[Chase Hightower]

Originally Posted by 1121 Wow! Two things I never thought I’d read on IOW: “non-winged crap” and “we need our good friend Tom Paterson to chime in here.” While I doubt if I am all knowing on the state of pavement racing, I definitely have opinions, so I guess, since you asked, here we go. Racing in general is in trouble. While many of you are quick to comment on NASCAR crowds being down from what they were 10 years ago, you seem to forget that Indy Car, except for the Indy 500, have almost embarrassing crowds at some of their venues. Weekly shows at our beloved dirt tracks all over the country are struggling to get by. And the weekly pavement tracks are just as bad. I’m finding myself in transition from Driver to Fan. Next month I’m going to be 57 years old and this was my 30th year of driving sprint cars. Even though I’ve driven at almost every dirt track in the state and I still try to drive dirt a couple of times a year, I’m known primarily as a pavement driver. As a fan, I find myself as a unique individual in that, while I have my favorites, I’ll watch any kind racing. I’ve said many a time that I’ll watch two squirrels race up a tree. But I know I’m in the minority. While there are fans travel around with their favorite series, most fans go to the same track week in and week out with maybe one or two trips a year where they go see a traveling series of some kind. If these fans are lucky, they have a traveling series that comes to their home track. And it’s my opinion that many of these fans are becoming bored with the various traveling series. Outside of the Knoxville Nationals and maybe Indiana Sprint week, the traveling series just aren’t pulling the crowds like they used to. It’s my contention that we need to give the fans something different and in the pavement world, I think that will be non-winged sprints. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think that as we roll into these tracks without our wings that all of a sudden, the stands will be packed. I’m not that naive. We have to show up with a good car count. We have to put on good, clean show. In other words, we need to give the fans their money’s worth and then some. I’m sure some tracks will not embrace non-winged racing. But I truly believe that some will. And hopefully some will do both winged and non-winged. On the racer side, I think car count will be the key. Anderson has shown that the cars are out there. I think there was close to 30 cars at the Tony Elliott Classic this fall. I think the key to making the Auto Value races work will be in getting some of the Indiana guys to head north. And then getting the Michigan guys to come down to the Indiana races. I applaud the Auto Value Super Sprint Series for trying something new (at least in their world). If we expect things to get better, we have to be willing to take risks. Tom Paterson PDP Racing

AGREE!!!! I never thought people would ***** about no wings, more racing, and pavement gaining races and tracks th run at. Some people nothing could make happy. Simple, if you don’t like it, stay home.