Tri-State Speedway surface
 

I haven’t seen any comments on here yet, but Haubstadt didn’t have it’s usual dust free surface last Sunday night. Wonder if Tom was experimenting with a new recipe?
Also, where were the fans? Very poor turnout. This is not a criticism of the track surface, just an observation.

Ron. I was just watching at home and noticed the same thing, but not quite as much as maybe you might have. It was still a track that Ohio folks would die for. Actually the only part that looked bad was the sprint B I think if I remember correctly. At any rate the features looked pretty good on Flo

Re: Tri-State Speedway surface
 

I was surprised at the crowd as well. Head scratcher being it was a midget week race. As far as the surface, it isn’t dusty but it did seem to be dustier Sunday. Sprint race was fantastic as usual and there wasn’t much dust for its entirety. On the other hand the midget A was a slog. I used to love seeing the midgets but the last few times here and at other tracks it is a yellow and red fest. Contact is constant, many times almost seemingly on purpose. The sprint feature ran in under 10 minutes, the midgets, closer to 45. Frustratingly difficult to watch.

Re: Tri-State Speedway surface
 

I too noticed the track was a little different, but for the most part relatively dust free. Since we live a couple of hrs. from Haubstadt I don’t know if their weather forecasts in the week leading up to the event Sunday were as variable as ours, but it seemed we had rain forecasted for much of the week and in reality got a few drops one day. With bright sun Saturday and Sunday, it’s hard to play catch up.

I was very surprised at the crowd or lack of. I wasn’t expecting a Sprint Week crowd, since it was Sunday night, but was surprised it wasn’t larger.

Although I enjoyed the midget feature, I have been disappointed in many of the midget features I’ve watched on Flo and at TSS. There seem to be an awful lot of bent parts at the end of the night at all the midget races I’ve watched. To a point, I get it….these are predominantly young, talented AGGRESSIVE drivers trying to move up as quickly as possible by winning and getting noticed, and they have backers and car owners that expect results, but a clean pass for position is starting to be a rarity.

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Do you all think the size of the crowd had to do with the high as all godly he!! gas prices?

That was my first thought.

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Originally Posted by nathans1012:
Do you all think the size of the crowd had to do with the high as all godly he!! gas prices?

That was my first thought.

Yup and I predict this will be the lowest turnout next month for ISW. Sure hope I’m wrong, but with prices continuing to increase I see no other out come. Why I mentioned on LPS thread that this is the time to increase the free kids age to 12-13. Heck even go to up to 16. Your going to lose families that can’t afford to buy 3-4 tickets and especially if they have to drive a couple hours one way. I’d much rather get 2 paying fans, then zero just because they can’t afford 1-2 more tickets.
Just post that the policy has changed for this year and will be reevaluated next year. Times are tuff and tracks are gonna lose fans ( not because of Flo or NOS ). They need to start thinking outside the box.

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:9::22:

Originally Posted by nathans1012:
do you all think the size of the crowd had to do with the high as all godly he!! Gas prices?

That was my first thought.

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With the price of gas and diesel, we will see fewer racing fans. Mostly at the tracks not real close to a bigger city like Tri-state. I see tracks like Lincoln Park and Bloomington getting mostly local people. Then there are the racers and some of their haulers only get 5 miles per gal., most racers only race for the fun of it and when it costs too much to have fun they will stay at home or just race less. The way the price of fuel is going up we will see tracks closing before long as some tracks will have to dig into their pockets to pay the purse. I don't know of any business that will keep operating when they are open if they lose money every time, they are open. I think by Fall the way fuel is raising lots of tracks will be closed. Most Americans are not stupid as they know what caused of this high-priced fuel, it is the ones now in charge of America. As I remember back when ***** lost the ******** by fraud, he had gas down to almost $2 per gal.

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"Then there are the racers and some of their haulers only get 5 miles per gal"

Also, think about all the fuel used by all the track prep equipment!!!

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Originally Posted by nathans1012:
Do you all think the size of the crowd had to do with the high as all godly he!! gas prices?

That was my first thought.

Not to forget the rising cost of everything else. The value of my house in Arizona went up 29% in the last 12 mo. That translates into higher rents. There are a growing number of people out there who simply cannot afford their rent increases. But things are so bad in Cali, Wash. and Ore. that there are people lined up willing to pay Arizona rental rates. That's kind of an off topic and extreme example but back here just rising food and energy costs are forcing people to rethink those discretionary expenditures.

Time for teams to go back to mini vans and tiny open trailers! Unfortunately, the average fans just can’t afford to go anymore. My uncle went to granite city, Bloomington and Lawrenceburg but couldn’t afford another night and 4 hours out of the way for Haubstadt as much as he would have liked to. People are going to pick and choose so none of the races will have as gods a crowds as what they had in the last 5 years. If this comes as a surprise to you, I guess you don’t remember the path it was on from 2008-2016.

Originally Posted by DaleDuBois:
With the price of gas and diesel, we will see fewer racing fans. Mostly at the tracks not real close to a bigger city like Tri-state. I see tracks like Lincoln Park and Bloomington getting mostly local people. Then there are the racers and some of their haulers only get 5 miles per gal., most racers only race for the fun of it and when it costs too much to have fun they will stay at home or just race less. The way the price of fuel is going up we will see tracks closing before long as some tracks will have to dig into their pockets to pay the purse. I don't know of any business that will keep operating when they are open if they lose money every time, they are open. I think by Fall the way fuel is raising lots of tracks will be closed. Most Americans are not stupid as they know what caused of this high-priced fuel, it is the ones now in charge of America. As I remember back when ***** lost the ******** by fraud, he had gas down to almost $2 per gal.

The price of fuel is a complex worldwide problem primarily about speculation in the commodity market, pent-up demand, and supply.

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Originally Posted by captrat:
The price of fuel is a complex worldwide problem primarily about speculation in the commodity market, pent-up demand, and supply.

And government policy has a direct impact on supply.

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JJ Hughes on Facebook put out a graph of a cost of one night of racing. In fact he was very generous on actual cost, Not including cost of a replacement nerf, rebuilding a pump. oil and rear end gear oil changes and that's a track within one hundred miles of home. Also feel like this was last months prices. But it compared cost vs payout and given only one set of rear tires was used up. They had to finish third to break even for a regular show. They had to win to do the same if more than two were used up. And all with the finish of putting the car back in the trailer with no significant damage

He continues that they race for fun and family time and yes, try to run up front with the best they can afford. They've succeeded

If you have facebook, I suggest you check it out. It doesn't include what a USAC team pays to run, Probably at least three engines with one always being freshened, carbon fiber bodys and titanium bolts. JJ and all teams need to be commended for putting on a show for us. I've seen more sprint car racers leave the sport before they ever really got started. Help them when you can. A pit pass, t shirt purchase. donation towards a tire helps. Even just letting them know you're a fan helps make it worth it to them

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Please stop all the political B.S on both sides. B&## on a RACING CHAT isn't going to solve it. My guess is most doing so have never called their reps or senators offices and sent the message to the only place it counts?

We all know the problems going on, Have our own opinion of cause and fixes. But bringing each other down, arguing over the solution only makes RACING which I enjoy. (it's one of my few outs from life problems) LESS ENJOYABLE.

I can still afford to go, But less often and closer to home. The later is mostly due to parent aging but now price is effecting that too.

Any chance the slide or die ridiculousness going on with midget racing is causing folks to lose interest? Also Sunday night racing is usually not as well attended given it’s a work night.

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Originally Posted by dsc1600:
Any chance the slide or die ridiculousness going on with midget racing is causing folks to lose interest? Also Sunday night racing is usually not as well attended given it’s a work night.

Midget week has always been less supported than sprint week 2020 was a bit of exception with it being the first week of fifty percent attendance allowed and both fans and racers were anxious to get out. If i remember right the participants were limited to like 40 midgets and 35 sprints.

And yes, I bet the tearing stuff up is why a lot of teams are not there, some are picking certain tracks to run at, and quite honestly, The pay sucks vs a dozen other races that some teams just choose to hold out to run them. BC39, Turkey Night, Husets, Chili Bowl (Yeah the pay sucks there except the top five) Hangtown and a few others.

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Originally Posted by sw1911:
And government policy has a direct impact on supply.

It actually lowered the price of a barrel of oil. Oil companies are making a killing right now. Check their record profits.

Re: Tri-State Speedway surface
 

Originally Posted by dsc1600:
Any chance the slide or die ridiculousness going on with midget racing is causing folks to lose interest? Also Sunday night racing is usually not as well attended given it’s a work night.

I found guys like KO working the bottom and Jay Drake and Ricky Shelton running the top (97/98 Pepsi Nationals) and Kevin Doty, Cory Kruseman, and Dan Boorse's epic battle at Tulsa in 2003 (where they all gave eachother room but ran hard!); over what's offered these days...

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Originally Posted by BrentTFunk:
It actually lowered the price of a barrel of oil. Oil companies are making a killing right now. Check their record profits.

All other things being equal, inflation causes record profit year after year after year.

I dont know about anybody else but I saw two Kick Ass races! Instead of celebrating the greatness we saw displayed Sunday night last, we would rather tune in to the latest episode of Race Track Autopsy: What went wrong!

Has anyone noticed how many seats remain for the million. I made a last minute decision to go and can’t believe the amount of empty seats.

Re: Tri-State Speedway surface
 

Originally Posted by ronmil:
I haven’t seen any comments on here yet, but Haubstadt didn’t have it’s usual dust free surface last Sunday night. Wonder if Tom was experimenting with a new recipe?
Also, where were the fans? Very poor turnout. This is not a criticism of the track surface, just an observation.

Ron,

I'm thinking that the track surface has been modified slightly from last year? The three trips that I have been there this have produced a floating type of dirt/grit that you typically did not see last year. Except for the WoO which always stirs up dirt. Weather issue?

Crowd was poor for a IMW show. But I thought B-Ton crowd was very light also. Sunday night, Central Time Zone, Fuel Cost, Night 3 of IMW, Waning USAC Midget interest, I'm sure all contributed to low attendance.

I had the Midget feature at close to one hour in length. Lots of Bonzai, better get outta my way passes/failed slide jobs that seem to be the USAC Midget norm these days. Winner said that he did what it took to win and beat KKM cars. Gotta (sometimes) love T.

Yes I thoroughly enjoyed both features though.

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Track at Haubstadt was fantastic....I think they can sometimes overwork it, and make it 1 lane for half of the scheduled race length.....I like it with a little slick....no issues.....The cost of Diesel will make you park the Farm Show...IMO

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Originally Posted by sw1911:
All other things being equal, inflation causes record profit year after year after year.

High fuel prices cause the price of everything to go up.

Just curious. How many campers were there and where did they park?

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There were quite a few campers parked along the N fence row of the NW grass lot. I don't know if it was more or less than normal. I think I heard that that location along the N fence row was going to be the "camper spot" for the rest of the season.

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Originally Posted by captrat:
The price of fuel is a complex worldwide problem primarily about speculation in the commodity market, pent-up demand, and supply.

Much of it is now corporate greed. During the 1st year of the pandemic demand for fuel bottomed and prices did as well. U.S. petroleum companies were hemorrhaging money and as a result they cut tons of workers and stopped new drilling. With gas at $5+ a gallon they are making, as per usual, obscene amounts of profit. They are now unwilling to reinvest in workers or new drills to reap profits, content to make us more dependent on an increase in foreign oil imports. ***** actually opened more areas for drilling, no takers. Some take anything and make it part of their political agenda. This is not political, ***** could have done no more about it than this administration, the bonus with the current administration is that there hasn’t been an attack on our democratic system of government.

Less campers

It wasn’t political until your last statement which was very political. No doubt the oil companies are making big profits right now. My only question is, if it is this simple why don’t they always operate this way. It wasn’t long ago gas price was less than half what it is now. Did the oil companies just now become greedy?

But let’s hear it for the double cheeseburgers. They were on point Sunday night. 😉

Originally Posted by The55:
It wasn’t political until your last statement which was very political. No doubt the oil companies are making big profits right now. My only question is, if it is this simple why don’t they always operate this way. It wasn’t long ago gas price was less than half what it is now. Did the oil companies just now become greedy?

No, since you want to have this conversation within a thread about the track surface from a race last week, they’ve always been “greedy”. Oil companies, like all publicly traded companies, are beholding to their shareholders. Since everyone is now in the stock market (and has been for twenty years) because of your 401k, your fund managers demand that publicly traded corporations make money, every quarter, no matter how well they did the previous quarter or previous year. The old accounting term “retained earnings” which is what we used to do with extra profits from one quarter to smooth things out for a future bad quarter is now obsolete. Now you just fire everyone and make the next guy show a profit when you have a bad quarter.

What this causes is oil companies, and all corporations, to worry more about stock price than productivity. Stock price, today, is about speculation, not productivity. Schlumberger, the largest oilfield service company in the world, lost billions in 2020, laid off a 1/3rd of their workforce, squeezed ALL of their suppliers for pricing concessions, cut cost to the bone, and made their stock price skyrocket because investors liked their “fiscal discipline”. They didn’t complete any wells (aka “frac”) to get that stock price. They cut cost and lived off their stock price. The banks figured this out and decided they liked this strategy better than the usual borrow and spend and overproduce and drive the price of oil down cycle that we’ve gone through for the past 25 years.

So here we sit. Oil production is stalled because fund managers like fiscal discipline, oil companies like higher stock prices, and everyone that knows nothing can blame it on supply chain issues, labor shortages, and the inability to drill on federal land in Texas (which comprises less than 2% of the drillable acreage in Texas). In reality, the government hasn’t done anything to stifle production.

But what do I know. I’ve only been living this roller coaster for 25 years.

LET’S TALK ABOUT RACING!

Originally Posted by wildman92:
But let’s hear it for the double cheeseburgers. They were on point Sunday night. 😉

Stay on topic please! Lol

Just responding to someone else that brought non-racing things into the conversation.

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Originally Posted by SoIllSprinter:
Much of it is now corporate greed. During the 1st year of the pandemic demand for fuel bottomed and prices did as well. U.S. petroleum companies were hemorrhaging money and as a result they cut tons of workers and stopped new drilling. With gas at $5+ a gallon they are making, as per usual, obscene amounts of profit. They are now unwilling to reinvest in workers or new drills to reap profits, content to make us more dependent on an increase in foreign oil imports. ***** actually opened more areas for drilling, no takers. Some take anything and make it part of their political agenda. This is not political, ***** could have done no more about it than this administration, the bonus with the current administration is that there hasn’t been an attack on our democratic system of government.

Corporate greed is a euphemism for I don't understand capitalism or free markets. [Capitalism, by the way, is what gave us the highest standard of living in the history of planet earth. People are literally dying to get into this country right now through our open southern border. If you don't believe that you may want to secretly tune in to Fox for a few minutes.] If the oil companies really are acting like a cartel, that violates our antitrust laws. And by the way, Democrat FTCs are historically less corporate-friendly than Republican FTCs. Sorry for the off topic but I didn't start it. Let's go racing!

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Originally Posted by sw1911:
Corporate greed is a euphemism for I don't understand capitalism or free markets. [Capitalism, by the way, is what gave us the highest standard of living in the history of planet earth. People are literally dying to get into this country right now through our open southern border. If you don't believe that you may want to secretly tune in to Fox for a few minutes.] If the oil companies really are acting like a cartel, that violates our antitrust laws. And by the way, Democrat FTCs are historically less corporate-friendly than Republican FTCs. Sorry for the off topic but I didn't start it. Let's go racing!

Do you ever post about racing?

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My point exactly Brent. Pretty tired of propaganda housed in a racing forum. You get that BS everywhere else online, this used to be a free zone from people pushing an agenda, I guess no more. And to SW1911, I am conservative in nature and have taught economics for 35 years, don’t try to school me with your particular brand of BS.