Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

I've heard there's a possibility of altering the pavement versions of the Silver Crowns for 2008. Any grain of truth there?

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

The rumblings are strong around 16th street.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Very interesting! Is it a situation where they would go back to the previous type of pavement car, or alter the current formula?

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Man, if they alter it too much there's going to be a lot of junk sitting around.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Well the tarot cards look like this:

AJ Foyt selling his new gen cars...

Jason S. back at USAC...

anyone care to add any more?:idea:

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

:thumb:

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

cecil,

there will be more junk if the old cars aren't considered anywhere for next year.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Hopefully both. Bring back the former pavement cars and run them on the less than 1 mile tracks in conjunction with the dirt cars and call that the Silver Crown Series. Keep the new pavement cars and run them on the 1 mile and over tracks and call it the Gold Crown Series.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

My sentiments exactly!!!:checkered: Dare we hope??

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

First I proposed gettting the Chili Bowl on PPV and everyone scoffed at itand now it is happening.

Then I said two years ago that the new cars should be a resurection of the Gold Crown series and leave the Silver Crown series alone now EVERYONE is getting on that band wagon.

I think the next time I have an idea I am going to copyriht it and make a fortune

No wonder I am a poor dirtywhiteboy :emote20:

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Mud Packer and Dirtywhiteboy, you are both true visionaries.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

We might know some more come Monday usac called a meeting to fill us in on the plan.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

At least on my end I would doubt this statement very much.:emote20: Being an official, most people say that I am blind.:kookoo2: It would be too logical and USAC would have to admit they made a mistake with the new cars. That being said, this is the only way to at least continue to utilize all the cars and make some sense out of a totally screwed up situation as it now stands. Anybody taking bets?:confused:

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

I, for one, am very encouraged by the fact that SOMETHING is about to happen. What remains to be seen but at least USAC appears to be exploring options. That can only be a good thing.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

The last time USAC exploered options we got those FUGLY go karts they are pawning off as Silver Crown cars.

Hopefully that lightning bolt of fate doesn't strike twice.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

don't break your arm, patting yourself on the back. When the introduction of the new cars began, plenty of people had the idea and were running with it long before you started your message board preaching.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

OMG it is a freakin joke newbie. Lighten up, don't you see the little laughing emoticon at the end of that post.

There was another poster on another board under that name.

Like the say in Cool Hand Luke " I sure hope you ain't gonna be a hard case?"

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

USAC sould bring back there stock car divison...and run them with the silver crown or sprints on dirt and pavement I would think there might be some NASCAR cars for sale about now.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

The new cars scrap metal.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

True. and if one has to go, i would rather it be the sherman tanks!

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

I've worked on both and believe me the old ones are so much more user friendly. 10,000 dzus buttons on the new tanks

I am intrested in hearing the outcome of the meeting SC96 is talking about.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

let me preface my pose with the fact i am only suggesting this as something interesting to think about as i have had a little fun mulling over the pro's and con's of the current situation with the silver crown series.

i believe that the old SC cars are definately the real ones, but from a business perspective usac imo needs to take into consideration the people who have supported them in this snafu known as the new pavement car and to junk the new car all together would be a slap in the face to those that supported them in the new endeavor (not that it wasnt a slap to the original owners when they found out their cars were no longer legal) but two wrongs certainly doesnt make a right.

the idea i had was 6 races on dirt, 6 races with the old cars, 6 races with the new cars. a gold crown would be cool but is another series to promote manage and make work which imo usac has plenty to keep their hands full now. a schedule might look like.

Dirt:
-manzy
-terre haute
-eldora
-springfield
-duquoin
-indy

Old Pavement:
-IRP
-Richmond
-milwaukee
-phoenix mile
-gateway?
-Iowa?

New Pavement:
-Dover
-Darlington
-homestead
-kentucky
-charlotte
-another ISC track

Points tallied for two sections of the series with ties going to the highest finish in the 3rd. This would allow the old car owners with dirt and old style cars to race for a championship, any new teams with dirt and new gen cars to run for the championship, and potentially allow pavement specialists a shot too. (or let the nascar devo guys just run a pavement schedule) i would think the dirt should be mandatory and choose your pavement variety with no reason a team with the means could not run all three sections.

just an idea to toss out there for thinking. there are some interesting aspects however some major hurdles could present themselves. just trying to think of something that doesnt slap anyone 100 percent. its not a good situation no matter how you hash it. flame away

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Geoff, your basic idea is solid. I would make a couple of changes in the tracks used, however. Gateway is too fast for the old cars. I would replace that with New Hampshire. I would move Gateway to the New Generation schedule in place of Charlotte, which I feel is unsafe for even the new cars. And for your unnamed venue for the new cars I would use Nashville Super Speedway, a much safer track than any ISC venue. But, as I said, a great idea that would give everyone a shot at the championship.:thumb:

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

No flames here. Heck I love that idea with a little addition. Add Sacramento as a late year dirt race combined with the Turkey night races at a California dirt track (Perris?). That way you could help with a bigger car count and bring a great track back to the Silver Crown series.

Too bad we can't work Syracuse in on a weekend of it's own instead of a weekend with 4 other races all the same day at the same track.

None the less a great idea.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

You guys kill me. It's time to come up from the basement, take your hands out of your pants, turn the lights on and join the real world. Not one of you has a dime invested but all talk like you have the answers. Your "FANTASY" is bull. Most of these tracks do not want us. Why.... ? Because we don't draw fans. We lost most of the old tracks before the new gen cars came about. Roger Johnson put a great deal of effort in a Silver Crown promotion and got about 200 paid at Memphis. Phoenix and Millwaukee were on and off before the new gen cars. Gateway and on and on.
This isn't monopoly money you "POSERS" (posters) are talking about....It's real cash that hard working owners are spending on any of these cars.
Before somebody jumps on the PRA thing I will address that. If USAC with 52 years of experience couldn't make the old cars work how could someone else? Low car counts, high travel expense, high tire bills and low purses doesn't make for easy success. I admire them for trying but it was an uphill battle to say the least.
I look forward to our meeting on Monday maybe some positive light will be shed.
I for one of a few put my money where my mouth is. I have one Beast pavement Silver Crown car with 7 races on it and two Riley New Generation Silver Crown cars.
Kevin Miller and Jason Smith are bright men I am confident that we will go forward.
I am not afraid to sign my name.
JIM PATERNOSTER
USAC Silver Crown #41 owner

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Geoff, I had this conversation last night with a current SC owner and we are in agreement; just because they messed over the "old SC" owners doesn't mean it makes sence to do it again.:doh:

Jim, lighten up my friend. Much of what is thrown around here is purely fantasy. I feel your pain as you own 2 of the new gen cars. You have identified the problem with most of open wheel racing- NOT ENOUGH FANS! :headbang:

Anyone that can read this board has a stake in and can make a difference in the 2008 season, lets work together to make it better than this year and keep moving in that direction until open wheel is the greatest spectacle in racing once again.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Great post, Mark. I do not disagree at all with Jim's reference to the lack of fans. But what is the reason for that? Lack of promotion. Weekly tracks get away with that because they have multiple divisions that beef up the back gate. USAC Silver Crown events do not have that. The "Back Gate" mentality of promoters does not work for the SC. How often do you hear radio spots or see TV commercials for upcoming SC races? Or see posters for them? You don't, at least not very often. That is how promoters filled the seats in the past. SC promoters seem to rely on the hard core fan to fill the seats and there simply isn't enough of us any more. Look around at a SC event and you will see a lot of gray hair. Promoters have done nothing to attract new fans. And USAC's past stance that they are not promoters hasn't helped. An effort has to be put forth to attract these fans and until that effort is made the fault for that lays squarely on the shoulders of the same promoters who are complaining about the lack of fans.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

dwight i would agree with all your schedule changes. i couldnt for the life of me think of another mile paved track and thought some once said gateway might have worked. (never even seen the place). and how could i forget nashville...at one time i had my own black mark on the turn two fence, perhaps thats why? :) in all seriousness nashville would be great. as far as being in the basement and clueless well i suppose i dont have a dime invested, and i really am just a dreamer on this one...hence the preface to my previous post jim. forgive me for thinking about your series, and please dont forget most of the people on here are IN the small group of fans you do speak of that love silver crown racing.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Most likely the best attended SC pavement race last year was at Darlington. They had USAC's show car all over for a few weeks before the race. They also had full size billboards all over their area to PROMOTE!
As said the key is promotion and marketing.... This is supposed to be Kevin Miller's specialty. Maybe him and Jason can get it across to the USAC board that they need to self promote and not rely on the individual track promotors to do the job. Those days are gone it needs to be a combined effort to get people in the seats.
Many of our races last year the people that were in the stands for the other cars did not even know there was a SC race coming. Thats the tracks fault ..... then they blame car count etc. etc. Put the blame where it belonged.
There is way too much competition for the entertainment dollar to leave any promotion undone.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

We are most certainly in agreement on that!

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

i agree fully on the promotion part. i believe that the sanctioning body needs to take on some of the responsibility to help promote the races. after all if a promoter cannot make money in the venture, it will be increasingly difficult to find people willing to shoulder the task of putting on the events. hopefully kevin miller can help in this department, however i think its gonna take a lot more than the efforts of a few.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Jim you need to relax here buddy. This is a "message board" where people convey there ideas and thoughts and yes maybe some of it is fantasy. But to be completely honest with you the existing tracks weren't trying to get rid of the "real" silver crown cars. It was the juggernaut called NASCAR that wanted to get rid of them! Hence Bill France heading up the ******** that they now call a silver crown car. Now look what has happened with the passing of Bill France! You find yourself in the same situation as all of the owners of the old cars that didn't step up and shove out a ridiculous amount of money for theses new cars. Now to say that none of us has a dime invested into these cars, well that could be the farthest from the truth. Now we may not own these cars but most of us either have alot of blood sweat and tears involved with these cars over the years. The others as fans have money invested in the form of the almighty entertainment dollar! Now for USAC to keep changing the formula for how this division will operate is going to hurt fan base and hurt the future of this division as a whole. Whether it be under the old cars or the new cars or to make everyone happy by running both style of cars! I for one would hope that there can be a happy medium reached and we will see all three different cars ran! As we all know that is what shouldve happened in the first place but we can't change the past we can only hope to move forward in a positive direction and hope that the greatest division in the history of USAC will once again and thrive and be just as strong as it used to be! You don't have to go that far back to see how strong of a division it was when we were drawing 40 plus cars to Phoenix and IRP and so on! There are alot of the older cars out there collecting dust that need to be showcased in front of the fans to get USAC back to where it used to be. Would TV help? Yes it would but it has to be the right TV package not the bs that they call a TV pakage right now! I think ESPN would like to show more sports instead of dog shows!

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

:nonwingfan: With the price of gas and travel expense we need to start over and think about how you get fans to start with. We need to
have races in the mid west and redraw our fan base and hope to get new fans that we can grow with. when you travel all over the USA and
hope that fans will follow (dreamers). We must grow our on fan base and then we can start making the circle bigger each year to add races
and gather more fans. I am sure the owners would be thrilled with a
opportunity to race at each track twice a year (nascar does correct)
We will see if a new face and new ideas can rebuild something that has been going on for 10 years.(more opportunity for fans to do other than race)

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

I will say the gentleman the put on the races at Memphis did a lot of promoting for it and I went down there to watch will say friday nights non-wing sprint car racing on the dirt the crowd was excellent and has for saturday's silver crown racing on the asphalt track there will say the crowd was way way bad and the racing on that track was not to good to watch.But what did the owners of the complex do they tore the dirt track out go figure here they might rebuild it who knows what will happen.Has for the old and new silver crown cars every owner both divisions has a lot of money invested in them hope it works out for everybody and they can race both cars therefore providing more of this type of racing to watch.The three races that were on tv from gateway was all great races to see every one was one on the last lap close competion.I keep on hearing that they would like to run a couple of the dirt tracks more than once my question is would the new style cars be able to run on dirt to so they could have a old silver crown car series for dirt and asphalt and a new gold crown series for the new car on the dirt and asphalt to just a thought.The only other thing I would like to see done is to have one car for both types of track types so they would not have to have mutilple car types cutting costs to run they used to run one car on both types of tracks a long time ago wish they would do the same thing for the sprints to one car both type of tracks.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Its all about money. What ever cars you run its about money. Promotors don't make money... no races. Fans can't afford to go to the races ...no races. This whole thing is based on that.
As far as tv goes you need to get more info on that. You don't just call up and get tv on any network. When I said get in the real world you all need to get facts before you post and not deal in supposition and opinion. Only facts count. By the way I like dog shows.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

I agree with several people here Jim this is a messege board and all of this is just fodder to feed the lust we have for racing. Do I have the magic answer, No, do you, NO. It is just a way for us to air our grievences about the dwindling fan base this series has and the seemingly bad way the series is run. I was someoen who got wrapped up in the USAC is best idea until I stepped back and realized USAC has alot of problems going on in it. I hope they have been able start a clean up and reorganization that is way over due. If our ideas posted here would actually fix all the problems going on in the Silver Crown, do you actually think we would be as how did you put it: In the basement with our hands in our pockets? NO we would be employed by USAC and fixing the series. We aren't that so calm down.

Good for you to sign your name but don't try to shame the rest of us that decide not to.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

USAC has open their eyes and thoughts from the top down. Kevin Milller has used the words Marketing & Promotion and USAC. We all want the best SIlver Crown series we can get. Sure this is a message board and people with nothing involved can offer their dreams or thoughts and others can pick on those thoughts but we all know that a lot of people including USAC read what others are think here. One post isn't going to change it all but others can read and maybe some of it might get brought up in the meeting.

Silver Crown isn't going to get fix in one meeting but the owners will get the chance for input. When is the last time that's happen other then their small divison reps meet.

Remember it was said at the start of the new cars that Bill France and NASCAR was the money and input behind the new deal. All sounded good coming from NASCAR. NASCAR did the deal so Bill France would have something to do at NASCAR. Lots of folkes said at the time that when Billy dies, there goes the series. The plug would be pulled and it would die a sudden death. NASCAR has no problem with dumping good race cars, look at the COT for both series.
With all the new cars for sale by Foyt, Wayne R and Keading already what is left? Not much. USAC can't just say no to the new cars because, NHRA dumped pro stock trucks and still is in lawsuits over that. So USAC has to be carefull to.

The good news is USAC is changing it's way of doing things starting a few weeks ago with a new prez and putting some folkes out the door.
I think that USAC's board of directors will give the new deal at USAC a clean sheet of paper to do whatever is needed to fix their problems.

Time will tell as we all are hearing the talk and we are about to see if it's real or BS.

:dologob:

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Jim,

I don't have an alliance with one certain group or the other. I run wherever my budget allows. Your views of what these other "possers" have to say is your own opinion, but I will tell you one thing that you apparently didn't manage to realize and that is the fact that these people you call "possers" are mainly USAC fans AND these "possers" pay at the front gate to watch most of these USAC races.

This same type of subject has been discussed on another message board regarding the club we mainly race with. I took notice of the things these "possers" had to say because THEY are the ones you have to entertain and if you don't keep them entertained then it's pretty obvious what the end result will be.

So keep in mind that you telling them to come out of the basement and basically driving home the point that they don't have any money invested which automatically makes their opinions not matter is pretty far from the truth. Owners, promotors, drivers and anyone else who relies on this money coming in the FRONT gate should listen to the concerns of these people. Not saying that everything should be made to suit each fan, but these are legitimate gripes from current fans that NO organization in the country can afford to lose.

Jim Anderson
UMARA National Midget #36
Joliet, Illinois

everything short of my phone number.. go easy on me!!!

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

Very well put Mr. Anderson you can see the whole picture here.I am a paying fan have helped people keep there cars on the track to race and would like to see the silver crown series grow and I also realize that it will not happen quickly but hoping over time things can get straightened out and then prosper.

Re: Any truth in the rumblings about a possible USAC pavement SC change for 2008?
 

agreed Sprint63122, you would show some patience as a paying customer as long as you saw some concern on USAC's end to right the ship.