So, it's no surprise that pavement racing is quickly becoming extinct. I grew up in Joliet IL in the days of weekly racing at the Stadium. Old timer you say? No, I'm just shy of 40 years old. Back then cars slipping and sliding all over the place, and drivers had to really "drive" the car. They fought each other hard on the track, jockeying for position lap after lap. Even in the later years as they moved to Grundy, the racing was must see. More times than I can count, the Grundy stands were nearly SRO. These days, they draw more flies than fans and its getting worse. From USAC, to your local short track, it's suffering. But why?
Mind you, I'm no expert, but here's my opinion.
The racing just isn't that good anymore. I blame the cars. Ever since the downtube chassis, and also the big offset, the cars are almost on a rail. It more often than not takes a mistake by the guy in front of you to execute a pass.
My sister went with me to a pavement midget race here in FL 20 years ago during Speedweeks. She hadnt seen a midget race since about 1982. She was disappointed that they weren't "fighting" for it around the track. That trend has continued.
STARS was doomed to fail, simply maintaining the status quo of its predecessors. USAC just keeps throwing everything at the wall waiting for something to stick, while trying to copy POWRI.
There are some groups taking positive steps. The Illini guys have a solid foundation thrown together in record time. I never thought 20-some years ago that this division would be the wave of the future. (Then again, the UARA started as a "B-class" series so we shouldn't have been too surprised in retrospect) Allowing different types of cars to compete together is refreshing, but I'm curious to know how many of the old STARS/UMARA "National" cars showed up last night? Big props to the lightning sprint guy that tried his hand, lets help this guy up his game huh guys. The $5 admission was the best bargain going. IMO, thats the key to returning pavement racing to the limelight. Free admission, then just tack on an exrta buck on beer and hot dog sales. Probably works out close to the same.
There arent many of us who are attracted to the RAW SPEED of pavement racing anymore, so we need to capitalize on it however we can. Cars that are too hooked up, and admission thats too high ($25 some places), drive folks to do other things.
Feel free to share your own thoughts on the state of pavement racing below.