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Growing up where I did, the closest track was TSS and it was an hour plus away. With it running on Sunday night, we rarely attended as Mom and Dad had to work Monday morning. We would see one or two shows/yr. there and one or two USAC sprint shows at Salem Speedway. As an adult, once my family and I moved to the Indy area, we would go to the midgets at the Speedrome, LPS, Paragon, and IRP, along with trips to THAT, Salem and Winchester, but we certainly did not go to a racetrack weekly, maybe slightly over once/month.
With all that said, it’s a different world today. My son would sit and watch race cars for hours, but IMO, he was an exception. Most of his buddies (who we occasionally took with us to the racetrack) could care less. To them, there was too much “boring time”, it was too loud, it was too dirty, etc. Those kids are today’s adults.
To a degree, those kids are right. A typical night at the racetrack lasts 3.5-4 hrs. from qualifying to the conclusion of the feature. Yes…it is getting better, but there is a reason a typical movie is 90-100 minutes. That is the attention span of today’s audience. A kids movie last 68-75 minutes for the same reason.
I recently saw a report that said the percentage of teens getting their driving license when eligible has dropped for the last 5 yrs and is now below 66%. Our generation (yes, I’m a “boomer”) regarded getting a license as a rite of passage. We worked on our cars, and a good part of our income went toward fuel, car payments and car insurance. We didn’t have public transit, Lyft and Uber. It was have a car or walk.
I don’t have a lot of confidence that weekly racing will survive long term. Racing costs are continuing to escalate. Inflation is making families choose what extracurricular activities they enjoy. Urban expansion is making land increasingly valuable. Track owners and operators are getting squeezed from every direction. I hope I’m wrong.
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