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ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and beyo
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Just one look at the HTMA /ARDC Midgets /presented by AutoBahn Indoor Speedway midgets website and you can tell there are changes a brewing. Since taking the helm in 2015 ARDC president Wayne Lesher and the ARDC board of governors has steered the 77 year old racing organization into a position that they, and many others, believe is the direction needed to be successful in today’s environment. When I was elected in 2015 I had an idea in my head, Lesher says, but I didn’t really know how to pull it off. I’ve been in business for 16 years and I knew that the ARDC had to operate as a business; I knew if I could reduce the overhead and manage the business properly the rest would fall into place. One of the first things Lesher said he did was to go over the financials of the organization with ARDC treasurer Jerry Steward. Lesher says, Jerry was in business for many years and he knows how to manage cash flow. I’m a little bit more aggressive and a risk taker then Jerry but his conservative nature makes a good balance between us. I might want to spend a little more on something and Jerry a little less and he makes me prove to him that my idea will work before he concedes. From an outside perspective 2 of the most notable changes are the 2016 race schedule and list of sponsors. The ARDC has historically been a traveling series Lesher says, but it the past few years it had been more difficult for teams to travel. A lot of our teams are family operations, they have kids and full time jobs and there isn’t a lot of time left over for racing. Traveling as far as we were was just not working. I have traveled all over the United States with my own racing and it wears you out. So Lesher took the schedule and made what he calls “a tighter foot print” I’ll travel anywhere to race….I love it! But you aren’t going to grow your ranks that way. Lesher says I look at where our market is and picked tracks that were within an hour of the area. For 2016 the ARDC schedule consists of 23 races at 7 different facilities. All the races are within 1 hour drive of Harrisburg. There was a lot of thought put into our schedule this season Lesher says we have only 2 weekends that we race more than 1 race so it will still allow our teams to be able to do family events, work overtime, etc. and all the tracks are easy to get to from the turnpike, 81 or 83. If we do have a multi race weekend we have a few week break in between. It just made sense Lesher says we still have a fair amount of racing with nice breaks in between events and they are all easy to get to. With the schedule set it was now time to court sponsors. Lesher says I knew if I could get our schedule in a tighter area it would make it easier for me to convince sponsors to back the ARDC. I’m in business and spend a lot to market my business. It would be very tough for me to justify using the ARDC to market my business when the races were 3 hours away from where I do business. Because we were now had a more regional presence it made it much easier to find sponsors. And find them he did. The list of growing sponsors on the ARDC website look like they also are in agreement with the direction of the organization. Lesher says, I feel very optimistic about the future of midget racing on the east coast. I field calls and emails all the time from people asking about midget racing. We have a few teams renting cars this year so if someone wants to try a couple races before they jump in with both feet it’s a reasonable way for them to do that. The cost of racing in general and midget racing in particular has been a topic of discussion on social media. That was one of the toughest things to overcome Lesher says. I would hear all the time people say “I would love to race own a midget but I don’t have $30,000.00 to spend on an engine”. That drove me crazy, my car won 3 races in 2015 at a 1/8 mile, ¼ mile and ½ mile track and I paid $12,000.00 for my engine. Brett Wanner who is a front runner with the ARDC and feature winner has $7,000.00 invested in his engine. Of course you can spend any amount you want to but you don’t need to and I have always said your racing will cost you exactly what you have to spend on it and not a penny more. So once I started pointing those things out to folks it definitely helped and the facts have a funny way of putting things in perspective. Lesher also raised the race payouts for the 2016 season and has instituted incentives for teams that race more often. With being able to increase our sponsorship and reducing our overhead it has allowed the ARDC to put more back into the purse, Lesher says, we are traveling less, paying more and racing at tracks in front of the guys and girls that will buy midgets so we will see what happens. Visit www.ardcmidget.com for more information |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
I agree! I like the direction ARDC is heading. I love this years schedule, running more tracks like Linda's & Lanco. This is where you need to be. The only thing I would change or suggest, is not totally ruling out the 1 hour distance travel from Harrisburg. I'm being a bit selfish here lol, but I have been begging for several years to get ARDC in Central NY, Syracuse Region to be exact. With Dirt Modified Driver Larry Wight's Chili Bowl debut this past Jan, he has taken a big interest in Midget racing. He has looked into having ARDC come to Brewerton &/or Fulton Speedway's (Both tracks are owned by Larry's Father, John Wight) in the near future. ARDC has visited both Speedway's in the past, but not in many years, not since becoming a Wingless Club. Larry has also placed orders for 2 Midget's, he will definitely be returning to the CB in 2017, in his own equipment. With assistance from Heffner Motorsports, which is who he drove for at this year's CB. I hope the Club is open to coming to the Syracuse area in the future.
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Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by DICK DRAGON: A perfect scenario for me would be the ardc running in the Syracuse area and them also implementing a D-2 division as in Indiana where I could have use of my Minisprint. Minisprints have pretty much disappeared from this area theres some 600cc cars that they are now calling minisprints, but they are micros running on 10# diameter wheels. It seems we have renamed minisprints to lightning sprints and micro's to minisprints. Now if we could just rename winged cars to something other than sprintcars and we'd be getting somewhere. |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
we are not eliminating the travel just postponing it temporarily. We need to build up the ranks again. right now we are pulling from a local pool of approx 20 cars. when we mix in some mini sprints and travelers we increase to approx 30
before we can start traveling again we need to have a local pool of 30 cars and mix mini's and travelers so we can increase to 50. Thats when we can travel and anticipate 18-22 cars. we lost 2 guys last in 2015 but we picked up 5 over the winter!! we increased the payout ($1,000.00 to win $ 150.00 green regardless of car count) added incentives for guys who race more ( approx $1,5000.00) if you sign in to every event but we have broken down into 5 race blocks so even of you only string 5 races consecutively you still benefit |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
I really like the idea of co-sponsored events. USAC/ARDC shows last summer were great & I'll be back!
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Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by Backitin: https://www.facebook.com/NorthEastWi...432363630806:0 |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by revjimk: I wonder who really does, its the first I heard of it. It's a great idea and I hope it works out. If they run this season, I'll make the trip over to check it out a couple times. I've never been on facebook but maybe someone should let him know that getting the word out on IOW would be a good idea. IOW is big everwhere. |
In my opinion we do not need another class of race car especially in the Northeast
Everyone tries to focus on cost of racing I have said it a million times you're racing will cost exactly what your budget will allow you to spend Convincing people to buy a race car that they will be stuck with when the class does not make it doesn't make a lot of sense New Egypt has been trying to get this class off the ground for a few years and the only way that they have been even remotely successful is by essentially giving cars away What we have embraced in the ardc is creating an atmosphere that people want to participate in and will be justly rewarded for their participation If you take a look at just about any spec class division it never grows and it mires in mediocrity This of course is my opinion for what that is worth :-) |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by wlesher: Nothing ventured, nothing gained |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by Backitin: |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by Backitin: http://www.accordspeedway.com/contact-us.html |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by wlesher: It would be nice to do away with the crap and only have a few classes, too bad in your opinion theres no room for the best class of all, nonwinged sprints. I mean midgets are cool, but they aint no sprintcar, so as far as the fans go were still lacking. Back before there were so many classes the racing wasn't as complicated or spread thin. There were a ton of cars with no rules, now theres a ton of rules with hardly no cars. Go figure. If you really get into todays rule books pretty much all racing is a spec class anymore, theres not a whole lot of choices and ingenuity is pretty much a thing of the past. Pretty boring. |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by Backitin: That's what got me started back in the early 1960s, Smokey Stover running modifieds (hotrod coupes!) at Eastside Speedway, Waynesboro Va. He started in the back damn near every race (full inversion by points) & won 22 out of 24 races in 1962! |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by revjimk: |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Props to a respected midget sanctioning body making some logistic & business type changes to keep things headed in a good direction...rather than just getting drunk on the "2.4 Kool-Aid" and banning equipment that many have in their shops! I look forward to reading of more positive things out that way!
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Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by revjimk: The variety was unreal and if you really wanted to race pretty much anyone could afford it. At Flemington the four or so fastest guys always started at the rear and always put on a show getting to the front. Nobody grumbled about being inverted, today if you put the fast guys back they act like your insulting them or ripping them off. The racing went downhill and tracks closed with the invent of the factory modifieds, especially Grant King mods and Weld cars, cars for wealthy owners and drivers. Besides that the eastern modified owners had to compete with a influx of cocaine money into the sport. I know of two big time cutting edge builders that pretty much helped destroy the sport by having huge pockets of dirty money (both eventually went to jail) but the ball was rolling. Cookie cutters, especially the over priced over engineered cars did nothing but price many guys like me out of the sport and onto motorcycles as we did or maybe finding a different hobby all together. About the same time in the name of outright speed everybody had to go winged, more horsepower needed, more speed equals more money always has. Anytime I hear a interview of a driver of a dirt car and he says he was keeping the car hooked up and as straight as possible, I know the racing sucked. |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
NES is pushing hard but the track owner is the motor and wheel dealer. they are suppose to be sealed spec engines but.....since the track owner sells the motors and owns a car, and can have his own stuff sealed...well, you can take it from there. ps....his modified failed tech at least once. form your own opinion.
as far as accord and their series, i didnt check results every week but the times i did, i didnt see any results for this class. accord is a great track run by a dictator that would rather run 4 classes of 6-8 fender cars as a filler (support classes) so he can get the back gate money rather then fill the stands when ardc runs there. |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
if mr. palmer is a midget fan, perhaps he should show it by having a race or two. the track is awesome for midgets, which has been proven a few times.
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Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
we have run brewerton and fulton and would really enjoy coming back. 2 races back to back with a car wash right down the street and a holiday inn express with trailer parking.....not a bad deal.
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Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Anyhow all being said I like the ardc and I wish them well.
If there is a next race vehicle in the garage it has to be a nonwing sprint or there is no way I'd be happy with anything else, obviously a personal decision. We'll be at accord opening night to check it out, it wouldn't matter to us wether there were 6 cars or 26 at least we'd have somewhere to go. I wish someone would approach PennCan speedway in Susquehanna PA about running a few nonwing shows, its a nice 1/4mi track and the sprints would be great on it. I'd run a car for sure if they had nonwing sprints. As it is I try to go watch the mudbus modifieds every few years but I cant stand it. If the guys are interested in running there someone could pm me and I'd drive over the hill to talk to the promoter to see if theres interest. He's been running a couple winged shows and also just started having the nonwing 600's competing a couple times a year. The hillbilly's around here would go nuts for nonwinged sprints. I use hillbilly in a complementary way, were proud of it. My sons speedway racing knickname is the "Hillbilly Hotrod". |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by Backitin: |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Where is Flemington anyway?
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Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by revjimk: the whole coke gossip could or could not be true....there is a TON of stories and also mob money involvement. luckily that was going on before the internet...... |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
One a builder and one a driver of "cutting edge" cars.
The kind of team that would build a couple exotic over the top cars to be used once at Syracuse. All true. Flemington Fairgrounds in NJ. By far the greatest track, cars and drivers in modified history. Fastest 5/8 mile dirt oval in the world. The modifieds in the mid seventies were averaging 121 mph. Death and destruction in the early days of tshirts a lap belt and openface helmet. Flemingtons knickname was flip city, lots of em due to the angle of the wood catch rails. Many a crash ended with the cars completely destroyed, some there would be just the cage left and the rest scattered everywhere. Were talking 1000 hp big blocks in 1600 lb. cars welded up in a garage somewhere, not everybody can weld, lol. Wolfgang went around in a winged car at 144 mph average. Flemington was much more than a race track, it was a show. It started with the homebuilt big blocks, the colorful drivers and the promoter took it from there. The promoters name was Paul Kool and he was that. The fairground was all white and purple to match his hemi convertible cuda pace car. Tex Enrite the starter would start the main event standing on the track, He'd have the cars barreling down on him wave the green and just barely get out of the way. He was also dressed in Indian garb, which added to the craziness. It didn't stop there even the water truck driver's added to the show by driving just as sideways as the cars when they were watering. It was really amazing and you could have attended thousands of races across the country but if you didn't see Flemington you aint seen it all. |
Re: ARDC Board of govenors positioned the club for 2016 and
Originally Posted by Backitin: |
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