Citrus County Speedway Results 7/18

[gary laplant]

Check out the Results for 7/18/14 Just go to our web site and check them out. Along with next weeks races and prices for addmission it all on our web site
www.citruscountyspeedway.com then go to results

[dd38]

Why not just post them on here like every other track does instead of making people jump around web sites?

[bowlegs]

That link to citrus is painful ain't it

[Matt Albee]

He could post his results right here, but he needs to dive people to his web site.
The more people that visit, the more advertisers he can contact with the popularity of his site. And the more he can charge for the web site ads.
Other, more successful tracks have web sites and still post here.

[Phil Jacques]

Clicked the link and thought my eyes were on fire... That blue is the most painful and hideous thing to look at...

I try not to bitch at tracks, but if you are going to try and drive people to your website... At least spend a few bucks with a good company and have a nice site such as www.speedbowl.com or www.thompsonspeedway.com

My general assumption just by going to that website is that Citrus is cheap and does things half ass. Do you really want that reputation?

[Don Nerone]

He could post his results right here, but he needs to dive people to his web site.
The more people that visit, the more advertisers he can contact with the popularity of his site. And the more he can charge for the web site ads.
Other, more successful tracks have web sites and still post here.

I can just see all the big money rolling in now.
Boy that is the way for tracks to pay there bills. Adds on there web site.

You guys make me cry..
All the tracks are getting rich on advertising
WHAT EVER

don62

[Matt Albee]

I can just see all the big money rolling in now.
Boy that is the way for tracks to pay there bills. Adds on there web site.

You guys make me cry..
All the tracks are getting rich on advertising
WHAT EVER

don62

Yep, that's exactly what i was saying alright.

[zerofor]

you have to admit its eye catching aint it (or is blinding the phrase Im searching for ?)

[John Berti]

Clicked the link and thought my eyes were on fire... That blue is the most painful and hideous thing to look at...

I try not to bitch at tracks, but if you are going to try and drive people to your website... At least spend a few bucks with a good company and have a nice site such as www.speedbowl.com or www.thompsonspeedway.com

My general assumption just by going to that website is that Citrus is cheap and does things half ass. Do you really want that reputation?

Take note of a few things on each of those websites. Waterford Speedbowl (Waterford, Ct) uses their track three nights a week: Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. Notice the days of the week for racing at Thompson Speedway in Thompson, Ct) Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. Not mentioned was the fact that Stafford Motor Speedway (Stafford Springs, Ct) has a long standing tradition of successfully racing on Friday nights. Tracks in the Northeast work out things much better. Most of them are NASCAR sanctioned tracks and I think that goes a long way in making it work. NASCAR makes sure tracks within relatively close proximity of each other do not run on the same night.

The problem in Florida is that all the tracks are hung up with the belief that they can only run on Saturday nights to be successful. There are only so many race cars out there and so many drivers. Split them up over several tracks all racing on Saturday night and the results are the low car counts we are seeing at each track nowadays. An additional problem with every track running on Saturday night is the back stabbing we see amongst some of the promoters with some tracks seemingly out to put each other out of business.

Keep all of this mentality up and Florida will lose more and more speedways. Yes, some tracks can still run on Saturday nights, but we need some tracks to break away to Friday night racing which can start at around 8 p.m affording competitors and fans plenty of time to get to the track. We need a few tracks willing to race on Sundays with a starting time at around 7 p.m. If the track runs an efficient race program the program will be over plenty early enough for attendees to get home early to rest up for work on Monday.

I've spoken to many car owners and drivers about racing on nights other than Saturday and just about everyone I interviewed liked the concept and said they would be supportive of it. Many of the older drivers told me that's the way it use to be many years back and it worked out just fine.

The other problem at Florida tracks is that each track runs way too many divisions with the differentiation between divisions really not being that great. Reduce the number of divisions being run by combining some divisions into one set of compromising rules thus increasing the car count in each of the remaining divisions. There is really no need to run more than four divisions per week. Top divisions like late models and open wheel modifieds can be run on an alternate week basis. Have a limited late model division, a street stock division and a four cylinder novice division that will run on a weekly basis and that's all. Special events like TBARA sprint cars, other traveling series or an event like Crash-a-rama can be run once a month as part of a weekly race program.

As for Gary wanting to get fans to go to the website I see nothing wrong with that. Fans can find out a lot more than just race results by going to the Citrus County Speedway website. Fans can find out things like the race schedule for the season, possible changes in the schedule, point standings, rules, payouts, rainout information and special announcements from Gary to competitors and fans alike on the message board. A speedway website doesn't have to be super fancy to convey basic, essential information and the CCS website accomplishes that quite well.

[scottgarrity07]

I agree with a lot of what you say John. Some big differences between CT and FL racing is TIS, SMS and WS are all within an hour of each other, in densely populated areas, with relatively strong car counts and with only a small handful of drivers competing at more than one track. Most of them are big $ Mod guys. In FL tracks are mostly very far from one another, mainly in remote areas, with a rather small one track loyal competitor base. What does this mean? It means racing on wed, thurs and fri nites will flat out hurt your car counts because the cars that you need to share with other tracks will have to miss work to compete at your track. Racers can't sustain that on a weekly basis. Plus most guys around here can't afford to run every week, nevermind a few times a weekend. Also fans won't travel long distances on work nights every week. In a heavy population area like Showtime, no problem. Everywhere else, you will just be limiting your crowd that can come. It's hard enough now to get cars and fans. I know we are saturated with Sat nite racing but somehow the dirt tracks all run sat and most are doing real well. One answer could be Sundays. Problem is no one wants to sit in the mid summer sun and starting too late creates work nite issues again. A tight running (features only?) show starting at 6 ending by 9 the latest could work, but who's going to be willing to stick their neck out to try? Honestly, tho, I would prefer to race on Sundays (but I usually work Saturdays).

[MiniRacer26]

Clicked the link and thought my eyes were on fire... That blue is the most painful and hideous thing to look at...

I try not to bitch at tracks, but if you are going to try and drive people to your website... At least spend a few bucks with a good company and have a nice site such as www.speedbowl.com or www.thompsonspeedway.com

My general assumption just by going to that website is that Citrus is cheap and does things half ass. Do you really want that reputation?

The website is the LEAST of his worries up there. The place is a joke!

[John Berti]

Auburndale, Showtime, and Citrus County are all within 60 miles of Tampa, FL. The road system in Florida is more than adequate with a fine interstate and U.S. highway system. Car counts are already hurting with this "I've got to run Saturday night" mentality. Two more tracks will be coming on board next year that also will be running on Saturday night, those being Sand Mountain and Three Palms. The tracks that are running on Saturday nights already have weak car counts so can you imagine how much it will be worsened with the addition of two more tracks. Something has got to change.

There are only so many decent sized pieces you can get from a pie. I know the status quo cannot be maintained or racing will surely die in Florida as more and more tracks will be forced to close. The only answer I can see is to this dilemma is racing on other nights than Saturday unless someone has other ideas. I'd love to hear those ideas.

Scott, for Sunday racing I'm not proposing having competitors and fans at the track when it is the hottest part of the day. I'm talking about opening stands and pits at 4:30 or 5:00 p.m. and starting racing at 7 p.m. Remember I'm proposing a reduction in the number of divisions run at tracks as most Florida tracks have way too many divisions. Four divisions with an efficiently run race program and you can be done by 9:00 - 9:30 p.m. which is plenty early enough for everyone to get home for necessary sleep for work on Monday.

For Friday night racing grandstands and pits would open at 5:30-6:00 p.m. which should work out very well to afford competitors and fans alike plenty of time to get to the track. The race program itself would start at around 8 p.m. With only four divisions racing regularly each race night the race program should easily be done by 10:00 - 10:30 p.m.

Once again I say that I have talked with car owners and drivers and many have told me they would like opportunities to race more than once a week. I have not limited this questioning to just Super Late Model and Open Wheel Modified owners and drivers, I have also talked to Sportsman, Modified Mini Stock, Street Stock, Pure Stock and Mini Stock car owners and drivers as well.

I agree with a lot of what you say John. Some big differences between CT and FL racing is TIS, SMS and WS are all within an hour of each other, in densely populated areas, with relatively strong car counts and with only a small handful of drivers competing at more than one track. Most of them are big $ Mod guys. In FL tracks are mostly very far from one another, mainly in remote areas, with a rather small one track loyal competitor base. What does this mean? It means racing on wed, thurs and fri nites will flat out hurt your car counts because the cars that you need to share with other tracks will have to miss work to compete at your track. Racers can't sustain that on a weekly basis. Plus most guys around here can't afford to run every week, nevermind a few times a weekend. Also fans won't travel long distances on work nights every week. In a heavy population area like Showtime, no problem. Everywhere else, you will just be limiting your crowd that can come. It's hard enough now to get cars and fans. I know we are saturated with Sat nite racing but somehow the dirt tracks all run sat and most are doing real well. One answer could be Sundays. Problem is no one wants to sit in the mid summer sun and starting too late creates work nite issues again. A tight running (features only?) show starting at 6 ending by 9 the latest could work, but who's going to be willing to stick their neck out to try? Honestly, tho, I would prefer to race on Sundays (but I usually work Saturdays).

[scottgarrity07]

Once again John, you make a lot of great points. A couple of counters tho: Citrus, while within 60 miles of Tampa, requires a lengthy trip up pokey U.S. 41. I live well north of Tampa in Port Richey and CCS is still an hour from me. I raced many years up nawth at Stafford and some at Thompson. Stafford was 45 minutes from my house and Thompson about 1:15. I had still had to take time off from work every week to be able to haul there, get situated in the pits and buy tires, fuel, etc. I am lucky and have a job with the flexibilty to do this. Not so sure about others though. It worked out to me burning about two weeks of vacation time a year. That's quite a sacrifice for most people. That was for a 22 week schedule. It would be way more than that down here with our much longer racing season. All that being said, I'm not against it, I just think it's a lot tougher to make it work in FL than CT because of logistics and probably the biggest factor, you don't have NASCAR sanctioning the tracks and mandating non competing nights for tracks within close proximity (only NSS). I think the biggest obstacle to all this is to try and get track owners to take the risk of moving nights. The only example of non-Saturday asphalt racing in FL in the recent past has been Orlando Speedworld. And that place has struggling for a long time now. Not to say that there are not other issues hurting OSW, but if a track owner was considering switching nights, I can't imagine the OSW example would give you a warm fuzzy feeling about the prospects of it.