Progress (Is what they call it)

[zerofor]

Back when I was a young guy in Central Ohio race tracks raced on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights with an occasional weekday show (usually some sort of Invitational or special series) race thrown in the mix.Columbus Motor Speedway raced on Friday and Sunday nights during the 1960s.Supermodifieds and Sportsman ( the old forty's era coupes with straight six power).Late Models and Sportsman on Sunday.Not enough? Most nights there were in excess of forty cars in each division. On Friday Powell Speedway (30 minutes north of downtown Columbus) raced on one or both of their tracks.Kill Kare in Xenia ran Friday's too.Shady Bowl raced Saturday along with Dayton Speedways 5/8 mile high bank.In 1972 Cincinnati's Tri County Speedway went blacktop and Zanesville Ohio forty five minutes east of Columbus had a quarter mile blacktop that raced on Friday nights.I never ever missed buying Stock Car Racing Magazine, Mid American Racing News or the Marc Times.You could go by any corner gas station,muffler shop,auto part store etc and see a racecar sitting out front hanging out or loaded up ready to head to a track.Then along came enclosed trailers and it could just as easily be antiques or lawn mowers in that trailer as it could be a racecar.All those images that got a kids mind wandering now safely hidden away.Progress.Dick Bergren the founder and editor of Stock Car Racing magazine threw in the towel and folded his magazine and took a cable TV race analyst job leaving behind something he put blood sweat and tears into.The internet had come along and slowly ate away at the publications revenue stream.Progress.When Dick Beebe passed away and with sales sagging his surviving family decided the effort wasn't worth the reward on keeping his fifty year old paper going.Progress. ARCA released a hardcover book about ten years ago full of great pictures and also with a list of all the tracks it had raced at in the then fifty year history of the sanctioning body.At that time more than half no longer existed.That was almost ten years ago.I know quite a few on that list have disappeared since.Progress.Those cars I used to see in front of those gas stations and other places? Gone.SCR magazine,Marc Times and Mid American Racing News? Gone. Half of those tracks I talked about earlier.Gone.Progress.Yep,we have just about progressed this racing thing out of sight and out of mind.

[Renegade Racing Fuels]

No question about it, short track racing has changed a lot over the decades. It went from a handful of racers entertaining themselves on bulldozed dirt tracks in a pasture, to nationwide organized short track series and national championships. Then it began a steady decline in racer participation, advertiser interest, and to a lesser extent fan interest, that hasn't stopped yet.
Race cars of all types were always the best advertising racing ever had. Race cars parked proudly in front of gas stations, auto repair shops, used car lots. Race cars displayed on open trailers or even towed with a rope or chain, headed to the race tracks. And at one of my favorite race tracks back in the day, all participants were required to letter the name of the race track on the back of the car so that anyone following it in traffic would know where the race car was going to race. Now almost all short track cars are completely hidden from view in closed trailers. It's hard to generate much excitement for racing when the cars are invisible to everyone they pass.
Sadly, gas stations with actual service bays don't exist anymore, so you don't see any cars outside. Some tracks realize that and are trying to get people interested again. Citrus County Speedway often parks a race car in the parking lot at Lowes to generate interest from race fans and possible new race fans too. Have someone on hand to answer questions, plenty of race posters, and fire it up a couple of times per hour, that's how you generate interest.

[OldSchool+]

credit goes to

Citrus County and all the individuals that make the parking lot thing happen.

[zerofor]

Racing has lost it's visibility

Through the loss of so many tracks,racing publications,open trailers and even daily newspapers,it's no longer front and center in your face highly visible any longer.What tracks are left need to try and change that.You could make the argument that this local race track thing will never go away and you could be right.But I'm sure at one time people said the same thing about the Ringling Brothers Circus.