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Not going to turn this into a Kenny vs Crankin post because the topic is Tri State and I would imagine people are tired of us both trying to get the last word - so this will be my last one on the topic...
I'm not kidding when I say you can call me any time and I'll spend hours visiting with you about it if you want to. My number is everywhere, our track voicemail, our facebook page, probably 30% of our FB posts, here on IOW, most of the time when I post something. Getting in touch with me should not be difficult. Here it is again - 217-371-3653. I don't post it as a challenge to you - I post it because you don't understand that I would enjoy visiting with you and anyone else with an opinion about my place or racing in general. We learn a lot from those conversations.
Two primary reasons why we don't just run a midget show alone at my track. I can't speak for others.
1. Our race track serves our local racing community. That's what it's here for. Guys around here own race cars - not too many midgets and actually not that many sprint cars. They own Modifieds and Street Stocks and Micros and a few local Pro Late Models and 4 cylinders etc. My first year we did a "specials only" type of schedule. It's the best financial year we had as a race track. But I noticed that here in town people were selling race cars.. getting out of it because they can't race at their home track in front of friends and family.
That's my core customer. That's what pays the bills for the place and more importantly, those are the people we need to keep interested in coming. More than any other group, my race track is here to serve our local racing community and to keep the sport alive locally. If you drive 10 miles to my South or West... you won't find a race car for another 30-50 miles. They have demo derby cars, or mud bog trucks or whatever. They don't have race cars. When I don't have race cars locally, my town doesn't have a race track. And most spouses can only look at a race car sitting in a shop for so long without racing before they start questioning why so much of the family's money is tied up in that thing that never moves.
The second reason, might be unique to our track. Those of us who run it are open wheel fans. We have midgets - used to have sprint cars. But... lets say that next week I decided to have a midget-only show in Jacksonville, Illinois. I can 100% without any question guarantee you that I wouldn't have 350 fans in the grandstands. In fact I think the number would be closer to 250. What price do I put on that midget-only $2,000 to win show? $15? If I add in a few other classes - usually not too many, the fans are going to be able to watch people they know and follow every week. Even at our biggest events - World of Outlaws etc - 75% of my fans drove less than 15 minutes to get here. They either know/have heard of the drivers racing and care... or they don't and won't show up.
Like every other race track, we will get calls from race series and they'll tell me how they can bring 25 cars. That's great, but my question is whether my fans know those 25 drivers? Are they going to entertain my local fans - the core of my audience - more than watching their cousin race? Because to race that 25 car class - one of my local classes is going to have to sit at home to make room. Don't call me telling me how many cars you can bring - call me to convince me you are a better product for my local fans than the alternative.
I could maybe make a show work with 300 people in the stands.... but that's not why I run a race track. I do it for the pure thrill you get when you have butts in the seats and an atmosphere and great racing in front of them and the challenge of juggling it all to a successful conclusion. My enjoyment comes early in the morning when I'm able to drive 3 blocks home feeling we got it right. There's a lot of nights I'm making that drive as my biggest critic... much more critical than anything I'm going to have to read about on the internet as if I was too dumb to know what went wrong.
Now... let's let people get back to discussing Tri-State. Give me a call sometime and we'll chat... it's much better that way.
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