I was wondering why none of the dirt tracks run a weekly midget series along with the sprint cars. I would love to hear from everyone on this. Especially promoters. Is this something that could get decent car counts like sprint cars do at pretty much all the weekly tracks? Would it be profitable for promoters? Would it bring more fans to the track? I would love to see more midgets on dirt in Indiana!

In the past there have been weekly shows at the Speedrome and 16th street speedway. Both drew acceptable car counts but neither were promoted very well and failed to draw enough of a crowd to support them.

My thought would be it would work as an additional night. Have Sprints, Midgets and 3/4s or mini sprints, it would attract me to go.

Let's do it.

Track promoters are too tied in to Bomber, Mods and Street Stocks to replace them on the program.

Its pretty simple, in order to run sprints and midgets, you have to pay out alot more money. In exchange you would have to charge more admission. That is why you you don't see tracks running sprints and late models weekly. You have to run a feature division with good payout, and down from there. I'd love to run sprints, mods, Lates, and midgets weekly, but we'd have to charge too much admission to cover the purse. Hope this helps you understand. There is alot more to it than that, but i won't get into details.

There lies one of the problems in open wheel. The cost of running a midget has become steller. So people that own them think they should get a purse equal to Sprints. If the purse was kept down then there would no way to justifiy the cost. Then midget racing would become an affordable stepping stone again. Instead it is now a rich mans toy.

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The problem with your thought process is, if you offer a midget class paying $200-$400 to win you will be lucky to drawl 10-15 cars. Socks and mods are going to bring in 15-20 every week and several nights many more. That 5 car difference equals about $400 in pit money. Could it work, yes it can, but it is going to take a prime race night and consistant money and no weird formats. 1 other thing people forget about, Race tracks are not run like they used to be. Most tracks have 2 or more people on a weekly payroll running them. They days of a guy working 40 hours then running his track on the weekend are long gone. Thats not a dig on any track just facts. That why you rarely see any tracks making big improvments.

The more I read posts like this - the older i feel....

I grew up picking splinters out of my butt from the wooden grandstands at good 'ol Ascot Park. Friday Night it was AMA flat track bikes on the half mile. Saturday Night it was Dean Thompson/Bubby Jones and the 410 CRA cars. Sunday evening it was Sleepy Tripp/Wally Pankratz/Robby Flock and the USAC Western Midgets. I loved each of those shows but the one I NEVER missed was on Sunday - the Midgets. Of course the Sprinters were the ones that packed the place on Saturday but the midgets (and the bikes) drew a fine crowd of thier own. And on those special nights like the Pacific Coast Nationals or Turkey Night, when the Midgets got the prime time slot.... standing room only.

The cost of running a current Midget over the course of 2-3 seasons is not very much less than running a 410 over that same period of time, but the payout is waaaay less due to the fact that the Midgets, as in the example I gave, are typically a "sunday" show and therefore, half full grandstands are considered normal and acceptable. Back in the good 'ol days of Ascot (and Manzanita, and others I'm sure) the cost of running a Midget over the course of 2-3 seasons was more in line with the payout (I know, I know... it STILL was expensive but not like now), so that guys could manage to keep coming out on a weekly basis consistently, thereby giving the promoter some inventory upon which to build a weekly program.

My point is that with the current state of Midget racing, even if a promoter could manage to put a good weekly program together, he would have a hard time keeping an inventory of cars sufficient to put on a decent show over time due to the cost of keeping a good Midget running (vs. the payout).

This, if I'm not mistaken, is roughly what has taken place up at Sun Prarie among other places, where they had an awesome track, a loyal fan base, and a good inventory of cars for a very long time. Eventually, the cost vs. pay equation just wore the inventory out to the point where a good show could no longer be counted on.

Fortunately, solutions to this dilemma are at hand...

http://
www.revolutionracingengines.com

Bring back the Volkswagen 2180 and bring back the 166 cubic inch ONLY IF YOU HAVE A STEEL BLOCK rules.

you couldn`t stay late enough to watch three classes of open wheel cause it may run a little after dark