Per the NSSN history in racing series, the purse Jan Opperman won at The Hulman Classic in 1976. In todays dollars that would probably be $25 or 30,000.

Was this some kind of special event or have the purses just not kept up?

$12,000 in 1976 and $5,000 in 2009, something is not right here.

Yeah.... but look at the bright side Don. A guy only has to invest around a quarter million bucks (or so) to have a shot at that $5000.
David.

Makes sense to me, win a million, spend two million.

in 1978 i got $7700 for 2nd! I had bout $5000 in my car!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is a sore point for me. It really pains me that this race is not what it once was. Even just a few years ago, the Tony Hulman Classic was a big race. In it's recent success, it was run on the Saturday of Indy 500 Pole Day. I thought the race had found a home on that date, but in the last couple years, it's been run on a weeknight "whenever" in May; seems like another USAC race. The THAT management should look at this and realize they have a "crown jewel" event built into their track and make something out of it........

:28:

What they made out of it this year was over four and half hours long from hot laps to the end of the feature for only thirty seven cars and a phucked up track for qualifying on and only half way up on the half mile for the feature lets play huggy pole.