You are exactly correct. My father was the Chief Steward of the midgets then and tech inspector for the Sprints and Crown cars. USAC had to guarantee a certain number of cars per race to keep TNT and Open Wheel Wednesday on the air. The owners were heavily involved and pulled some big time sponsors for it. It was very tough to keep it up for everyone. It was shortly after this time when certain owners made dedicated pavement and dirt cars and the cost difference started to show. A lot of the smaller budget teams couldn't afford the dedicated pavement cars to stay competitive. Guys like Eric Gordon, and Robbie Stanley who were masters of the pavement really helped keep it going as long as it did. I would love to see it back to its glory days but without some work from all ends it won't happen over night.

Just my 2 cents and some things I remember from conversations with my dad.

Which people? If you look at NASCAR, Indy car (The Indy 500 sells the most tickets of any race in the world) and Formula 1, all pavement races, have huge audiences compared to USAC. Where are the dirt fans? A few more than the pavement races but not enough to pay a decent purse. In today's dollars the Hulman Classic paid 38,000.00 to win and 3300.00 to start in 1979. The purses are way too low when you look at it in this context. That's why car counts arei low.

That would be a start. In today's dollars 2000 to start is nothin special.

I thought USAC has done a decent job so far with the Silver Crown series on pavement in 2016. They had 18 and 17 cars at the two races at Lucas Oil.
The problem here tonight was the track. Guys don't wanna run Salem and WInchester with SIlver Crown cars.
I figured there would be a dozen cars but missed it by one. If they decide to try it again next year it will be the same but maybe a car or two less.
Does anybody remember the outcome of the last visit there in 1988? They had 12 cars and cut the laps from 100 to 50. nothing has changed in 28 years.

Could the weather have played a role in car count?

The only thing pavement is good for is getting to the dirt track.

First I believe he killed sprints, then midgets, now it's SC. Without doing a damn thing!
He saw it coming! Any idiot saw it coming. That is total lack of leadership! IMO!

Folks,

We ran SC in 2014 and absolutely loved it. We ran dirt only for a variety of reasons, which are outlined below:

1). Licensing - At the time (as memory serves) there was a "Dirt Only" license which offered a small discount. It wasn't much but every dollar counts.

2). Not only are different tires required between dirt and pavement but different front wheels and different right front hubs are required due to the additional load the RF experiences on pavement. While we could have used pavement RF hubs on the dirt, we used what we had, which is direct mount sprint hubs.

3). On dirt you can get away with the standard sprint car brake system, with minor changes. On pavement the brake system needs to be more robust due to the additional braking necessary.

These are only a few of the items that differentiate dirt from pavement racing. While USAC could change the rules to mandate using the same "car" for both, rule interpretation and enforcement would be, in my opinion, next to impossible. First, we have to define "the car". Is that only the chassis, or does it include the rear end/driveline/front axle/right side vs left side steering, brake system, .... As you see this can be daunting. And please understand, many of the differences between the pavement and dirt cars are derived from safety concerns due to the different loads the cars experience between the two.

So this is why we decided on dirt only and I believe there are others who are in our same boat, from an expense standpoint. While we sold our car this year I am contemplating getting back into it. If I do, I'm seriously contemplating equipping ourselves for both surfaces just to help bolster the car counts in an effort to get and keep SC healthy.

Tim Simmons

Um,
pavement aint nearly as fun, destroys tires and engines.
Hmmm where am I going race maybe dirt with having to go sideways and slide jobs and a real chance at passing slower cars or the pretty much fall in line don't get sideways of the asphalt car, hit all your braking marks type stuff. Yuk. Around here we always thought the pavement guys just don't like to get they're cars dirty.

I agree that they, Andy Hillenburg, are doing as much as they can given the lack of fan interest and therefore money flowing to the promotors from ticket sales. The big question I think is how do you attract the money to make it viable?