Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Sitting here watching TV and thinking about gas prices on the rise and the cost to race at tracks.

What are the Weekly Sprint Car payouts at race tracks here in Indiana and across the U.S. (Wing or Non-Wing) (410, 360, or 305)?




If I'm not mistaking Knoxville Raceway Payout for 410 Wing Sprints in $3,000 to win & $300 to start weekly.


.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Burgs is on it's website under Driver info and rules.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Lawrenceburg

Non-Wing Sprint Cars Feature
1. $1,500
2 .$850
3. $700
4 .$600
5. $500
6. $400
7. $350
8. $320
9. $300
10. $280
11. $270
12. $265
13. $260
14. $255
15. $250
16. $245
17. $240
18. $235
19. $230
20. $225

Consi (Non-Transfered Cars) must take green flag:

1. $100
2. $100
3 $100
4th on back $100

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Port Royal

410 Wing Sprints

410 SPRINT CARS SUPER LATE MODELS LIMITED LATE
MODELS
01. $4,000
02. $2,000
03. $1,500
04. $1200
05. $1,100
06. $1,000
07. $900
08. $800
09. $725
10. $700
11. $600
12. $500
13. $460
14. $450
15. $430
16. $425
17. $410
18. $400
19. $400
20. $400
21. $400
22. $400
23. $400
24. $400
TOTAL: $20,000

TOW: $100

BONUS MONEY
Bonus money is offered in the following amounts for any regular event feature winner who advances to victory from their original starting position of 9th or further back:

410 Sprints - $300 Bonus

Originally Posted by nathans1012:
Sitting here watching TV and thinking about gas prices on the rise and the cost to race at tracks.

What are the Weekly Sprint Car payouts at race tracks here in Indiana and across the U.S. (Wing or Non-Wing) (410, 360, or 305)?




If I'm not mistaking Knoxville Raceway Payout for 410 Wing Sprints in $3,000 to win & $300 to start weekly.


.

Knoxville for 2022 from their web page.

The weekly Knoxville Championship Series will now pay $5,000-to-win for all 13 410ci events this season and $625 to start. The 360ci class will pay $2,000 to win and $325 to-start. Pro Sprint feature events will pay $650 to win and $125 to start. This is an overall increase of more than $134,000 across all three classes.

Weekly non wing payouts need to double...bottom line it is no wonder everyone is going wing racing

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by Alsglide12:
Weekly non wing payouts need to double...bottom line it is no wonder everyone is going wing racing

Well this is the second post in a row ive read that you have posted before thinking about the consequences of what you are saying. I assume you are willing to pay double to get in? Or out of the kindness of your heart YOU plan to foot the bill for the doubled payout? I thought not......

Originally Posted by racefan20:
Well this is the second post in a row ive read that you have posted before thinking about the consequences of what you are saying. I assume you are willing to pay double to get in? Or out of the kindness of your heart YOU plan to foot the bill for the doubled payout? I thought not......

I doubt it cost double to get in to a weekly show at Port or Knoxville…. How do they do it should be the question

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

OK if they doubled the purse where is the $ coming from?

Originally Posted by racefan20:
OK if they doubled the purse where is the $ coming from?

I’m not sure. But I just checked both Attica & Fremont sites and both pay $3K to win & $300 to start with a good payout thru the field. Attica is $18 GA, $15 for senior. I didn’t see fremonts but would assume it’s similar. And Attica has a $47K point fund payout.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

To my knowledge, these are mostly unchanged.

https://www.indianaopenwheel.com/payouts.php

I'm not smart enough to enter it as a true table.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Gas City
Non-Wing Sprint Cars Feature
1. $1,500
2 .$900
3. $700
4 .$500
5. $450
6. $400
7. $325
8. $300
9. $275
10. $250
11. $230
12. $225
13. $220
14. $215
15. $210
16. $205
17. $200
18. $200
19. $200
20. $200

$75 Tow Money (must start B-Main for tow money)

Should be a $20 gate admission for weekly shows and increase the purse.

Saying you have to pay double the admission charge to get double the payout is a little bit of an oversimplification of the situation. It’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not the only answer. You could also continue to charge the $18 or whatever the current price is, but double the number of spectators. That doubles the track’s revenue and funds the payout increase too. There are additional overhead expenses involved with handling twice the number of spectators, but there are also operational economies of scale that balance it out.

Now, if your facility is at capacity, there are no more seats to sell, no more parking spaces, etc., then yes, your option then is to raise ticket prices. But other than an indoor show with Fire Marshall concerns, you can generally let more people in.

The solution is more than likely a combination of the two, get more people to come AND bump up the ticket price. And that takes promotion, which is the thing we lack these days. I blame the movie “Field of Dreams”. It introduced the phrase “if you build it, they will come…”, and that’s just not true. You have to tell people about it and you have to make an argument for why they should come and watch. Create that environment of FOMO the kids all talk about to their therapists.

The work that’s being done for this “No Way Out 40”, that’s promotion. That what the Chili Bowl does every year, promotion. That’s what successful races and successful series do to be successful. It’s not that they picked the perfect rules package or best tire sponsor. You have to have a message and communicate it to fans and prospective fans, and if you don’t “have” a message, you better create one.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by racefan20:
Well this is the second post in a row ive read that you have posted before thinking about the consequences of what you are saying. I assume you are willing to pay double to get in? Or out of the kindness of your heart YOU plan to foot the bill for the doubled payout? I thought not......

I'm just going to throw this out there. If promoters keep bumping the back gate and the guy putting on the shows costs higher but not doing anything with the front gate. Car counts are going to drop dramatically pretty quickly after the first couple of months of racing this year. We are coming out of a few good years that showed good car counts etc. Eventually with the increase in all costs to go race the average local guy is going to need more $$$$ to show up week to week or he's not going to show up at all. In most cases in Indiana especially you rely on the average local racer to show up or you will have 10-15 cars.

Mike Gass

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by Pitdad:
Saying you have to pay double the admission charge to get double the payout is a little bit of an oversimplification of the situation. It’s not entirely wrong, but it’s not the only answer. You could also continue to charge the $18 or whatever the current price is, but double the number of spectators. That doubles the track’s revenue and funds the payout increase too. There are additional overhead expenses involved with handling twice the number of spectators, but there are also operational economies of scale that balance it out.

Now, if your facility is at capacity, there are no more seats to sell, no more parking spaces, etc., then yes, your option then is to raise ticket prices. But other than an indoor show with Fire Marshall concerns, you can generally let more people in.

The solution is more than likely a combination of the two, get more people to come AND bump up the ticket price. And that takes promotion, which is the thing we lack these days. I blame the movie “Field of Dreams”. It introduced the phrase “if you build it, they will come…”, and that’s just not true. You have to tell people about it and you have to make an argument for why they should come and watch. Create that environment of FOMO the kids all talk about to their therapists.

The work that’s being done for this “No Way Out 40”, that’s promotion. That what the Chili Bowl does every year, promotion. That’s what successful races and successful series do to be successful. It’s not that they picked the perfect rules package or best tire sponsor. You have to have a message and communicate it to fans and prospective fans, and if you don’t “have” a message, you better create one.

With the current price of gas you may have a difficult time retaining your regulars let alone inducing more fans to attend.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by racefan20:
With the current price of gas you may have a difficult time retaining your regulars let alone inducing more fans to attend.

Let alone what will car counts be with cost of diesel, methanol and hoosier tires all going up big time. Going to be interesting.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

I have no answers on how to pay for it, but wingless drivers/ teams deserve a lot more. I'd be willing to pay a few bucks more at the gate.... have you seen concert prices lately?

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

The key was mentioned a few threads up. Promotion. Its all about promotion, advertisement and sponsorship. The last one man promotor and bank roll was Earl. He never took corporate money until the Mopar Million. In today's world this business model doesn't work. You must seek external funds beyond the front and back gate. If you can find local businesses to support some special race nights or add to the purse then the burden isn't on the admission and promotor.

Look at how Knoxville does its weekly shows. Its typically some sort of "night"..... Vermeer Night, 3M Night, Pella Motors Night, Casey's General Stores Night....... See where I"m going here?? The additional funds for those purses are coming from external sources that don't impact the gate. Those sponsors get their money back in return by the fans being consumers 10x. Race fans support what supports them....this where I don't see local tracks do enough to pull in the extra funds for larger purses.

Knoxville pays its weekly purse from profits made from the Nationals. I don’t think many weekly shows pay for themselves.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by dsc1600:
Knoxville pays its weekly purse from profits made from the Nationals. I don’t think many weekly shows pay for themselves.

You know I have heard this comment for years and I think there was probably a time it was the truth. Now a days I think Knoxville is the perfect example of how to market and promote to bring fans in. I mean they actually have had a full time PR Director in Kendra Jacobs for the past several years and there is always new sponsors, different fan nights to promote the events, and events in the community to get fans involved, really thinking outside the box. Bummed to hear Kendra just recently left to take a roll at Flo as someone has big shoes to fill with her gone. Plus you put 5k fans in the main grandstands and the place still looks empty, think there are more fans there than what you think.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by staggerman:
You know I have heard this comment for years and I think there was probably a time it was the truth. Now a days I think Knoxville is the perfect example of how to market and promote to bring fans in. I mean they actually have had a full time PR Director in Kendra Jacobs for the past several years and there is always new sponsors, different fan nights to promote the events, and events in the community to get fans involved, really thinking outside the box. Bummed to hear Kendra just recently left to take a roll at Flo as someone has big shoes to fill with her gone. Plus you put 5k fans in the main grandstands and the place still looks empty, think there are more fans there than what you think.

You are spot on, with all points. Especially with the amount fans that might be in those grandstands on a regular night.

There’s no way the weekly shows, point funds, insurance, safety crew etc…are not subsidized by the Nationals. They pay a $166k point fund and their weekly shows are almost on par with a Usac or All Star purse for 410s plus a healthy purse for 360s.

I’m not saying there is 200 people in the stands for a weekly show, but you’d need 4-5k weekly for that show to pay for itself and all the other costs and that just isn’t happening weekly.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by dsc1600:
There’s no way the weekly shows, point funds, insurance, safety crew etc…are not subsidized by the Nationals. They pay a $166k point fund and their weekly shows are almost on par with a Usac or All Star purse for 410s plus a healthy purse for 360s.

I’m not saying there is 200 people in the stands for a weekly show, but you’d need 4-5k weekly for that show to pay for itself and all the other costs and that just isn’t happening weekly.

I think you are hung up on the fact that Nationals funds them all, which I don't believe to be 100% accurate. Does the gate fully pay for the shows, probably not, which is the whole point that we are trying to emphasize.

The additional revenue streams pay for these weekly shows. Now, they have a weekly DirtVision feed, which is providing an external revenue source. They are the best in the business at marketing and promotion and local business want to be apart of it as it influences consumer behavior in that market greatly.

If every seat was sold @$50 per night for the Nationals @ 25,000 seats they would gross $5M in those 4 Days. The total purse pays $1.1M. I"m sure they clear $2M after all purse and fees and overhead is paid off of ticket sales. If every weekly show is $100K total purse that would be eroded in 20 shows based on your logic that the Nationals pays for it all due to the lack of attendance. Then how would they pay their points funds at year end? .

Not a sustainable model even for a fair board.

I doubt it has a huge impact. If you’re running a 410 most expect and understand it’s a loss anyway. I know it has NO impact on our plans.

Do you think the reason why Knoxville can pay more than local Indiana tracks is the fact that there are a lot fewer sprint races in the area for fans/sponsors/competitors to choose from?

Counting wing 410 & 360 races Knoxville has 24 race nights. There are another 15 races across the state giving Iowa a total of 39 sprint races. NONE of those are scheduled against another sprint race in the state.

Checking the Indiana schedules there are 138 non wing race nights scheduled. There are multiple nights where two (and sometimes three) tracks compete against each other. And this doesn’t include steel block sprints, World of Outlaws, silver crown races, or pavement racing.

Originally Posted by Sandy Lowe:
Do you think the reason why Knoxville can pay more than local Indiana tracks is the fact that there are a lot fewer sprint races in the area for fans/sponsors/competitors to choose from?

Counting wing 410 & 360 races Knoxville has 24 race nights. There are another 15 races across the state giving Iowa a total of 39 sprint races. NONE of those are scheduled against another sprint race in the state.

Checking the Indiana schedules there are 138 non wing race nights scheduled. There are multiple nights where two (and sometimes three) tracks compete against each other. And this doesn’t include steel block sprints, World of Outlaws, silver crown races, or pavement racing.

You make a good point but that’s not the case in Pennsylvania and specifically central Pennsylvania where there are multiple tracks with 2 competing with each other on Saturday night and I don’t believe any of them pay less than $3K to win…the same can be said for Ohio where you have both Attica & Fremont paying $3K/300 & while Attica has no Friday night competition Fremont can have as many as 3 other tracks running sprints on a Saturday night

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by motorhead748:
You make a good point but that’s not the case in Pennsylvania and specifically central Pennsylvania where there are multiple tracks with 2 competing with each other on Saturday night and I don’t believe any of them pay less than $3K to win…the same can be said for Ohio where you have both Attica & Fremont paying $3K/300 & while Attica has no Friday night competition Fremont can have as many as 3 other tracks running sprints on a Saturday night

From what I've seen their car counts are no higher than ours and sometimes less. Only Port seems to be able to have three or four heat shows with consi's

Knoxville Nationals weekly shows run as a deficit all year.
The money made at the Nationals keeps the weekly acton afloat.

Originally Posted by Charles Nungester:
From what I've seen their car counts are no higher than ours and sometimes less. Only Port seems to be able to have three or four heat shows with consi's

You may be correct but the discussion is on payouts

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by Sandy Lowe:
Do you think the reason why Knoxville can pay more than local Indiana tracks is the fact that there are a lot fewer sprint races in the area for fans/sponsors/competitors to choose from?

Counting wing 410 & 360 races Knoxville has 24 race nights. There are another 15 races across the state giving Iowa a total of 39 sprint races. NONE of those are scheduled against another sprint race in the state.

Checking the Indiana schedules there are 138 non wing race nights scheduled. There are multiple nights where two (and sometimes three) tracks compete against each other. And this doesn’t include steel block sprints, World of Outlaws, silver crown races, or pavement racing.

Your question is really around supply/demand with the premise that Knoxville is a monopoly, correct? I would say that I don't think the geographical monopolization of Knoxville matters that much. I think its really about the prestige of racing and winning there. Knoxville is the most famous dirt track in the world(a debate can be made for Eldora) and that is what really matters to drivers and owners in that region. They travel from MO, SD, MN to race each week there and at one point Dobmeier was coming down from ND on a weekly basis, 13 hour one way tow. Indiana teams will jump up and tow to Knoxville for a weekly show if the weather or schedule permits. Yes, they want track time, but it at least pays them to show up and race. Plus, they want their names in the archives with the most famous owners and drivers to ever win there.

In regards to pay Knoxville has always been one of the leading tracks nationwide in terms of payouts. Long ago, Knoxville and the Grove had a healthy competition on who paid more on a weekly basis to win. The missing piece was WG paid more, but Knoxville's purse was much higher in the back end as well as the total point fund.


If you were to choose an apples to apple comparison you would need to look at Central PA vs. Indiana This would give you a decent compare point. I"m going to say that at a glance PA still would be in favor of higher payouts with around the same amount of races and they have a lot more higher paying races throughout the year too..

I"m going to catch grief for this and I'm only saying this because its true. The concern with Indiana is that is completely over saturated with the same product on a weekly basis. Indiana is basically cannibalizing its fan base. What makes one fan choose between track A, B or C on any given weekend? Is it location, cost, or potential field of cars, payout....etc???? Its all about the same on a weekly basis unless someone is running an increased purse to pull someone in the gate.

The local tracks most likely don't have an internet feed or source of revenue yet so that doesn't increase their ability to pay a higher purse. Indiana dirt tracks are falling behind in the grand scheme of what's happening. They need to study some of these other facilities and ask questions on how to do it better. This is where Central PA would have the upper hand in the debate on purse payout.

Honestly, I think the Fremont/Attica comparison is much better than the Knoxville one. Fremont and Attica seem to have more in common with the Indiana tracks. In my opinion they seem to have around the same size of fan base and bleachers. Knoxville is huge and holds the biggest sprint race on the planet, nothing in Indiana compares.

So I think it's a fair question why 2 tracks in small town Ohio can pay double what any Indiana track pays weekly. With the die hard fan base in Indiana I seems like a valid question.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

There's some really great points made in this thread:
Sandy makes the salient point that the competition is fierce in Indiana; MotorHead makes the great counterpoint about the Pennsylvania scene; and Kart#51 susses the alternative revenue streams. Again, all really great points made.

And each of these points collate what I surmise: Indiana sprint car payouts could be better than they are presently, but I doubt that any of the tracks have the potential to reach the level of Knoxville Raceway's prizes. As Kart#51 was alluding to, it would be nice to see more corporate involvement in the local shows and, in addition, it has yet to be seen which Indiana track will be the first to plunge into the world of online streaming. (It's destiny, by now.)

As an avid race-goer, I have this to say to my beloved promoters: shows designed to "pay the bills" through the back gate always tend to keep this front gate consumer away. I understand why it's done, and I'm not mad about it, but all I want is the understanding that there are people like me out there who are a potential revenue stream, as well.

Even though we may never be king of the mountain, we can always strive to be better. :22:

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

Originally Posted by deadhorse30:
Honestly, I think the Fremont/Attica comparison is much better than the Knoxville one. Fremont and Attica seem to have more in common with the Indiana tracks. In my opinion they seem to have around the same size of fan base and bleachers. Knoxville is huge and holds the biggest sprint race on the planet, nothing in Indiana compares.

So I think it's a fair question why 2 tracks in small town Ohio can pay double what any Indiana track pays weekly. With the die hard fan base in Indiana I seems like a valid question.

Maybe because the National Wing guys don't just show up when they aren't busy? Therefore the price has to go up to bring in talent?

I have always wondered what impact the National USAC guys bring when they show up to local races. Showing that they are willing to race for $1,500 to win and $200 to start. I bet the top 10-15 national guys have to win a local race to break even when they start tallying the crew, tires, and fuel they are paying for.

Also, Wing guys are busier. Once spring hits, there aren't a lot of weekends off for the WoO and Allstars. USAC, while it has a similar amount of races, does theirs in spurts with weeks off in between.

The National guys aren't even breaking even when they win. I figure it costs me 1000 a night to race, and I don't pay my crew or tow the car with a semi.

Re: Weekly Sprint Car payouts?
 

They lose money on every weekly show. Only make money on their 3 specials.