Where are we headed?

[Matt49]

crates are suppose to be an economical beginners class, where is the economics in what you describe?

See, this is the problem. Crates were NEVER supposed to be an economical beginners class. Crate late model classes were developed as an alternative form of late model racing for guys that have late model stuff, understand how to setup and drive late models, but cannot afford a motor that costs more than their house to maintain every year.
What you have, at least in our area where we have kept a full blown late model car with a crate motor, is that the majority of the guys racing in this class came from super late models, modifies, or super stocks. There are a few guys that went out and bought 10 year old cars and will run in the back but for the most part it isn't an "entry level" class and was never intended to be. This mentality and dumbing down the rules is what is killing crate racing (and with it giving the notion that crates are killing all late model racing) in many areas.
Somebody that has never raced before is unlikely to jump into a 4-bar car and have much success driving it or figuring out how to set it up...regardless of HP.
Pure stocks are supposed to be an economical beginners class.

[MLR19]

crates are suppose to be an economical beginners class, where is the economics in what you describe?

I don't think crates are supposed to be a "beginners class" . Crates are saving late model racing at the local level. Someone said in a previous post that the late model car count declined
at their local track, this is common everywhere.
At the weekly late model shows around here, (if its a regular show) you might see 12-14 cars with 3 or 4 of those being crates. Then you have 3 or 4 that only race local shows but do so on a unlimited budget. The remainder are guys that race on a budget , and have a very slimchance
of winning a feature.
If you don't have an unlimited budget, but still want to be competitive, then the crate is a great option. Yes you will have people with an unlimited budget racing crates, but it isn't a huge advantage like it is in the open motor cars.
Someone also posted that setup on a crate isn't as important as a super, setup is what wins races in the crate class, because everyone is very close on motor, I would say setup is twice as important in crate racing. If your car is tight with 800 hp you can drive thru it with the throttle. Crates are all about keeping the car free & maintaining corner speed.
A few weeks ago when there weren't any crate races locally we ran our crate car with the opens, granted it was a slick track. We won our heat race & ran second in the feature, nobody in the stands could tell the difference between the supers & the crates that night.
Of course from the open guys that get beat by a crate, we hear "the motor must be a cheater", does anybody really think that you can cheat a 604 enough to double the horsepower?

[Matt49]

Unfortunately, the answer to your last question is yes. And the same people that believe that also believe that owning and operating a crate late model program is not much cheaper than running an open late model program and that if crates were banned tomorrow we would all just turn around and by open motors like nothing changed.

[fastford]

thats exactly the way they were presented to us down here to begin with, an economical beginners class where some one could go buy a 5k older roller, a 3k engine and START racing, withen a year the ones with a lot of funds were taking expensive top of the line rollers , putting these so called 3k 602 engines that they were spending way more than that on, so they could win a race against inferior equipment. now when there is a big race around here the top super drivers show up with both cars and usually wins. matt, we have had this argument before and i do respect your opinions so i will once again agree to disagree.........

[mcarter815]

B-mods and stock cars are where beginners should be starting. Crate or not, late models aren't a beginner class. Up here we don't have crate late models, but we do have IMCA spec motor late models. The payouts just aren't good enough to support even that on a weekly basis. $600 to win means that half of the field pulls in after a few laps.

[Matt49]

thats exactly the way they were presented to us down here to begin with, an economical beginners class where some one could go buy a 5k older roller, a 3k engine and START racing, withen a year the ones with a lot of funds were taking expensive top of the line rollers , putting these so called 3k 602 engines that they were spending way more than that on, so they could win a race against inferior equipment. now when there is a big race around here the top super drivers show up with both cars and usually wins. matt, we have had this argument before and i do respect your opinions so i will once again agree to disagree.........

No worries, man. I think a little bit of this is like I'm kind of trying to say - different perspectives given that crate racing is very different in different parts of the country. To your point, how something billed and what it actually is are two different things. There is a misconception that today you can spend $5000 and have a 604 crate ready to race if you have a car already. But that of course doesn't include carb, headers, water pump, fuel pump, power steering pump, distributor, ignition, etc. etc.
Around here, crates have been considered an alternative to open late models and usually turning laps right around the same as the UMP mods when the track is fast and a little better than the mods when it gets slick for obvious reasons. And right on with the supers when the track is slick. Crates have won about a dozen features against supers (and not junk supers either) around here in the last several years.
I'll put it this way. At our local track, in the top 10 in crate points are 3 former track champions in super late models and 1 former track champion in super stocks. It's hardly a beginners class. Good cars, good drivers, crate motors. It works for us. Again...it isn't the answer to late model racing in general...just a stop gap in my opinion to keep guys from completely selling out. And if you keep the rules on the cars the same, a guy that comes into some money or the right opportunity can just drop an open motor in and go racing with the same car.
This is why I'm a big proponent of keeping the car rules uniform for all breeds of late model. I don't want the opens to die and I don't want crates to go away either. But it seems we need something in between if we're going to make it long term. As much as I'm not for more classes in general at race tacks, weekly late model racing across the country is struggling. I would personally be okay if we just slowly migrated "crates" to the CT525. Fans like the noise and at tracks where the 604s just run out of legs, the 525s seem to be okay. But then the coil packs present a challenge if you want to go run with the supers at most tracks. But you can run a 604 against supers, still be legal, and at a lot of places get 100 pound weight break just because of the steel block.
I don't know...something has to happen soon or we're going to continue to lose racers.

[fastford]

we are on the same page, but they just decided to add a new class here, its called crate sportsman, 602 only, now we have 4 late model classes, including the support classes, thats 7 classes per night, where does it all end? they say, crates is the economical answer , yet there is not an economical competitive car out there , so i dont know, i guess time will tell....

[let-r-eat]

I don't see any economical fast cars in any class *including fwd style cars*.........fastford. LOL

[Matt49]

we are on the same page, but they just decided to add a new class here, its called crate sportsman, 602 only, now we have 4 late model classes, including the support classes, thats 7 classes per night, where does it all end? they say, crates is the economical answer , yet there is not an economical competitive car out there , so i dont know, i guess time will tell....

And, if we're talking about the same thing, that crate sportsman class was a result of exactly what I'm talking about. They wanted to add a shock rule and all of the 604 guys lost their minds (I would have been one of them), so they decided to create a new class with the 602 motor and a no adjustable shock rule.
So the problem here is that if a guy had a 604 and maybe a 602 as a backup motor (not a bad strategy if you run crates for points) your backup motor is now worthless in your regular class and if you want to go "down" a class, you have to spend money on non-adjustable shocks since all you have is double adjustable. Stupid rules.
And on the flip side of that, if a guy runs the sportsman class and decides he wants to step up to the 604, he has to run in a class where he'll be outclassed from a shock standpoint.
If they would leave all of the other rules alone, a guy could move from one class to another just by changing motors.
Around here if I were to come into an opportunity to have an open motor, all I do is switch motors and I've got a competitive car with the opens (a few adjustments obviously but all of the right equipment). On the flip side, if a guy that normally runs opens gets down on motors and drops a 604 in his car, he can legally run with the crates without changing shocks, shock/spring configuration, taking out bump stops, etc. etc. That makes a lot more sense to me.

[hipower17]

it doesn't matter what the rules are, if you don't have good tech at the local level to enforce the rules then whoever has the most money to spend or bends the rules the best, most of the time will win. ( TECH IS THE KEY ) just my opinion.

[A ron]

Down here, for the moment anyway, you can buy a $3500 roller, a 602, and a $400 set of afco shocks and run competitive in the 602 Sportsman class. I'm sure at some point the people with unlimited budgets will drop down and ruin all the fun (already seeing stacker haulers and $40k capitals showing up) but for now it's great in my opinion. This is only my third year to be around but I've picked up that every class (down here at least) seems to do great until the racers find somewhere else to "buy" an edge.

[fastford]

I don't see any economical fast cars in any class *including fwd style cars*.........fastford. LOL

i have 2 kids in FWD cars that have less than 2k in them and they have both won races, thats about as economical as you can get

[fastford]

Down here, for the moment anyway, you can buy a $3500 roller, a 602, and a $400 set of afco shocks and run competitive in the 602 Sportsman class. I'm sure at some point the people with unlimited budgets will drop down and ruin all the fun (already seeing stacker haulers and $40k capitals showing up) but for now it's great in my opinion. This is only my third year to be around but I've picked up that every class (down here at least) seems to do great until the racers find somewhere else to "buy" an edge.

thats exactly what happened to the original crate class, MONEY , but its the nature of the beast....

[old17ford]

Been racing and around racing about 50 years same o same o the unlimited budget teams have almost killed racing . They have a car in almost every class and tech at tracks is not to good all late model bodys are wrong even ours.I love racing as much as anybody but its hard when you know you dont have much of a chance to win and that is what its all about .imoa Hope things changes before i kick the bucket .

[grt74]

its simple, cost and time vs reward, if you win
crates may have been the answer but they let them in the engines and pay less to win,im speaking on weekly events