I would be happy to take a ten year old to today's races. I was in attendance at this year's world 100 and we have a 3 and a half hour drive, we were home before 2 central. And if you're complaining about sparing children from the some inappropriate language from some folks who might have had a few, you should go back to reside in your glass house. With all the atrocities going on in the world today, a loud mouth at the race track hardly seems like a consideration.
And speaking of the world's hundred, some folks like to submit that you can't run that many high horsepower cars on one night, well they do it about every year for that event, and get through it. Now some years are better than others and the best are usually when mother nature helps out. I will say that I think the compound of the late model tire and an open wheel tire are different in that it takes longer to transfer rubber to the track, but that's just my unsubstantiated opinion.
Originally Posted by Bill Angel:
I'm guessing when tracks were prohibited from using calcium chloride.
It is cost prohibited not prohibited. I have seen it used in the last 2 years. When using it in a liquid form is very corrosive and hard on equipment. It is nasty stuff to use, and very harsh to anything it comes in contact with.
Originally Posted by BrentTFunk:
It is cost prohibited not prohibited. I have seen it used in the last 2 years. When using it in a liquid form is very corrosive and hard on equipment. It is nasty stuff to use, and very harsh to anything it comes in contact with.
Which is the same juice they squirt on our roads in the winter!
people stopped showing up to Sunday afternoon races when the drivers stopped showing up. Its hard to pay $15 to $20 to see 10 sprint cars and 11 midgets. especially when 2/3rds of those cars are lucky to finish on the lead lap. I started going back to Winchester when they paired the Sprint Cars up with CRA late models. At least I got to see a show with them.
It wasn't Sundays but for several years the Hoosier Hundred ran the same day at the Hoosier Fall Classic and several drivers would rent a Chopper and fly in to Lawrenceburg and land in the field that is now ball fields.
When everyone started pissing and moaning about it non stop like they are now when a track gets dusty or dry slick, that's when it died! People piss and moan if a track takes time for track prep during the show but yet wants no dust, no ruts, and perfect conditions. Its a no win deal anymore for tracks and no wonder more and more are shutting the gates for good
We used to have a fair amount of Sunday Afternoon show back here in the east too. Williams Grove and Hagerstown used to run their first 3 or 4 races of the season on Sunday afternoon. There also were a number of season ending shows on Sundays too. Then everyone starting bellyaching on the Internet about black, slick, rubbered up no passing races tracks, yet the same folks will pay twice as much to see WoO or DIRT Mods race on a Summer night with the same track conditions and lack of passing.
I live in the northeast and there used to 5-6 200 lap afternoon races for the dirt mods every fall, usually packed with fans. Then it just got to be obvious that 1) the racing at night was much better 2) the promoters would keep you there for hours on end, and the 200 lappers are down to 2.
Plus, I am not sure people really like getting home on the later end of Sunday, I know I don't go to Sunday races very much anymore unless i know I have Monday off.
Supply and Demand. There is very little demand for an afternoon race. For all of the reasons mentioned above.
I have gone to several Knoxville Nationals that would have 20K fans for the Saturday finale. However, if one of the qualifying races gets rained out and runs on Saturday afternoon, they have closer to 3k to 4k fans for the afternoon race. All of the fans are already in town. All of the fans are already die hard fans to drive to Knoxville, Iowa in August. But 3 out of 4 of these fans would rather do something else than go to an afternoon race.
