[nathans1012]

Your preference.

With all of the talk about how many divisions during the UMP Summer Nationals shows, what would be your ideal number of divisions for specials events / touring series races and regular weekly shows the the local race tracks across the country?





My Preference

Week day show 3 classes max including touring series
weekly shows 4 / 5 max

1 or 2 top tier divisions
1 or 2 mid tier divionns
1 or 2 low tier division

[hoosier race fan]

I’ve never been an advocate of back gate promotion, but I know there are promoters (and others who comment on social media) who don’t value the opinion of someone who doesn’t own a racetrack. I respect the choices of promoters who do what they think is necessary to make money. There are plenty of examples of tracks and promoters where back gate promotion has helped, but there are probably just as many examples of back gate promotion being ineffective or even hurting profitability. In most cases, it’s not a significant loss of revenue on a single night. It’s the accumulation of competitor and fan fatigue with running too many classes that leads to the eventual decline in attendance.

My preferences are:

Weeknight - 2 classes (LM and Mod, Sprint and Midget, Winged Sprint and Mini-Sprint are natural pairings). 50-60 cars is a sweet spot in my opinion. Enough for 3-4 heats, maybe last chance race, and a feature for both classes. Everything done by 10 pm local time.

Weekend - 3 classes if they each have healthy car counts,same format as the weeknight shows. 4 classes if less than a full field is the norm in more than one class. The goal should be 80-100 cars. 2-3 heats unless a class has less than 12 cars. If there are less than 12 in a class, qualify them for starting position rather than run a heat race. Put the top 4 qualifiers in a dash for a few extra bucks, then invert the starting position of those 4 in the feature based upon their finish in the dash. Saves a little time by not running heat races while still giving the fans something competitive to watch from the class before the feature. Everything should be done by 11 pm local time.

[oldfan49]

I have always said if there are less than 10 or 12 cars in a class just split the purse in half. Run 10 laps during heats for the 1st half of the purse. Then invert the field and run another 10 laps during the features for the other half. Fewer than 7 then run 2 or 3 lap bracket races.

[Midget98]

Top class and maybe 1 support class at most. I was just at the High Limit show a couple weeks ago and there was no support class. It was a Thursday after a Tuesday rainout. The place was packed and we were out by a little after 9:00pm. The entire show ran smoothly and from qualifying through the end of the feature it was about 3 hours. When I pay $40-$50 for a ticket to watch a premiere series, I have no interest in sitting around watching a bunch of filler classes use up the track. If I want to watch that, I'll spend $12 and go to their weekly show on a Saturday night. If a promoter can't get enough fans to pay for the show without relying on ther back gate, then he shouldn't book the show to begin with.