So, it's no surprise that pavement racing is quickly becoming extinct. I grew up in Joliet IL in the days of weekly racing at the Stadium. Old timer you say? No, I'm just shy of 40 years old. Back then cars slipping and sliding all over the place, and drivers had to really "drive" the car. They fought each other hard on the track, jockeying for position lap after lap. Even in the later years as they moved to Grundy, the racing was must see. More times than I can count, the Grundy stands were nearly SRO. These days, they draw more flies than fans and its getting worse. From USAC, to your local short track, it's suffering. But why?
Mind you, I'm no expert, but here's my opinion.
The racing just isn't that good anymore. I blame the cars. Ever since the downtube chassis, and also the big offset, the cars are almost on a rail. It more often than not takes a mistake by the guy in front of you to execute a pass.
My sister went with me to a pavement midget race here in FL 20 years ago during Speedweeks. She hadnt seen a midget race since about 1982. She was disappointed that they weren't "fighting" for it around the track. That trend has continued.
STARS was doomed to fail, simply maintaining the status quo of its predecessors. USAC just keeps throwing everything at the wall waiting for something to stick, while trying to copy POWRI.
There are some groups taking positive steps. The Illini guys have a solid foundation thrown together in record time. I never thought 20-some years ago that this division would be the wave of the future. (Then again, the UARA started as a "B-class" series so we shouldn't have been too surprised in retrospect) Allowing different types of cars to compete together is refreshing, but I'm curious to know how many of the old STARS/UMARA "National" cars showed up last night? Big props to the lightning sprint guy that tried his hand, lets help this guy up his game huh guys. The $5 admission was the best bargain going. IMO, thats the key to returning pavement racing to the limelight. Free admission, then just tack on an exrta buck on beer and hot dog sales. Probably works out close to the same.
There arent many of us who are attracted to the RAW SPEED of pavement racing anymore, so we need to capitalize on it however we can. Cars that are too hooked up, and admission thats too high ($25 some places), drive folks to do other things.
Feel free to share your own thoughts on the state of pavement racing below.

I don't believe pavement racing can be saved. No one wants to save it.You could easily save it by putting in strict rules and enforcing them. Credit goes to USAC for attempting to save the aspect of the sport I really enjoy.However, the majority of race fans do not care for pavement.It seems everyone is dirt crazy for some reason.I like both, and feel if you want to call yourself an all around race car driver you should be good on both surfaces.Bryan was a perfect example. He could run Kokomo one night and run Winchester the next day and be just as competitive.Very few have that ability and talent.

Actually, there are many people who want to save pavement racing. The problem is, the people in position to do just that, are not stepping up. And those that do try and step up, make it worse.

the different rule packages all across the country, and from track to track are the biggest contributor to low car counts in my area. I work at a pavement track, and we run the same classes as a track 30 miles down the road on a different night, but we share almost no race cars. Different tire and wheel rules, different weight rules, engine rules, and a few other minor things. Why in the world they refuse to work together for the good of the sport is beyond me. They will not even try to discuss it.

Back when I promoted, more than a few times I took a red-eye drive to some other parts of the country to sit down and meet with other promoters to make sure we kept our rules the same, and we tried our best to honor each others big races. You know, not schedule against each other when the big shows were on the line.

But, even in the dirt racing scene, they are starting to take the same path as pavement started about 15 years ago. Too many people starting up new series/ classes with different sets of rules. People can not travel on off nights any more without buying parts/ tires, or changing stuff on their car. Hell, a lot of times, they just can not go cause the engine rules are different.

Pavement winged sprint cars use to have one series in the Michigan area. Now we have three, and there is very little cross-over. 30 car fields have dropped to 15. Dirt is no better. We now have 3 totally different rule packages up here. 30 car fields were common. Now a full field is rare. The kicker is, we still have about the same number of cars as we have always had.

Agree on the fact that there are too many series. But that's a byproduct of too much variation in the rules. Everyone wants it their own way instead of working together for the greater good.

I'd watch some pavement racing if they would loosen the cars up and make them as your sister says a fight to get around the track.
As it is I don't like watching a car that is glued to or especially pushed into the ground by a wing.
IMHO if you want a good pavement race put on the hardest tire they can run and run the race for as long as the tires will last going sideways. Now that would be a good pavement race.

So funny to hear someone say that.
The Illini series ran on DOT tires for 20 years, it was a blast to drive and cheap as hell to run.
But every one bitched, not the participants, that it wasn't a real midget because it wasn't on a real tire.
It's a sick chuckle when I hear people ask for exactly what we had.
I miss the days of affordable racing for the blue collar teams.

Totally agree with those sentiments. I thought the Illni thing would be a gimmick at best, a few years and gone. The raw speed of national midgets still gets my attention, but who wants to see the same 3 cars win all the races?

Like a lot of other things, it will have to save itself, tires are probably the biggest expense, no doubt, that's why DOT tires made it affordable, in the early 60's, I worked part time at a gas station in Alexandria, Va, when the Military didn't need me, and they happened to be an Atlas Tire dealer, anyone old enough to remember BUCRON? We sold as many tires as we did oil changes, Dan, the owner, happened to like racing, and during that time, the Atlas Bucron tire was the hot setup on asphalt, street, strip, oval, and dirt, an amazing tire, kept racing alive on pavement, then guess what, it got outlawed, someone had a better idea, why not make em slicks, and special, and more expensive, and that was the end of that era, but that didn't stop everyone, just enough left to make a race, and it's been down hill since, I remember well, the words, "this set of tires will run you all season", which was true, but after hot laps, they weren't worth throwing away, they weren't even good for another practice session, to be competitive, you need new tires every time you go on the track, sure, they'll get some heat in them, and then you can go, but by then your at least one lap down, but you can run them all year, how many laps would you be down in a year? Tires with tread on them seem as good an answer as any, to me! Bob

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The tire rule we have in place allows a team to buy the entire set of tires for under $400. These tires can laat several races. We are also enforcing tire and engine rules very closely to ensure we keep the cost down. The engines we use are also very affordable and can be as cheap as 1500 dollar's. In just our 2nd race we pulled in 16 cars and I'm getting calls and messages daily from teams wanting to join us in the near future.

The rules package in place this year with the group at Grundy is a product of many winter meetings between STARS and Illini.

The engines running upfront in this series are well over $8000.
Tires will last until they go flat but I promise they won't be fast at that point.