[Gifford G Solem]

Originally Posted by rocket5612 Kevin, My suggestion to you is, if you want more cars, work on your schedule. Racers with full time jobs are who made USAC, and then carried it after the Texas and Indy scoring debacles nailed the coffin for sanctioning Indycars. Today's working environment does not allow a lot of time off for these guys to go racing. Race on Saturday nights for the most part. If racing weekdays is necessary, do it as few nights as possible. Remembering of course that people who do real work for a living get around two weeks of vacation time. This is especially important since nobody is making a living racing in USAC, except the guys who rent their rides out to the wealthy individuals who choose to spend their money trying to "make my kid the next..."(take your pick of NASCAR driver who came from USAC). A 20-30 race schedule is plenty sufficient in my opinion. Next, work on making the series' one car for pavement and dirt. Do whatever it takes to make this happen. Please do not go to the chassis manufacturers and get their opinion for what to do. They are in the business of selling cars and parts. Asking for their opinion is like asking the oil companies to develop alternative fuel vehicles. Having dirt and pavement cars plays into their hands because instead of selling two cars(one primary car and one back up) they sell at least four (one primary dirt and pavement and one back up dirt and pavement) for each driver. Narrow up the RR tires in the sprints and midgets on dirt. Require an offset rule for dirt that allows the same rear axles to be run on dirt and pavement(this would also elminate the flips that occur from drivers "getting over on the LR" which will increase safety). Require the engine to be on the centerline of the chassis and at the SAME location from the rear axle to the motor plate for both pavement and dirt. Require the seats be at a minimum height while maintaining the required head room above the driver and the main frame rail (I believe 2" is required above the driver and 4" is recommended but I'm not sure on that). Eliminate direct spindle mount hubs on dirt. Require six pins for both surfaces. Require a specific size fuel cell be used. Also, in the midgets close up the allowable wheelbase. Only allow about 2" or less to move not 10" like it is now. I am not as "up" on the sprint car rules to say but I am willing to bet there is a wide gap there too. Nobody wants to be 100% like NASCAR but one thing I will have to say about them is they are not afraid to write rules and then back them up by ENFORCING them. USAC does an extremely poor job of enforcing their own rules. Go to a NASCAR late model race sometime and see all the various things they check on the top running cars. USAC fails miserably in comparison to those guys when it comes to tech inspection. Next, for the survival of USAC purchase ARCA and get the USAC brand back on TV. They seem to have a good thing going and you could run shows where you race the Silver Crown cars or Sprints then run the ARCA event. This gives the fans a great package like NASCAR does with the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series' in the same day/weekend. Plus ARCA already runs some of the same tracks as USAC Sprints and Silver Crown. (Winchester, Salem, DuQuoin, Springfield etc). Eventually, I would turn the Silver Crown series into a 200 lap event series with either "breaks" or pit stops whichever can be made to work best. Too often the same guy leads all the laps in the Silver Crown series and there isn't as much passing due to the lack of chances to work on the cars. Anyway, these are my thoughts. People can take them or leave them, but its what I think needs to be done for the long term survival of USAC racing.

Excellent suggestions for Kevin Miller, from Rocket 5612. You composed that well - great job and thanks. From an old (really old) AAA and present USAC fan and my 46 year old race fan son (the kid's only been going to sprint/midget/silver crown for 43 years).