Amen, lot of truth to your rant.

Jerry

Very well said Jeff .

i no that when farrar owned lps mike clayton the pr guy always had a pocket of free general admission passes anytime he was out and met people that had never been to the track or just had not been there for a long time he would give them a couple of free passes. hoping to hook some new fans. didnt cost them a thing to do this because they wasnt gonna come but now they might because it was free and hey maybe u can at least sell them a cheese burger. dont no if anybody does this anymore but i think is was a great idea.

Im not going to knock on Promotors Several of Indiana's are dong a pretty good job, Getting the word out and new fans in.

Rudy, Just because he knew me offered my company 45 miles away passes one night, Know they spent time and $$ doing it and I think due to the for cast, I may have been the only one who showed. It was cloudy and sprinkled all day around. Know they do this with Churches, schools, scout groups etc and they know they get a hundred that night maybe two will become regulars and another 6-10 will come back from time to time.

I've taken every date I've ever had to the track and their kids when they've had them. Other than a show going long once. I never got a negative reaction, HOWEVER YOU DO TEND TO LOOSE THE KIDS INTEREST after about 9:30

Glad I got to read the truth.

Jerry

And parents dont want to carry around sleeping kids late into the night. Most end up taking their kids home and never coming back.

Catepillars working on a track for an hour in the middle of a program is also frowned upon by paying customers.

Families also like to bring their own bag full of snacks and drinks in to satisfy their kids after their wallets were just drained by buying admission tickets.

All of these and more make it hard to get new fans to attend.

JMO

We have a few local tracks up here in Michigan that I have observed over the years. The only times I see them absolutely packed is when there is what I call a "stupid" show.
When a place has a school bus race or a pull a trailer figure 8 race, then it's packed. Not a sprint car race or a midget race, but a "stupid" race packs the place.
I, with my own philosophy, have come to an opinion of this: I could use the "stupid" factor and a lot of other factors that I have observed add up to this; I think Americans in general are more easily entertained now than they have ever been in the past.
Dumb is breeding dumb and it's compounding daily.
Simple minds are simply entertained. This is strictly my opinion.

I also do believe that auto racing in general is in serious trouble and pretty soon, like someone mentioned, "the clowns will be paying to give a show" It's already happening. A LOT of guys are receiving a very small percentage back on their out of pocket expenses and can no longer afford to field a race car, so they sell out or they park em in the garage and let em collect dust.
Organizations do NOTHING proactively anymore knowing that there is trouble brewing and when they are forced to react, it will be too late.

When I say this I'm not looking to make anyone mad--but In the pass I have taken newbies to the race track.
For every good time that is had more often this happens.
Dry dusty track-Some drunk stands in front of us the whole night-Some ones yells every dirty word in the world- Some support class A main with 5 cars in it takes 2 hours to run-By the time you can get into the pits to show them the cars everyone has left the track.

One thing I like about drag racing is you can walk around the pits. Look at the cars all night long. If they can do that, Is there a way to do it at short track? Yes I know about pits and safety. I have raced cars. Just making a point.

As far as cost. When I was a kid, you did not have a $150 a month cable bill. A $150 a month cell phone bill. It does add up. Also you did not have to spend $60 in gas to get to the track.
Back in the day you did not have video games like now. Must teens would live on the couch playing them if you let them. Add in text messages-surf the net. You never need to leave the house.
As far as cars. No ones works on them anymore. So no connection to them anymore. Plus now cars Do the braking for you. Traction control- They park them selves. In a few years Google will have the cars drive them selves. Gives you more time to play on the web as you sit behind the wheel.

The past couple of years I have been doing some research. I can only speak for the crowd at Kokomo, but I would guess most tracks have the same situation. Years ago most of the crowd was local. Now over 70% travel over an hour to attend. I think the amount of travelers is probably close to what it used to be, but the number of locals has dropped off considerably. This has been common for the last 15 years or so. It has become more of a niche market. Cost of competing has changed things. When I was young there were probably 10 or more sprintcars within a 20 mile area of Kokomo. Those guys got their friends an co workers to come out and watch, and those are the people I think we lost. We are lucky because we have a class act like Josh Spencer who takes his car to events, and promotes his sponsors. There are many people working to try to bring more people in. I think live updates and negative comments hurt growth, but I know that is not all the problem.

Last year I had some passes to Haubstadt and gave my daughters friend a couple Well MSCS got rained out so passes were good for next event which was late models I saw the 4 kids (they;re round 21 but still kids to me) and they thought they were cool I have seen these same kids at the sprint races since then After the races took them to the pits loved seeing their faces while looking at the cars up close and haveing drivers talk to them Think once we get people there a lot will return