Pat, you are right on about Belleville. I remember in the early 90's there was a guy staying in the city park, (sorry, I forget his name), open trailer, sleeping in he back of the truck and having the time of his life! As for the rest of your comments about the atmosphere at Belleville, change the name of the Belle-Villa to the Elephant Run, and you're describing the Chili Bowl today. Do you think 300 cars show up in Tulsa each winter expecting to win? They're there to say, 'I raced at the Chili Bowl' and have a good time.

Solutions? It's going to take some common sense, LOT'S of compromsing and no matter how big the sanctioning body, in this economy, sanctioning bodies are going to have to work together to get a decent car count. The Gold Crown at Granite City is a perfect example.
PowerI comes up with this race. USAC says, 'wow, wish we'd have thought of that, but how about a co-sanction?' Now, PowerI can either say, 'no, we do not do co-sanctions' (where have we heard THOSE words before?), and USAC immediately schedules against them. Or they drop their ego, and, VOILA, we have an event that people are talking about all year, and if promoted properly will continue to grow for years to come. When was the last time THAT has happened?
In the past years, it has driven me CRAZY when PowerI and SMRS have races scheduled 100 miles apart on the same night, with 20-25 cars at each track. How hard would it be to work together and have 40-50 cars in the pits?
As Don Moore has stated repeatedly, something must be done to bring the cost of midget engines down to the level that, maybe not the average working man, but at least a couple of upper middle class working men could put a team together and go racing. The number of people who would spend $30-$40K to win $2500 (or less) is rapidly dwindling. Maybe a Red and Blue division like they had in the 40's, where the Offies ran the red circuict and the flathead's ran the blue circuit needs to be looked into?
Love him or hate him, Don speaks from his wallet. How many on here who bash him can say the same?

As for television... USAC IS alive and well on TV. I was surfing the channels, and stopped on the off road truck racing. A couple of trucks got together, taking one out. In the driver's interview, he said, "We don't need that kind of driving out there. I'm sure USAC will have a talk with him." Maybe that is why we aren't hearing much out of 16th St. Maybe the off road trucks are going to be the premier division of USAC in the future?

USAC has one thing going for it that no one else has... HISTORY! I hope the powers at 16th and Georgetown NEVER forget that!