Why do 280 drivers, including Mike, pay an entry fee to the Chili Bowl each year? It's not sanctioned by usac, badger or powri. It's because it's a "special". Fridays show was originally part of the FC Pride 50 and paid out more, including $50 more to start. This Sunday is the "Terminator", another "special". So what's the difference?
The 2 weekly races FCR has run so far didn't have an entry fee. If they had, then this would be a different argument.
40 some sprints have been paying an entry fee each night at sprint week over in Indiana. They're not all usac members, most running on a temp permit. Which is another fee in it's self. After sprint week is over, it's back to $30 a pit pass and that's it. Weekly show, weekly pay.

The next race afterwards is a $1400 to win, $150 to start. And no fee.
It's not like they are try to set a precedence of charging entry fee's for a weekly show.

Personally, I do pay an entry fee to send cars to the Chili Bowl, to the Knoxville Nationals, Short Track Nationals, and even to race POWRi. I don't like doing it at any of those, but all have entry fees that are long established.

I suppose you can call a $2,000 to win show a 'special', and as long as it's something you can hang the 'special' tag on, I guess to some it's justification for an entry fee.

Next Friday at Jacksonville we have a 3,000 to win/300 to start sprint car race and in September we will have a 4,000 to win sprint car race... both without entry fees. That doesn't make us right and FC wrong, but it's pretty obvious that since these are "specials" that I'm leaving $1,500 on the table as the promoter by not charging a fee.... and that $1,500 would come in handy to make the shows work.

I guess that's my point. Personally, I don't want to have any sprint car race in Illinois have an entry fee. It hasn't been the norm before now, and I'd like to keep it that way. I was just stating why MHess isn't going to be at an entry fee sprint car race in Illinois. I don't think at this point it's necessary to make a $2,000 to win 'special' work. But I've been wrong before.

And please don't take this as a bash against FC or Jeff for doing it. I'm just stating my personal position on the matter, and in the long run, I think I'm on the wrong side of the fence on this one.

I agree with mike and Kenny. And I get the point mscs20 makes on the chilibowl. The chilibowl boggles my mind why I want to continue doing it, from a racers standpoint it's a blast to race against such a broad field of great racers, but from a owners standpoint, it is a financial disaster. It's a bad example, in that it is racing in the middle of winter, Its a spectacle. Now the Knoxville nationals on the other hand makes sense. Yea there is a entry fee, I think like a 100 bucks or so, but that is an entry fee to race for a million dollar purse! That entry fee entitles your car to five discounted pit passes each night, and that entry fee gets the driver and owner in free all week. Now I would be glad to pay that 50 dollar pre entry, if myself and my owner would get in free. Lol. I know that is Knoxville though, and they treat sprintcars like they are truly the main show, and that race is a big deal. With that being said, I hope to see this show survive and hope that farmer city can have some success with this. I personally was thinking about running this show last friday, though I didnt look into it any closer. I would pay a 50 entry for maybe a purse of 10,000 to win, but I just dnt think 2000 justifies that extra expense. Jmo

Posted via Mobile Device

Sorry to hijack this Farmer City thread with my thoughts on the economics of Sprint Car racing, like I have done. Again, none of this is directed at FC, they just happen to be the topic that started it. My thoughts are about the broader question of long-term, who pays for us to race Sprint Cars.

If 30 cars pay $50 that's $1,500 for the track. If that same track is charging $15 to get in the grandstand, that's 100 fans worth of revenue. If each of those 30 drivers would just help promote the show and drag 3 more fans to the races to watch them, they have basically saved themselves the need for an entry fee.

A pretty fair estimate at shows I've been involved in is that roughly 75% of all revenue generated at a race track goes back to pay or insure the racer. We always harp on our MOWA guys about how if they get people to the race track, that in the long run they will be racing for better purses and better pay. If they don't help get fans to the race track in the long run, they are going to be paying more and more of the cost of the show.

What probably isn't fair is that if the racers work hard to drag fans to the track, and the promoter hits a big home run the racers don't get to participate in the upside on account of the effort. That's why you don't see racers promoting shows that hard - what's in it for them in the short term?

For the sake of discussion, I've always wanted to try a show that paid the racers a set percentage of the track revenue for the night to give them more incentive to help promote the shows.... or even base the payout on the total number of people at the event. Share some of the risk as well as some of the upside. I've been told over and over again that it wouldn't work. As a promoter, I would give up a large percentage of the big nights, as long as it also took out some of the sting of the bad nights.

But... I bet if I advertised a show that paid 1,000 to win if a certain number of people attended, $2,000 if another threshold was met, $3000 at another threshold etc.... that I'd be pulling teeth to get racers to show up because everyone would call it a $1,000 to win show that's not paying them enough.

Anybody seen this done before? We always see tracks set purses based on the number of cars who show up - which is basically setting a purse based on the back gate. Has it ever been done where the purse adjusts based on the total number of people in the house - both front and back?

i feel alot like mike and kenny after reading there posts. it happens all the time, all over the country, with alot of different groups, but it just feels wrong to pay an entry feel when you are really providing the show. it is kind of what i call a backgate promoting mindset that seems to be taking over racing. Maybe it is a necissary evil, but it just kind of bothers me. i was considering going last friday, and the $50 fee was not the deciding factor in my staying home, but it was a thought in the back of my mind along with the other work related issues. like Al said, if it was a race with the payout from his post (all of the posted $ amounts minus $50) within 3 hours from home for me, i would have thought it was not too bad of a deal for a local show. i had to ask myself why it kept popping up in my head. The only answer i came up with is it just feels wrong. One of the things i like about running the sprint so far this season is that i have only paid and entry fee 1 out of the 6 times i have run and it was only $10 toward the points fund for that series. The other thing is i have never left the track without some sort of money in my hand, which is not something i can say about my years running a midget. Maybe it is just an ego, or respect thing, but as a sprint car and midget owner/driver i certainly enjoy not having to keep pulling money out of my pocket at every stop along the way when i get the race track.

I agree with almost every point made on this thread, but in the grand scheme of things, $50 won't get you much of anything anymore...maybe 10 gallons of diesel fuel...or a couple of trips for the family to McDonalds. Anyone racing a sprint car knows the potential to spend alot of cash in a short amount of time is only a lap away in some cases...Before we went last week, my thoughts were just like Al Soran stated in his post..,,We were racing for $1950.00 to win and $150.00 to start. $50 isn't worth missing the opportunity to race against some good competition at a good facility like FC. Everyone has their opinion, and this entry fee could keep the car count around 20 cars, which would eliminate another $50 expense for the cars which would have to run a B-Main.....so in my mind, there's a trade-off...that is why we drove 156 miles to race, and got home at 3:30 a.m. the next morning....we'll be there to support this race again this weekend!!

Steve Morin - Owner #98
Brandon Morin Racing

I-55 in Pevely was that way for years on their weekly cab car show. Not sure if it's still the same way.

.

What the difference if there is a big race at Kokomo or paragon or any track and they raise the pit pass price????? I know it's not $50 but they are still raising it to try and bring in extra money.....

Posted via Mobile Device

I'm not sure about car races but our speedway motorcycle racing payout is based on fan count. Its quite stupid and who's keeping count, the promotor ? Have faith in your program and your promoting, set a purse and stick to it. It shouldnt be the racers burden if for some reason the gate count is low.

Sprint car drivers would race for a watermelon... Promoters know this and fans know this, so you get to see USAC quality cars at a weekly show for cheap. Enjoy this while you can. Anyone noticing the huge car counts that afforded one local track 2-3 features on a Saturday night is not there now? An organization that used to field 30-40 cars an event could only muster 16 at their home track? Hopefully there is someone reading this who is smart enough to .... Be able to fill every seat ... sell every hot dog...prepare the track so the fans aren’t disappointed... show up and cheer on their favorite driver from the best seat in the place... get home before midnight... and win the 50/50. In this Utopia the promoters, fans and drivers would skip and pick daisies. The only person looking in from the outside would be the car owners. These guys are disappearing not from the hard work, long hours or ego crushing failures but because of the imbalanced economics. When these guys leave, there are no cars for the drivers, no drivers for the fans, no fans for the promoters, no races for anyone to enjoy, and no IOW forum to complain about it at. I guess it boils down to the fact that anyone who owns a sprint car is the reason for this decline. We demand too much to race at your track, we don’t race at the right place at the right time; and we can’t race as much as you would like. We also won’t get on a message board and explain our choices so we can get lambasted for our lame decisions. So now you know who to blame next time the races are disappointing.