and a half seconds slower than a full blown touring super, if they are seeing a full field of cars racing side by side and putting on a good show?