Actually, no. Combo cars run pavement but is not a mandatory rule. Right now the vast majority that run pavement are pavement specific cars

Tracks want races, they just need a sanctioning body that shows as much excitement about pavement sprint cars as they do quarter-midgets and off road racing.

I should know better than to get involved in a thread like this. If I let loose on some of you people, I'd definitely be banned.

With that in mind...

Bingo.

Do you think combo cars and tires rules are going to stop TSR, Kunz, RWB from spending their large budgets (Of which are nowhere near as large as some think but still big)? No. You'll still have titantium, carbon fiber, aero bodies and all. The end result will just be thew few teams that run pavement running dirt cars on pavement with maybe a handful of dirt teams running.

If testing is banned, do you think that will stop them from testing? No. They'll just go test at Mansfield or Baer Field or Mount Lawn or any other track that has nothing to do with USAC. USAC can't even tell the tracks they run at now what to do, how are they going to tell the tracks they don't run at to say no to a team who wants to drop a couple grand for private testing?

This isn't necessarily directed at Pavement Dave's post but it does provide a good segue to talk about tire deals. If you have an open tire rule, all you're doing is giving the top teams a chance to sign a tire deal. Tire deals will result in just as high, if not higher prices to small teams while big, front running teams get sponsorship, free tires, and not to mention "special tires." Tire competition or open tires only increase the separation of the haves and the have-nots Ask the WoO Late Models how a open tire rule is working for them and how they compete with guys like Josh Richards and Scott Bloomquist and Tim McCreadie.

As for the TORC and quarter-midget bashing, responding to that is pointless. Those people are going to pick at it whether they know whats really going on or not. It's just another ticket for the USAC bashing agenda of most.

The day someone figures out how to stop teams from spending large budgets and tearing down the cars every night to stop them from shaving weight, gun drilling bars, using carbon fiber and titanium and stop them from spending hours on the dyno and thousands of dollars in engine R&D for 5 more HP and on and on and that is the guy you hire to help get pavement sprint and midget racing back on track.

Sorry for my misunderstanding of how it works....regardless of that I think one of the things that has always made USAC unique was that u had to run dirt and pavement to win a national championship....would hate to see that go away but something definitly needs done!

http://auto-racing.speedtv.com/artic...the-brickyard/

How do we feel about the off-road series now?

I agree with most everything that people have said, but you can't put it all on the owners, or even most of it. To say that until they stop paying 2k to win 1k, then it's going to keep happening just isn't feasible at all. If that was the case, there wouldn't be any racing whatsoever, and we'd all be mad about that too.

I've been to more pavement sprint car races this year than anything else, and they've started to grow on me a little bit, and I really think it's important to keep them around, but something needs to be done about costs of tires. Like someone said earlier, what's the point of spending all that money on tires to burn them off in hotlaps? At Spartan, the place opens up extremely early, and you are allowed to practice for somewhere around 4 hours, then you get another session before the heat races. I understand getting laps is important, and when I ran there I was happy to get that many, but it's really not needed. I've seen sprint car tracks, and been in micro sprint races where they've thrown us the green on hotlaps, and coming around the next time, seeing the white flag and checkered the next time by.

Put a ban on testing, require one right rear per night, and only two left rears per night (only to change stagger), and you have to run the same right front all night too, that still isn't perfect, but it's a start. Something has to be done in order to get it back to the way it was. I know of a few pavement cars literally sitting ready to race, just don't have the money to go to the track and be competitive.

Maybe I'm being understood. I'm certainly not naive enough to believe that we can stop wealthy car owners from spending money. There are always going to be individuals that believe being "competitive" is writing a bigger check then the next guy. But the car owners have to want the change for the change to happen. If all the car owners want to spend $2000 to make $1000, it's going to happen. But if a majority of the car owners want change, then they need to lobby their respective organizations to make changes.
But I will state this, complaining on a message board will get you nowhere. The owners need to band together to get these changes made and work with their organization.

Tom Paterson