SUPERDUKE (Offline)
#41
11/27/08 10:19 AM
I guess you missed my point here! They can build tires to run more then one race! And be just as fast the second time around! Now they build tires for time trails and heats - semi and then the feature! Too many compounds!!!!!!!!!!!!! Build one for the left side and one for the right side! Today just like nascar you can sell them junk and they will say the tire cut down! They have no competition! In my days with firestone we loved to kick goodyears ass! I remeber the usac twin 50's at the indy mile one night aj foyt was on new goodyears and after hot laps! Drove to my van and told his guys to get this f-in tires off and put on what duke says! He beat pancho in both races! Pancho had the same white dot 16's! And run 2nd. Same rr in both races!
LEADERS EDGE (Offline)
#42
11/27/08 11:26 AM
It's not just $5,000 for the year. It's roughly $1500-$2500 a pavement race. Not including races that have a practice night before and not including testing.(Which is a whole other subject)
It isn't that they have so many different compounds that you go through a night, it's that you go through so many tires period of the heat cycles.
I would be in favor of first a limit of tires used by stamping them before the first practice before developing all new tires. Someone mentioned they did it in Vegas and it worked out well.
Instead of 2-3 sets a night you are looking at a set with a LR or two added because of stagger.
I'm not saying that this is the ultimate solution, but it is one that I believe is a step in the right direction and could lead the sport down a path that can keep it more than just viable, but thriving as well.
If you can save $700-$1,000 a night on tires, that is a huge impact on the smaller teams ability to get to the next show or repair whatever might be wrong with their cars.
TQ97 (Offline)
#43
11/27/08 2:17 PM
I agree, and because Don doesn't run pavement, I was speaking more about dirt than pavement.
DonMoore10 (Offline)
#44
11/27/08 7:30 PM
If I can save a dime, that would be a victory considering the sport has absolutely no committed effort to reduce costs and no vision of where we are going in the future.
Doing nothing results in nothing.
Really quiet from all the midget rogs.
Read the Dave Argabright article in current issue of SPRINT AND MIDGET MAG.
DonMoore10 (Offline)
#47
11/29/08 1:50 AM
During that era at the Ohio State Fair, admission to all events inside the grounds was free.
R.Drang (Offline)
#48
11/29/08 2:33 AM
As far as i can tell, everyone on here has a valid point, but i think the biggest issue is still getting the fans in the grandstands. Unfortunatley midget and sprint car racing are both dying, and its not something that can be reversed just by cutting a few costs for the teams here and there. There seems to be lack of promoting with some clubs or tracks. If the decline of fans in the stands does not stop, we wont have to worry about tires anymore, becuase the tracks just wont run.
cecil98 (Offline)
#49
11/29/08 8:47 AM
What needs to be done is too educate young kids to the fact that "drifting" was pretty much invented by dirt racers and is alive and well at the local dirt tracks across America. These kids are going crazy over this "drifting" sport and it is attracting big corporate $$$$ but, if you ask a kid if he's ever been to a sprint car race, he'll ASK: WHAT IS A SPRINT CAR? I taught school for 30 years and talked to kids about racing. Young kids simply are not being exposed to the sport. I went to the non-wing races at East Bay, each year they had them, and the crowds were terrible and very, very old. I was 53y/o the last show they had, and I brought the average age in the stands down by 10-15 years!!!! It really was sad. Not that there is anything wrong with us "older" fans but, as we die off no one is replacing us. It is a huge promotion problem. There are great resources out there to tap, but it takes lots of leg work and being on the phone to get it done. Most promotors today either don't have the will or, the ingenuity to get it done. They would rather simply add classes of cars that bore the fans to death.