[mowerman]

Originally Posted by bloard I understand your point Don, but think you are oversimplifying by talking about announcers and EMT's. There's a price for recreation and entertainment that I'm willing to pay as an owner in order to be able to race my car. That's my hobby. It's not a business or occupation. And, as most hobbies, I don't do it expecting that I'm going to get paid for it. I just hope that at the end of the night I'm as close to paying the bills as I can be. Any profit from a night is gravy. The EMT may or may not be a race fan and is there doing their occupation. Their hobby might be fishing. Don't assume that everyone at the track is there by choice. The hot dog vender gets paid to be there as well, but they aren't seeing much racing selling the dogs. Now.. .as I said, the drivers and cars are the show and I agree that to an extent they shouldn't be paying to put on the show. But I would like to know your bright line on who on the back side shouldn't be paying? Should my driver walk in free because he's the show? Should he pay something for his insurance coverage? Should I as an owner walk in free because without my car, there is no show? Should my wife walk in free because without her letting me blow this money on race cars there wouldn't be a car? Should my crew walk in free because they are the ones making sure the car runs to put on the show? Your answer to all of these might very well be "Yes". And I ask these questions sincerely to flush out your position in more concrete terms. Everyone in the pits can't walk in free or else nobody's going to pay to go to the grandstands. So where does this line on who shouldn't pay to put on the show get drawn?

bloard don'ty know you , but that's the best answer i've heard to MR. DON MOORE .

[Mud Packer]

Originally Posted by ThePurple73 I totally understand where Don is coming from. So how can the dilema be fixed? I wonder how a race track ownership "Co-op" would work? Much like a farmer owned co-op you see in ag states. The car owners and/or interested parties would take part in the ownership. You could have overall ownership shares and/or yearly shares also. Instead of running for a purse that is a fraction of the nights revenue, you would be racing for a much bigger take. The proceeds of the night paid to the shareholders thus helping finance partners racing. Figure out ways too actively increase purses. With the number of midget, sprint and champ car owners in Indiana alone, why couldn't something like this work? If this was successful it would help with purses everywhere, because you could show the financial model and purse model could work. If you build something special you could definately get advertisiers. Example: Build a big half mile-quarter mile combo track about 15 miles or so south of Indy. Advertise well. Build stands for 20k people to start with. If you could incease purse size plus know you were making money from the event it's self, could create car counts that would be really big. People would probably come to see car counts of 50-70 cars. Have many more midget races and combine them with sprint shows. Also have champ car nights as many of the ownership group would benefit from that also. I think it would be worth examining a business case for something like this.

WOW!!!!!!!!!!! Not trying to be totally negative here but I have a few questions. First one would be who is going to pay for building this big half-quarter mile combo track about 15 miles or so South of Indy? With grandstands to seat 20K people to start with, where are you going to get the fans from to fill these seats? What night would you plan on racing and which current tracks are you proposing to put out of business? Indiana is saturated with dirt tracks and a new one certainly won't work without pulling both fans and cars from other tracks.

Friday night you have Bloomington, Gas City & Union County. Saturday night you have Lawrenceburg, Twin Cities, Brownstown, Paragon, Lincoln Park, Waynesfield & Montpelier. Sunday night is Kokomo. Add in special events tracks like Tri State and Terre Haute as well as pavement tracks like ORP, Winchester & Salem. Also on the pavement side you have Anderson, Speedrome, Mt. Lawn, Baer Field, Plymouth all that run on Saturday night. Who loses the cars and fans and is forced to close among this group? There are 12 tracks racing on Saturday night currently without any competition from the special events tracks. Plus, I am sure I am missing some along the way. Add those in and no wonder the grandstands need some more butts. I don't see a positive in this one at all. Sorry.

Originally Posted by bloard So where does this line on who shouldn't pay to put on the show get drawn?

I figured out really quick the line is drawn at what Don can get for free. Don wants pit passes for himself to be free, his tires to be free, his engines to be free and just about given whatever he wants for free. If he doesn't get it then well he can just get on here and bash them for high costs, playing favorites, cheating, illegal aliens, and whatever else he can think.

He wants to pass the cost of his car onto other teams, crew members, and fans. Simple as that.

[DonMoore10]

Originally Posted by USAC Fan I figured out really quick the line is drawn at what Don can get for free. Don wants pit passes for himself to be free, his tires to be free, his engines to be free and just about given whatever he wants for free. If he doesn't get it then well he can just get on here and bash them for high costs, playing favorites, cheating, illegal aliens, and whatever else he can think. He wants to pass the cost of his car onto other teams, crew members, and fans. Simple as that.

How many more screen names are you going to hide behind on IOW?

[bloard]

Don, I've enjoyed the discussion but at the end of the day I'm going to have cars at this event in all three classes (midget, non-wing 410, wing 360). If it's anything like past events there, I think we can agree it will be deserving of my support and I am sure I'll give it Three Cheers at the end of the night. Especially since:

"THESE PEOPLE HAVE SET THE STANDARD OF HOW MIDGET RACING SHOULD BE PROMOTED. We need more people like the Gundakers, POWRi and Tony Barhorst to bring midget racing back to where it should be." - Don Moore 10/12/2008

https://www.indianaopenwheel.com/showthread.php?t=10315

Agree?

[DonMoore10]

Originally Posted by bloard Don, I've enjoyed the discussion but at the end of the day I'm going to have cars at this event in all three classes (midget, non-wing 410, wing 360). If it's anything like past events there, I think we can agree it will be deserving of my support and I am sure I'll give it Three Cheers at the end of the night. Especially since: "THESE PEOPLE HAVE SET THE STANDARD OF HOW MIDGET RACING SHOULD BE PROMOTED. We need more people like the Gundakers, POWRi and Tony Barhorst to bring midget racing back to where it should be." - Don Moore 10/12/2008 https://www.indianaopenwheel.com/showthread.php?t=10315 Agree?

Hey, I wish you the best! These discussions are academic. Thanks for your input.

[Rpracing1]

Originally Posted by bloard Don, I've enjoyed the discussion but at the end of the day I'm going to have cars at this event in all three classes (midget, non-wing 410, wing 360). If it's anything like past events there, I think we can agree it will be deserving of my support and I am sure I'll give it Three Cheers at the end of the night. Especially since: "THESE PEOPLE HAVE SET THE STANDARD OF HOW MIDGET RACING SHOULD BE PROMOTED. We need more people like the Gundakers, POWRi and Tony Barhorst to bring midget racing back to where it should be." - Don Moore 10/12/2008 https://www.indianaopenwheel.com/showthread.php?t=10315 Agree?

Bloard........Don't know who you are, but I think you just got my vote for "Car Owner of the Year".

[dirtracer74]

I attended Crystal Motor Speedway a few weeks ago. Several drivers in sprint cars, and other classes, were racing more than one class. While each car had to pay an entry fee, each driver only had to pay ONCE! A driver is paying admission in to the pits, not a fee to race. That is what the car entry fee is for. What next, each crew member has to buy more than one pit pass to work on more than one car? It is the same thing.

My point is if a little podunk track in the middle of Michigan does not want to rip the racers off, then why does a nationally known track?

[bloard]

If the midget orgs ever decided that they were going to do something about the rediculous costs of running a midget team, this discussion may not need to take place. Case in Point: MIDGET AND SPRINT CAR MAG OCT 2010 page 25 Metric Racing engines in Tulsa, OK Ecotec 2.4 liter midget engine COMPLETE $10,995. I've printed this before and here goes again: I have a fresh midget engine in my garage that I bought that was rebuilt before the sale and the price tag for the rebuild was $7600. Now.. There's not much difference between $7600 and $10,995. I am well aware of many that come on here praising the Esslinger XT engine for $23,000. sorry... that's way too much for owners to be spending on an engine for the purses paid. Bottom line, if we can buy a brand new midget engine for a little more than a rebuild.... this is a no brainer. What part of cheap do the midget orgs not understand?????

Don, I don't dispute that these Ecotech engines, or one of the production based DOHC offerings from Honda, Toyota etc. make some sense on paper. But from what I have read about the Revolution Racing Ecotech, it's putting out about 250 HP. I'm gonna guess that's between 80 and 100 HP less than your and my Gaerte block Chevy engines, and 130+ HP less than some engines out there.

So, lets say that we make a 250 HP ecotech type engine the standard for midgets. What exactly do you and I do with our Gaertes? What do guys do with the slingers and Fontana's etc? It's not like there's a really big market out there for a 350HP 166ci custom block 4 cyliner that needs freshened every 200 miles.

So that ecotech doesn't just cost me $11,000. It costs me $11,000 plus the value of my current engines which are of no value to anyone.

In another post you estimated that there are 250-300 midgets within 500 miles of St. Louis. Let's say the average midget has only one engine in it with an average value of 10,000. Essentially you are saying that in order to improve the sport you are going to take $2.5 million dollars of capital out of the sport just within 500 miles of St. Louis by making those 250 current engines boat anchors.

I understand your theory is that it costs you $7,500 to freshen it, so you might as well just junk it and spend $3,000 more for an ecotech. But I don't buy it. I just replaced every part except bare head, crank, and cam on mine for about half of your $7,500 number. We have it totally apart again today hoping we can run get a head gasket and bearings in the morning and assemble it in time to make it to Granite City tomorrow night. We can work on this Chevy in house which saves money and adds a ton of fun. I'm not sure we can do that with an echotech style motor - especially if it is sealed.

That's the part of this I don't understand. I would like to hear your take on where this logic is incorrect - as I'm sure you or Keith Iaia will find it to be.

I'll race a 250HP engine. Just find somebody to give us 250 car owners the collective 2.5 million we are going to lose by doing it.

BTW, I'm one of the proud owners of both a 410 and 360 sprint car engine on account of the bright idea that a 360 is going to save the sport money. Yea, having to own and maintain two motors instead of one just to be able to race whatever happens to be running close to home is sure a money saver. Whatever happens with midgets... don't let that happen.

[DonMoore10]

I've read your previous post and understand your argument regarding current engines. Somewhere along the line, something has to give regarding the current makeup of a midget. The current model, despite the success that is happening in ARDC and POWRi, is not working and if that model continues, the sport of midget racing will eventually die. That's quite obvious when you survey the entire picture of midget racing from coast to coast. Is it growing... no. Is it declining.... yes. We can debate that till the cows come home but just reading the posts here on IOW suggests that many fans are growing tired of the product or lack of it (let's see...will 2, 5, 10, 20 cars show up tonight ).

Two things about the fans today: They want to see large car counts at races. Yes, many years ago car counts were around 18-20, but that's not working today. Secondly, it has been proven here on IOW in an unscientific survey that fans don't care about how fast a midget goes around the track. They want to see good side by side racing and keen competition.

Now regarding the Ecotec engine for around $10,000: I just read last night of a race team who has their midget engine for sale in the classifieds and they are claiming they spent $12,000 on a rebuild. I know of these people and I don't think they would put that in the ad if it weren't true. I have a bill of sale here at my house for a rebuild of over $7600. I also currently own 4 midget engines, so I'm also part of the mix.

Now, you very well know that midget engines do not last forever competitively. They must be rebuilt. That is part of the problem. Some have to be rebuilt after only a few races. The bottom line is they are not going to last forever without putting a significant amount of money into them. Yes, I understand that you are rebuilding an engine by yourself, but IMO most teams are not doing that and don't have the capabilities to do that work. So, for example, if you own a Slinger... it's got to be shipped to CA and back to where ever. Even more expense.

Let's assume that you have an engine and it needs a rebuild. It's no longer competitive. So what are you going to do with it? You either spend the money to rebuild or it sits in your garage and you try to sell it for a price minus a rebuild charge. So it's not worth very much in it's present state. Here we go with my point: You either spend $7600-12,000 (insert ur own figure if you want) or you could buy a new engine that's supposed to last for up to 100 races for $10,000+ and use over he counter parts, saving even more money in the long run.

What are you going to do with the old engine? Well... the automobiles that we drive are somewhat in the same boat. Declining value each year. What are you going to do with them when they wear out? Same thing. You provided a large money figure that would be spent on new engines. Well... that same amount would be put to a new engine that uses less expensive parts and lasts 20 times longer. This sounds like a win-win situation to me over the long haul. Much cheaper engines and maintenance equals more race cars in service, more revenue for track owners and larger car counts for the fans.

When I first started watching midgets race they had 110 Offy's. That's a long ways from the current cubes of 166+. Is the racing today any better today than it was back then? Well... some people would say yes. I would have to say there is no difference. I enjoyed it back then and I enjoy the present cars also. Is a more powerful engine going to put more fans in the stand. I don't think so. Will more cars at the track and better racing side by side do it. Yes.