A Race Track's Longevity...

[meangreen]

Lots of good points made here so far, but I don't think we've "hit the nail on the head" yet... Yes, it's all about entertainment for both the spectators AND the participants. There is a lot of competition for the entertainment dollar, so you better put on a good show or folks will spend that dollar somewhere else. In the '90s the economy was booming and racing was more affordable because we had more "disposable income". It was not uncommon for a track to have six or seven different classes of racing with 12 to 20 cars in every class. Some tracks began treating the participants like they were doing them a favor by "allowing" them to race. Sometimes the tracks mistreated the participants by showing favoritism toward certain drivers or letting the rules get out of hand and drivng up the cost of racing. As the economy slowed and disposable income dried up, car counts began to dwindle. When car counts go down, on-track excitement goes down, too. Eventually the racing becomes mundane and boring; the entertainment factor is gone. When racing is no longer entertaining, the fans quit coming, the gate receipts go down, the purse is reduced, more racers leave because they can't earn enough to make it worthwhile to show up, etc, etc. It's a vicious cycle. It's all about management of resources and a race track's main resource is the racers!

The tracks that do well are adept at keeping the participants happy enough to keep them showing up which keeps up the entertainment factor which keeps the fans coming through the gate. The tracks that struggle continuously are not managing their main resource properly.

If a track is running 6 or 7 classes and only having 4 or 5 cars show up in each class, they're running too many classes. They need to figure out how to consolidate down to 2 or 3 classes and get the car counts up while keeping the racing affordable.