Originally Posted by Hubie48:
The economics of non wing racing has never made any sense to me. Some truly outstanding talent in terms of drivers and teams have come thru Non Wing Sprint car racing, Clauson included.
If I were a young driver or car owner without insane personal wealth, I am afraid I would have to look at Wing racing.
USAC has some GREAT talent right now! Swanson, Bacon, Seavey, Grant, Windom, Thomas Jr. They hold up six thousand dollar checks and smile while sitting on a 100k dollar race car! You don't have to go to an Ivy League School to question the math!
Not directed at you, just more or less building on your topic Hubie48..
So then why do these guys continue to show up to races that pay less than $5-6K to win? We commonly see Grant, Leary, Bacon, Ktj, Seavy, Ballou, etc. showing up to local races which pay $1,500 to win. Maybe one thought.. USAC doesn't keep them busy enough.
As a USAC guy showing up to a local race, they probably have: $150 in pit passes, $100 in truck fuel, approximately 3 new tires they throw away at the end of the day($750), and maybe another $50 in racecar fuel. So they have to win to make money (~$400). Anything less and it is a loss. And this doesn't even account for cost of a motor rebuild at ~$300 per race.
Now a local competitor (depending on the track) will have the same expenses, except will try to salvage tires a little more. For them, 4th-5th place probably gets them to break even.
I don't think most people realize the cost of the sport and how much more money wing racing gets just to show up. Wing racing has set a precedent for how much money they will race for. Why should local Indiana tracks raise their pay when top level talent continues to come for the measly $1400-$1500 to win and $200 to start?