Hahn's sprint car series is a joke? Excuse me? Maybe to 410 folks in Indiana (or more specifically on 16th Street).

And which series would you be referring to? The national tour? The dozen regional tours? The Sprint Bandits? Hmmmm. Let's see, they have a national corporate sponsor (O'Reilly), a huge list of competitors, and, well, doesn't he promote the hallowed Chili Bowl?

Personally, I'm not into 360 racing. But I wouldn't call Hahn's work a joke. There's a lot of organized sprint car racing going on in places that would otherwise be nothing but stock cars.

Concerning Kevin's appearance, the only concrete items I heard was:

--Announcement coming in about a month concerning Ford Focus and how it will become easier to get more 12yr olds up and running.

--New SC on the shelf until 2010.

--His kid plays Halo and is into Facebook, therefore, the future of USAC's growth and strength is online.

Otherwise, I think Ovalmeister's opinion pretty much wraps it up.

I guess it's pretty hard to promote yourself too much when you've just come off a weekend when two of your "National" series had seriously small car counts. And, the real buzz in traditional sprint cars was going on back in Paducah and Haubstadt. And your point leader and your veteran hero (Dave Darland) are back in Indiana running weekly shows.

Oh, and as far as getting some people to attend a show, I suspect the film footage lead in showing all of the sprints and midgets rolling, tumbling and flying out of the park will do that more than anything Kevin said. Honestly, why does every stinkin time sprints are shown on national TV do they have to focus on the wrecks? There's a hell of a lot more to come out and see that is thrilling than just to see someone bust their ass and become posters for orthopedic care.

Got what I expected in an ******** year: Spin

Oh, I really would have liked to have heard what Gordon Johncock was going to ask/say.

The National Tour? Yeah, let's see, competitors stuck with thousands of dollars in 360 motors because they bought into Hahn's BS that it would be minimal cost to a 410. Now they've got 360s that cost almost as much as 410s. Not to mention spec heads, spec gaskets, spec helmets, blah blah blah and where do you think all that money from Brodix goes? RIGHT INTO EMMETT HAHN'S POCKET. You think the USAC teams have it bad> try running a wing team on a national circuit for the same purses.

The regional series are worse. Guys who don't even run the spec heads, the gasket, incompetent tech guys, and the car counts are horrible.

The Sprint Bandits can't even get more than four races or more than 20 cars to their races. What is that point fund that O'Reilly pays? About 5 grand? Wow, whoopee.

Anyone could promote the Chili Bowl and get 200 cars. Any other promoter would probably raise the purse instead of raising the fees every year and pocketing more and more cash.

Do not kid yourself. Emmett Hahn is not the great savior, you all might think he is. He's just like USAC, in your eyes, only out for himself and to fill his pockets.

We had pretty much this same discussion when Kevin Miller took over as USAC head late last year. Why do we expect all the problems of USAC that have been cultivated over the last 30 years or so to be resolved in his first year on the job? The cost of midget racing has escalated for decades both in and out of USAC. A simple wave of a magic wand will not make it go away. The solution(s) will take time. The new gen cars threw the SC division into utter turmoil. Most non USAC fans know little if anything about the division. That was painfully evident this weekend when 50,000 plus people were at Richmond to watch the IRL just a couple of hours after the SC division ran their event before a nearly empty grandstands. Remember that those people could have watched the SC race for no extra cost yet chose not to. I'm sure the intense heat kept some away but not nearly all. Again, the problem will not be fixed overnight. USAC began the downslide with the death of Tony Hulman in 1977. The crash of the plane that killed eight USAC officials in 1978 as they returned from Trenton hurt immensely as well. USAC went on to lose control of Indy car racing, lost their popular stock car division, nearly lost the sprint car division with an experiment with wings in the late eighties, and is now suffering the afore mentioned problems. My point is that the problems of USAC are deep rooted and will take time to correct. Mr. Miller has a tough job on his hands, not a magic wand in his hands.

Once again, Dwight thinks things through, and uses facts, logic and common sense in crafting a response.:respect: He needs to be on USAC's payroll. No back stabbing. No whining. No crying. No name calling. No temper tantrums. Just thoughtful and thought provoking insight.

And if you notice, he posted this at 4:54 AM when most of us are still fast asleep or hung over!:rolling:doh:

It would take me 5 seconds to write a plan to drastically reduce the costs of running a midget team. :eek:

Like most of Dwight's posts, this is a response that is both logical and fair.

I think everything that Kevin has said is up to this point has been on-message. And that message seems to be: USAC is going to change the way they market the sport, so they can put themselves into a position to be a front-gate driven organization, instead of a back-gate/competitor fee driven one. On the longer interview on DO's show, he spoke of the long-term goal of USAC being a series that could pay $10,000 to win. But, before they could do that, they need to put younger fans in the seats. Even Robin Miller made the point, last night of USAC's drivers looking like Brad Sweet, Cole Whitt, Robert Ballou, etc and ALL the fans looking exactly like he and DeSpain. And that is a fact that I've seen and had pointed out to me, for years. Until that changes, nothing else will. And the dwindling, aging fan base has, for too long, been the 800 lb gorilla in the room. And finally, there's someone in charge that's saying:

A) There's an 800 lb gorilla in the room
and
B) I have a plan to get rid of said gorilla

Miller's not talking about micromanaging the racing part of USAC. In fact, he's went out of his way to say this is not his field of expertise and he's going to let people like Bill Carey take care of that end of the business. I wish them both luck and will support the USAC brand until the day that I'm no longer satisfied with the product they put on the track. And I don't see that happening any time soon.

Jerry

Little bit of devils advocate here, why pay more than $4000 to win a sprint car race? The more money it pay the more teams will spend. No i am not a car owner or a sprint car driver, but if the purse say doubled, then wouldn't the teams be spending even more to get that competitive edge. I remember a few years back when TNN was covering several WoO races. Steve kinser had a $10,000 buget for titanium bolts. This was at least 5-7 years ago, what do you think that budget is now?

I know it will take time to change USAC but its been a year? Whats changed? Name one thing.
Cost is about it.

Chuck, not bashing anything but if they are promoting, wheres the comercial in the Nascar or Indy race??? Adds in papers for upcoming venues. hell I haven't even seen a working website for most of the past year.