Thread: Sheldon Kinser Memorial
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staggerman (Offline)
  #9 4/13/16 8:04 AM
Originally Posted by Sandy Lowe:
If I had to guess why there might not be a Sheldon Kinser Memorial in 2016 I would say car count, car count, car count, and money, money, money.

Bloomington's regular 20-car feature purse (as posted on their website) is $1,400 to win/$200 to start with a total feature payout of $8,095. They also pay $100 to the cars that do not transfer out of the B Main.

The 20-car feature purse for the 2011 Sheldon Kinser Memorial was $3,000 to win/$300 to start with a total feature payout of $12,135. That year they also paid the cars that didn't transfer out of the B Main $175-$150-$125-$110-$100-$90-$80-$70-$65-$60-$50-$50-$50-$50-$50. The cars that didn't transfer out of the C Main earned $30 each.

The difference between today's regular 20-car feature purse and the 2011 Sheldon Kinser Memorial 20-car feature purse is $4,040.

I did a quick Google search and came up with these Sheldon Kinser Memorial stats:
8/13/05 Dickie Gaines (37 cars)
6/10/06 Daron Clayton (44 cars)
6/1/07 Jon Stanbrough (52 cars)
2008 -rained out-
6/26/09 Kenny Niflis (42 cars)
6/4/10 Jon Stanbrough (33 cars)
6/24/11 Chris Windom (44 cars)
7/6/12 Levi Jones (43 cars)
7/5/13 Chris Windom (36 cars)
6/27/14 Dave Darland (26 cars)
8/22/15 Nick Bilbee (29 cars)
In the past 2 seasons the Sheldon Kinser Memorial has averaged 27.5 cars. The previous 8 runnings (from 2005-2013) averaged 41.375. That is a pretty big drop off in car count.

What makes last seasons low car count even worse is that it was part of the Indiana Sprint Car Series that was heavily promoted by Sean Buckley/Jackslash. The race was taped to air on MAV-TV and Sean had several prizes available including a Hoosier tire for the feature winner. He also gave away one of the coolest feature trophies I've ever seen.

I haven't worked at Bloomington Speedway for several seasons so I have no inside scoop on what is happening with this race. I wasn't there last year, but the pic I saw on the ISCS FB page of Bilbee taking the checkered flag definitely did not look like a packed house.

Maybe Bloomington Speedway doesn't feel that promoting a special race with a purse 50% higher than their usual weekly show is worth the risk? Maybe they don't want to risk the backlash of continuing the Sheldon Kinser Memorial with a purse higher than their regular weekly show, but less than what has traditionally been offered?

Maybe the August 26th race will be the Sheldon Kinser Memorial and they are waiting to make an announcement? [Oops! I guess this won't be the Sheldon Kinser Memorial, it's the same night as the Kokomo Smackdown]
Back when the event started it was a big paying show and those were far and few between in IN. Now guys can run 20+ races paying above 3k to win by hitting all the specials that all the tracks put on plus the sanction races with MSCS, USAC, etc. Plus history has shown lately the higher the purse the smaller the car count. I would be ok if they just put it as one of their regular nights to keep the name and tradition alive.
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