Coolers and beer allowed to be brought in.

What keeps me from attending weekly now is time. Personal and family commitments. If not for those I'd likely hit 30 to 35 races a year like I did before wife and kids. Now what makes me chose a race or track is what's running, my personal history at that track and car counts. I'm pretty lucky I have 9 tracks I can get to in a 2 hours drive or less. A couple of these 9 track I won't go to because of how poorly they manage a race program. One of the biggest turn offs is wasting time. Unorganized programs with too much down time, poorly prepped tracks are another. Grooming a track during a 10 to 15 minute break is one thing, having to rework a track for 30 to 40 minutes every week is a game changer for me.

You are spot on.

As a fan that has attended races for going on 55 years, I've been to tracks that I swore I'd never go back to and to tracks to which I have repeatedly returned. As I approach my mid 60's I find that I am less tolerant of some deficiencies than I was in my younger years. Now, if you want my butt in the seat, the facility needs to be clean and well kept, the show needs to be well run with minimum downtime and there needs to be a decent car count (no 5 car features!). Value for my dollar certainly is a consideration as well. I'm picky I know, but I'd rather drive 2 hrs a few times a year to place/event where I'm comfortable and entertained than drive 30 minutes to track that doesn't seem to care whether I'm there or not.

A lot of common themes, I will hit on some of the ones that have not been mentioned. For me, it starts with hot laps. Does the track seem organized and get them done early? If the posted race time is 7:30pm, I expect the first heat race to hit the track at 7:30pm. Not we start racing whenever we get done with hot laps. Are you paying the announcer by the word? A good announcer will go unnoticed, a bad announcer will keep fans away. There is a local announcer that I can not stand and will stay away because he never shuts up. Does the track have a functioning lap board? It is amazing how much better a show will be when you always know who the top five is and how many laps are left. I want to have a set time for intermissions. 10 minutes is best. 15 if you must, but not any longer. Also, intermission should be timed, not the amount of time it takes to feed the track workers.

It all goes about being organized and running the track as a business. These are on top of the other items that have been mentioned before: Track prep, Track cleanliness, number of classes, and being done in 3-4 hours.

Wayne Davis,
I have to thank you for trying to do something with the midgets. We were at one of your shows at Brunswick, Ga. The track has made a lot of improvements and we did see some fairly good stock car racing. Not a lot of slambang, fairly well run show, but the problem is too many classes, time trials, ridiculous looking late models, cookie=cutter, what have you, a good class of street stocks would put on a much better show. So much for that. Sprint car situation in Florida probably less than 100 cars in the state, half want to run asphalt with wings the other half wants to run on the dirt with the wings. Two to five cars run good, the rest are there, both dirt and asphalt and they seem to be having trouble getting 20 cars together for a show. Time trials and wings should disappear into the sunset! I sure don't care to watch cars following each other around such as the Woo. So we just end up staying home and going once a year to Indiana to watch some really good non-winged sprints at Kokomo and Lawrencebug, Gas City. Grew up in the Pa./NY area and running and owning open wheel modified (coupes). So bring back the side by side racing and less classes and we'll be back. Thanks again, Wayne.
falconeddie