I see that Montpelier has cancelled the remaining D1 midget races. When are the midget orgs going to decide that the present formula for midget racing is not working? There are new generation midget engines available right now for $10-12,000 that last for up to 3 years without a rebuild. Over two years ago I heard Kevin Miller on the D.O. radio show say that this is what is needed. So why aren't these engines IN THE CARS RIGHT NOW??? Spending $7900 for a current engine rebuild isn't far from spending $10-12,000 for a brand new cheap engine. When will all the midget orgs put ******** aside and start wilh a clean sheet of paper for midgets?

I understand that Powri drivers are saying that they will NOT be attending the Gold Crown

This is not good

I was afraid of that

I was wondering if that would happen when we read that POWRi was no longer co-sanctioning this event with USAC.
PLEASE...will Kenny Brown, Jim Siner, Kevin Miller, Jason Smith, Kevin Gundaker and whoever else it will take, go have lunch somewhere and get this stuff resolved.
If not for yourselves, do it for the good of the sport of Midget racing.

no doubt, cause if this is true, we just went from a 40 something car count to a 20 something car count

If that's the case count me OUT!

Uh... better yet.... All of them sit down together with a clean sheet of paper, forget about all the ********, cut the ties with the manufacturers/tire companies and resurrect what's left of midget racing. There will have to be some major sacrifices gentleman or you can kiss goodbye midget racing. Please don't come back telling us that a $22,000 engine is going to save the sport. Get the costs of operating a midget in line with the purse and you will see people getting back into the sport.

Fans need to start e-mailing these people and demand that something be done NOW.

---------- Post added at 12:27 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:20 PM ----------

A source e-mailed me explaining that USAC cancelled the Montpelier races.

Unless energy costs come down.....you can give them away for free and most people couldn't afford to go race.....ANY type of race car.

Don,

It is NOT going to happen! Midget racing has turned into a rich mans sport. As you already know, the money it costs to race them has eliminated the small guys like you and I, that love midget racing. We can't compete with the wallets of anyone that can still afford to race in this economy! Hoosier has obsolescence engineered into each and every tire that they sell and they have the correct people in place to mandate what tires you and I run so that we have to bolt on new every single time the car hits the track or we do not compete! That is the fact! At least on pavement it is. I don't know about dirt racing if it's the same situation? I know it's not the same, but the big teams are still bolting on new I'd bet.
But, as far as I'm concerned, the tire bills are as much or more to blame as the engine bills. 4 bucks a gallon to get to the track and back doesn't help either.

Even if I could buy an engine today that would cost 8, or 10, or 12 grand and I could compete with it, my car would stay in the shop because I cannot afford the tire bill at the end of the night. Not too many small guys can anymore, especially in this economy. You get paid 200 bucks for making the feature and you pay 600 or more dollars for tires. That means you lost big!

It's just not meant for the small guys like you and I anymore! Hopefully the higher above powers recognize this and make some major changes, but I don't think it's going to happen.

Aside from the points made so far and Team3521 has pretty much sumed it up, the purse structure needs to be completely overhauled. Not sure how many of you have actually seen the payout of the midget orgs but it's very, very heavy on the top and it goes south big time beyond 2nd place and actually second place money is nothing to brag about. If you want to see more cars at the track, then finishing cars 3rd on back need a little more piece of the pie. If you look at who has been winning you can see that about 3-4 teams have been gobbling up all the money. Most of the winning teams showed up at LaSalle and just about everyone else decided not.

We traveled 500 miles to the Southern Illinois Center last December for a $5000 to win race. About half the field of cars that showed up left with 0 (Z-E-R-O ) that didn't make the feature. That's nothing... no B feature money.... no tow money.... ZERO. So they promoted the race on the backs of the racers that entertained their crowd for free..... Hey, the toilet cleaners got more money than some of the racers that night...... NICE