Pennsylvania Perspective
 

One of our IOW legends Charles brought out an interesting topic on another thread. I’m not saying this to be verbatim, and Chuck please correct me if I’ve misinterpreted your thoughts. But Charles basically implied over saturation of wingless sprint car racing in our great Hoosier state is leading to a slow death of that type of racing. That and a lack of cooperation among tracks when bigger shows are run. I certainly agree with him on the later. But the first part got me thinking, which can usually be dangerous, but how do they do it with so many wing tracks in Pennsylvania? I might be all wet on my perception from a 600 mile distance, but I’ve always likened Wings in Pa, to Wingless here. I’ve never even been to Pennsylvania so my vantage point might be off, but is that a fair comparison? I would like to get some thoughts from folks that have experience with both. I’m sure my bud Yeleyfan76 can help me out on this

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

There's only 3 Central PA tracks that run weekly, you can't put western PA into the PA Posse equation. I am not sure how many tracks run weekly wingless sprints, but it's more than 3. But the biggest difference in Central PA and Indiana is....to Posse fans sprint cars are the pinnacle. They love them and will support any big race around. No matter the sanction, WoO, All Stars, non-sanctioned whatever. A perfect example of this is last night. Non-sanctioned Steve Smith Sr tribute at Lincoln. $19k to win, packed house, other than Pittman and Thorson, not a national name to be found. All Central PA guys, packed house.

There are alot of race fans in Indiana, but the sprint car fan base is smaller. Some may be passionate about pavement, others dirt. Some are living in the past and want it to be 1977 again. Some are focused on IndyCar etc... But there's not as large a sprint car focus as there is in Central PA, which is why those tracks can thrive and be successful.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

Lifelong PA resident here, still live less than two hours from several sprint car tracks. I have seen a lot of winged racing and still do. I have seen so much winged racing I kind of get sick of it. I started following non wing racing in '84 and its my favorite and have waited a long time to see it here.
Back to our winged stuff, I think the car counts are decent here but some teams are running out of parts. I don't believe sprint car racing in PA is suffering too much, not really seeing over saturation. Plenty of 305's, plenty of 358's, enough 410's to go around. I've been to 14 races and I think they all have paid a minimum of 5 thousand to win. I have to scratch my head when I see some Indiana tracks only paying 1,500-2,000 to win with basically is the same general admission price as here in PA.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

I welcome a discussion on this as long as it's done respectfully to each other and to the tracks and racers.

I think the biggest night we've had in Sprint car count this year was about 90 cars which means there are probably another 30-40 who've raced at least once. Perspective is 2014's Bill Gardners 2014 indiana sprint car standings which shows 188 cars had raced on dirt in In Indiana by the end of June of that year. Thanks Bill (RIP) and Mrs. G for leaving that thread up.

2013 showed 233 ran a race non wing in Indiana on dirt.

I say this to show there is only enough to support So many tracks on each night given friday and sunday are hard for many teams to make and that 90% of the teams can only run one or two nights a week, If that.

Correct me if I'm wrong but Port is the only PA track getting great car counts. Many of the others can't support four heats or a consi.

Funny thing happened to us in 2008 We were out in PA /NY/NJ amusment park tour for two weeks. Saturday we leave Elysburg for Hershey. Throw a timing belt and wait for three hours to get tow truck around noonish. I bet fifty race cars passed us while we were sitting there. The repair shop was just up the street from Big Diamond Which was off that night) Anyway 2008 was also a year Gas hit over 4.00 a gallon, the highways and amusement parks were bare Far off normal attendance)

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

Lincoln Speedway has had good car counts, always four heats. 358's also four heats. As I mentioned earlier car counts are pretty darn good on Saturday nights. Williams Grove has a hard time getting a full field on Friday when they are the only track running though. I'd love to see Path Valley run 410s on Friday nights.

Hi. Long time reader, new poster. PA subject drew me in.

Lived OH til 90 and saw all 80s IN sprints and USAC (hewitt hood butler vogler). Great stuff of course. Since '90, near Philly so PA sprints and love Eastern mods (all the sliding! and speed, self starting, less wrecks and danger to drivers).

Subject of PA versus IN reminded me of the idea that the Grove sprints may not have big numbers but they are a weekly track w long straights and trying to have cars that compete w WoO and ascoc. Very high costs.

There is a great podcast episode with Richie Tobias that mentions the subject
The cost of eastern race cars. Try putting "big block modified podcast mike griswold" in google. Episode 77.

Tobias with a driving, building, Race shop, and promotion background really knows a lot.

He thinks we're a little bit crazy to be running such expensive cars and I think he's referring to the Williams Grove Sprint cars and then the Eastern modifieds fantastic cars... on Saturday night

So that's going to hurt the car counts but it still can be great racing particularly modifieds at Bridgeport

Speaking of Bridgeport as a first-time poster this forum ... I would like to thank some Anonymous USACer and Levi Jones who FedExed my wallet to me after I lost it there at a usac race last year... cash included. !

Thanks also for this really sharp for him

Very cool!

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

Hard to compare central PA with Indiana. Take Williams Grove they are 1.5 hours from Baltimore, 2 hours from Philly. Way way more population near central PA to draw from than Indiana.

A track that runs a "PA" sprint race around a lot of people is bridgeport nj... just across the river from Pennsylvania, only maybe 15 mi south of philly... I live in a Southern Philadelphia suburb and I could vaguely hear the Big Block mids when they ran over there :)

I looked up the timing in that Richie Tobias podcast... he's laughing at about 23 or 24 minutes in 'bout how we eastern race fans dont seem to understand that the issues with running $100,000 race cars on a weekly basis.. hes a good storyteller ...

Great episode w van may there as well

Tobias has the cool idea with the Speedster that if you get well known drivers racing in less expensive cars you can pay them more !

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

My home track, Lawrenceburg, is a 1 hour drive from Dayton, Ohio and Lexington, Kentucky. It is a 2 hour drive to Columbus, Ohio; Louisville, Kentucky; and Indianapolis, Indiana.

Just wondering out loud, but does Williams Grove really have that much of an advantage being able to draw from Philly and Baltimore over Lawrenceburg?

Besides, in my experience, it's much more of a chore making a trip from Philly to Harrisburg than it is to make a trip from Louisville to Cincinnati. (Don't get me started on that danged turnpike!)

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

LOL...Not many people from baltimore and philly are coming to the central PA area for races. They seem to have other interests.

Yeah to go to the Grove from Philly means not only 90 mi drive, but trying to get there through Friday PM Philadelphia area traffic... lincoln further in miles.

Bridgeport on the other hand is in the Philly metro area probably 5 + million people within 50 miles of that race track... running 305s more often these days

By the way if anybody's at bridgeport for the USAC race in a week or two, and you want to grab some local food without much traffic or travel, John's Seafood, only five miles north of the track will do a really nice broiled crab cake to go. Family place, closed tues I believe but open wed.

There’s definitely people from southern Jersey and reading area that go to the grove for the big shows. But probably not that common for a regular Friday night deal because of the traffic as mentioned above.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

It’s pretty simple actually. The population is larger within a two hour radius of Harrisburg than a two hour radius of Indy. Secondly as has been discussed before, the average age of the fans doesn’t increase much at all here in Pa. The age out there keeps going up. Those two factors alone are huge. They pay a lot of money here in Pa and don’t need a sanction to do it. WoO and ASCoC are here a lot yes, but the majority of the season regular payouts here would make Indiana promoters close up. It always comes back to money. Fred Rahmer said way back in the 90s, “sure racing on the outlaw tour would be nice and could win some big money, but why do it? The money offered in Pa is great and you can sleep in your own bed.” He put triplets thru college just racing here. In central pa sprint car racing is a way of life for a lot of people. I live 15 miles north of Philadelphia and 16 miles from the Turnpike bridge to NJ. It used to be if you lived here sprint cars sucked and our big block mods reigned supreme. Unfortunately a bunch of tracks closed around here and the sprint car tracks still run weekly. Population and age are the two biggest differences between Pa and In. Oh yeah and riding on Americas first super highway the Pa turnpike is also a bonus! (humor)

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

Wolfgang said it was worth going to PA every weekend vs the outlaws tour and he could be home two days a week.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

What about Baltimore Billy ? lol

Actually go to Hoseheads right now and you’ll see they are having car count problems too this year in PA. By the end of this season I think you’ll see promoters cutting back on scheduling next year. They had this season scheduled out when gas was still in the 3’s. Now that it’s in the 5’s, things are going to change. Not to mention the tire shortage problems. Less shows with more fans and cars is the answer for now….or at least while we weather the storm of the next 2 1/2 years.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

You're already seeing tracks scheduling back. Adding classes to both try to get fans and purse paid. I-96 said they lost on the FAST/Boss show and have been making Social media threats, Without 2000 fans have sprints, without 1500 fans we won't be racing. Normally Id say, Well they're not promoting good enough, But clear to me, People are skipping enterainment dollars in order to pay for necessities.

If you think this last only two and a half years, Add two and a half too it. Right now jobs are still strong, but when the spending stops or is limited to necessities. A whole lot of jobs are going bye bye. We haven't even started. It's the perfect storm for deep recession or worse. no finger pointing or name calling. But anyone thinks we're even close to going in the right direction needs to look deeply at what's happening.

Agree 100%. I am cutting back in other areas to try to maintain my race fan budget but it’s getting tough.

Given prices of gas... and some day a new car... I feel lucky to have a 20 min drive to bridgeport. Now rebuilt along lines of Lawrenceburg, races are on flo, sell season passes. Watch heats on flo, and show up for feature knowing what happened and the order of events ... even if ticket office has closed.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

I think one of the biggest things hurting car counts is being ignored. The fascination with the "to win" money and ignoring the start money. It's getting harder and harder for the "field fillers" to get home and face their family. Most of them just build the car they can afford and race for expense money and try to not loose more than they can afford and more and more are just having to park their cars.

As far as the stands, I live in Kansas and go to more races in Indiana than in Mo. and Ks. combined. I got tired of paying to watch 10 classes (some tracks have 5 classes of mods and 3 or so stock cars) with not enough cars for more than 1 heat each when the track takes rubber before the heats are over. I also gave up taking friends who were not race fans because none of them want to sit in a dust cloud watching cars ether slow roll the bottom or rip around a rubbered down track both single file.

It sure seems more and more there are fewer casual race fans and most people in the stands are associated with someone racing being the reason they are there.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

That's what I was saying about the over saturation of support classes diluting the TOP CLASSES.

When I was young, We had Sprints and stock cars (Late Models). Occationally booster beetles on the card or midgets Not 305 racesaver, 305 open, 360 ASCS, 360 open, 602 crate, 604 crate, STEEL BLOCK

Didn't matter what you had in that, You ran the Mainline Sprint class or didn't run at all. there was all kinds of motors, Buicks, olds, Big Blocks, small blocks, flat head fords. In the stock class there was even a inline six that was competitive.

But that's what people came to see, Two classes and a guest class or thrill show or whatever and not six classes, none of which can fill a full field.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

PA perspective here. We seem to have decent car counts as mentioned before. I think most of the races I've been to this year have paid 400-500 to start. I'll ***** about some of our promoters but when I step back and look at how they have upped their game to keep the racers and fans I have to applaud them.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

These two things are intimately related. I wish there was a promoter near me who understood.

Re: Pennsylvania Perspective
 

I don't recall ever witnessing it, but I've heard of tracks combining the classes, and just running one "feature", for the whole bunch, and paying out "whatever" they had money for, and did it on more then one occasion, wild and woolly they say!

Yeah these multi division shows take more time. And I like sprints and big blocks more than other divisions. Also features more than heats and consis.

So I am lucky to have Bridgeport nj nearby w races on Flo and season passes sold. Can enter late for just the features even if ticket office has closed.