All tracks except one are paved. Which may or may not mean anything.

My hope is the decline in NASCAR viewership might get some race fans back to the local tracks.

This past weekend 15 markets chose preseason NFL for local coverage over the Bristol night race. Not everyone got an alternate channel option. Yes, mostly due to the NFL being huge right now but it's still a decrease in local tracks competing against NASCAR TV coverage. I like that.

The best thing for a local track is the Die-Hard fan talking to a 'rookie' at the water cooler on Monday morning. Talking it up and trying to sell the rookie on the show. Promotors and owners can do everything they can. Flyers, commercials, Social Media. But when the advertising comes from spoken word, and first hand accounts, I believe it to be that much more investing.

The man who taught me sprint car racing in Arizona, worked as the Race Director for USAC in AZ, but also would do shows in SoCal, Texas, New Mexico, Vegas. He drove for a while, raced karts with his son, but his love was the USAC sprint cars. I remember on multiple occasions him telling folks "I'll buy you a ticket for the first night, and you'll buy a ticket for the second night to verfiy you saw what you saw."

He's an all around racer. Owner, Official, Driver, Sponsor, Fan... He bleeds methanol. But that statement alone over the years has gotten a few folks out at least once. Then its up to the track, drivers, concession stands, etc to keep em coming back.

Hell, as we speak, I've got a co-worker who had never been to a dirt race before last Saturday, texts me wanting to buy a car. Asking me to sponsor. Wanting to know the sport, the ins-and-outs. I cant be sure what posessed him to go on Saturday, but in a message he sent me, he said he doesn't want to miss a show. But something between hot laps, and the final checkered flag hooked him.

I think, as fans first, wether we own a car, drive one, own a track, or sponsor a racecar, we need to put ourselves back into the shoes we were wearing when we first saw what we love now. Strike up a conversation at the gas pump with the guy next to us or the neighbor or mailman. Something to get em through the gate and into the stands.

Racing isn't the only sport that struggles to gain new customers.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/19/sp...-one.html?_r=0

Good read, Vukie. Thanks for posting it.

It reminds me of a NSSN article about 10 years ago by Dave Argabright. He was sitting in a diner down in Florida around SpeedWeeks and saw this couple decked out in Dale Earnhardt, Jr., garb so he went over and started speaking with them. The story went along the same lines...... no interest in dirt, no interest in local tracks, no clue what a sprint car, late model, or modified was, just NASCAR via TV and hoping to meet Junior and get his autograph some day.

A very good article. It would appear to me attendance and car counts are down across many tracks in the Midwest...not just In Indiana. While the government and the news outlets keep saying how much the economy is improving, the improvements don't seem to be reaching the middle class, the lifeblood of a short track. The downturn in the economy got a lot of people out of the habit of going to the racetrack on a regular basis, and track owners/promoters are going to have to get creative to get people in the seats and competitors in the pits.

Using the economy is a lame excuse. Granted it is not great, but is better than it was. If it was the deciding factor all tracks would be in trouble. Some are doing pretty well

Using the economy is a lame excuse??
If I remember(or you can just look it up on your smartphone) unleaded regular was about $1.75 a gallon on November 8th 2008. It seems to me it has doubled!

How bout a used car? The people with limited incomes have seen the used car prices skyrocket after the intelligence of "cash for clunkers". You still don't think taking the drain plug out of a motor and running it till it blows up had some agenda written all over it.

How about a loan from a bank on a older car with over 70,000 miles on it from your local bank? My credit score is over 750 and my bank I had been doing business with for over 40 years said the government had changed there credit tactics after the "bailouts" and they could not help me finance a older "work car"

I don't have the time to draw a graph of how much your food prices have gone up in 5 years but I would easily say they have doubled.

The American people are hurting! Most American people have no idea of how things have CHANGED the past 5 years.

The same media that took one of the best people in Sprint car racing and convicted him of killing someone before they looked at the facts is the same media that is telling you things are better!!

These are not the only factors why the local seen is hurting, but calling the excuse about the economy a lame excuse is not really a FACT.

Well that was depressing