Here's my take on the whole situation. I believe competition is good. It makes the established non-wing organization take notice and I was saying to a friend a couple of days before this all came out that USAC needed to step up and pay better purses in all their divisions and needed better marketing to be able to increase purses from top to bottom by attracting more sponsorship dollars. We know the World Racing Group can ***** up the sponsors and it is time for USAC to step up to the plate and meet the challenge. The purses especially in the midget division are poor and all the purses need to be improved without making the race fan pay for it all. It is time to beat the marketing drum and round up some big time sponsors to pay for the increased purses.
As far as some people saying that the non-wing drivers should not race lesser paying local shows my thoughts are that the ones who race for a living need to race whenever possible to pay the bills as 51 dates does not allow a person to race full time and feed a growing family. When nothing else is running and you have the equipment to do so they need to run and take in money for their families and also stay sharp behind the wheel to be able to be competitive when the sanctioned shows are run. I hope that the World Racing Group will provide more good paying opportunities for some of the best drivers in the country to make a decent living and keep them in non-wing sprint cars instead of them putting a foil on to run for the bigger money. Non-wing racing cannot continue to lose their drawing cards to winged racing because of smaller purses and less opportunity.
The World Racing Group will not play nice in the long run as is now witnessed in the DirtCar modifieds vs. STSS series and only the strongest and most innovative organizations will survive. Also I would hope that the format for the non-wing sprints and midgets will not be straight up starts with everything based on time trials. I personally like both USAC's and POWRi's different formats and would hope that something similar is used by WRG. And the last point I would like to make is it was mentioned that the non-wing sprints and midgets would run with other WRG divisions which will not produce the type of surface midwest fans are used to seeing our beloved non-winged divisions compete on. This could be the achilles heel of the WRG's venture into the non-wing arena. Black and slick is not the answer for good shows to be produced by the non-wing set.
Originally Posted by kinser:
So 2 days after the announcement and still no statement from USAC ???
Didn't they make announcements that day? One about point fund and bonuses, and one with Eldora. You were expecting a statement about another sanctioning body?
USAC will not and really does not need to make a statement about that winged group. I do welcome more sprint car races as long as they all respect shows that are not in competition with each other.
Originally Posted by BrentTFunk:
Didn't they make announcements that day? One about point fund and bonuses, and one with Eldora. You were expecting a statement about another sanctioning body?
“ Working in conjunction with POWRi and USAC to the extent possible and combining World Racing Group’s already established resources will allow us to expand the sport
and provide more entertainment for our fans.” Yes I would expect to hear a statement since they are “working in conjunction with each other.”
Originally Posted by kinser:
“ Working in conjunction with POWRi and USAC to the extent possible and combining World Racing Group’s already established resources will allow us to expand the sport
and provide more entertainment for our fans.” Yes I would expect to hear a statement since they are “working in conjunction with each other.”
I think that you are reading way too much into the statement. You are expecting a bunch of co-sanctioned events and cross promoting. When I read it, I believe that it simply means that they are going to try to avoid against promoting against their major events.
We have already seen that POWRi lost one of its big dates to the new series. POWRi used to have a large show during the Ironman 55.
Originally Posted by WinglessLovers:
Here's my take on the whole situation. I believe competition is good. It makes the established non-wing organization take notice and I was saying to a friend a couple of days before this all came out that USAC needed to step up and pay better purses in all their divisions and needed better marketing to be able to increase purses from top to bottom by attracting more sponsorship dollars. We know the World Racing Group can ***** up the sponsors and it is time for USAC to step up to the plate and meet the challenge. The purses especially in the midget division are poor and all the purses need to be improved without making the race fan pay for it all. It is time to beat the marketing drum and round up some big time sponsors to pay for the increased purses.
As far as some people saying that the non-wing drivers should not race lesser paying local shows my thoughts are that the ones who race for a living need to race whenever possible to pay the bills as 51 dates does not allow a person to race full time and feed a growing family. When nothing else is running and you have the equipment to do so they need to run and take in money for their families and also stay sharp behind the wheel to be able to be competitive when the sanctioned shows are run. I hope that the World Racing Group will provide more good paying opportunities for some of the best drivers in the country to make a decent living and keep them in non-wing sprint cars instead of them putting a foil on to run for the bigger money. Non-wing racing cannot continue to lose their drawing cards to winged racing because of smaller purses and less opportunity.
The World Racing Group will not play nice in the long run as is now witnessed in the DirtCar modifieds vs. STSS series and only the strongest and most innovative organizations will survive. Also I would hope that the format for the non-wing sprints and midgets will not be straight up starts with everything based on time trials. I personally like both USAC's and POWRi's different formats and would hope that something similar is used by WRG. And the last point I would like to make is it was mentioned that the non-wing sprints and midgets would run with other WRG divisions which will not produce the type of surface midwest fans are used to seeing our beloved non-winged divisions compete on. This could be the achilles heel of the WRG's venture into the non-wing arena. Black and slick is not the answer for good shows to be produced by the non-wing set.
Originally Posted by flagboy55:
So, what has the World of Outlaws done to make racing better?
IMHO NOTHING: Sure they take about ten of among the best teams and drivers around the country. But most of the major events either existed before WoO or were not WoO events to begin with. In fact it's restricted many of them to WoO only. There used to be USAC and All Star shows before the Kings Royal and the Royal itself as unsanctioned.
Nothing's pleased me more in the last few years than seeing non regulars come in and beat em and beat em often. Larson, Bell, Courtney and most of those that do have logged tens of thousands of laps in USAC sprints or midgets. Heck they've been doing it to NASCAR for years.
