The original post asked what ideas we have to make USAC racing more successful with a focus on the pavement sprint cars side. I am one of many IOW lurker that reads every post but does not offer much input but this subject I believe I may have something to offer.

Our family race team has run USAC Ford Focus for three years and in the last four year ran USAC and local Indiana dirt sprint car races. We have been a member of USAC for all of those years. In the USAC sprint car series we have only been able to run the dirt races. We do not run the whole schedule but run as many that we can make and be competitive in. Our race team is financed with our family disposable income, any winnings and with a little financial help from other individuals.

In the Focus series we were able to run dirt and pavement with the same chassis and a lot parts to change it over from dirt to pavement and back to dirt. To date I still believe that this was some of the most economical racing that our team has ever done and that we where competitive in each week.

If we decided to run a pavement sprint car and wanted to be competitive we would need to purchase another frame, motor, wheels and all of the other hardware to build another car just to run seven USAC pavement races with no local races in our area. This would be compared to the fifteen plus USAC dirt races along with all of the other local dirt races that we could run every weekend in Indiana.

If our team was to run a pavement sprint car we would need some or all of the following:
•A sponsor to help defray the cost (what will the sponsor get for his investment)
•Lower cost of the equipment (same frame & motor)
•Lower operating cost (less cost in tires, fuel, travel, etc.)
•More races (more usage of the equipment that we have invested in)
•Increased purses (help with the cost of the investment and operating)
•Win the lottery (fix all of my problems or just start them)

In no way am I asking for any of this. I am just making a statement if our team was to attempt to go pavement sprint car racing this is what would have to happen.

Now if USAC can take time and analyze the situation, develop and implement a plan then maybe in the future our team can go pavement sprint car racing.

In the end the people that are associated with our race team are a bunch of racing addicts that will do about anything to compete in this world of race that we all enjoy.

Kirk Robbins