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Reporting on two success stories that I witnessed last night. One was a race series, and the other a resurrected speedway.
I made my first visit to Lake View Motor Speedway in BFE South Carolina. Seriously, this place is out in the boondocks. There are plenty of racing farmers, that is the good news but there are also some dying small towns. It would be hard to generate local participation, but it looks like LVMS is doing ok.
No, they don't race every week. It is pretty common up here to run once or twice a month, but they had 67 cars in 5 classes and a pretty good count of fans. Of course it helped that they got to sit in brand new grandstands, and enjoy many improvements put in place by the new owners in the past year or so.
The track is 38 years old, but had fallen on hard times. They are back from the brink by investing in the track, even in uncertain times for their region.
AND then there is the Carolina Sprint Tour! Think a group like Florida's Top Gun sprints, except these guys run inexpensive engines based on the smaller 305. After several years of single digit car counts, the tour has finally broken through in 2019: 23 cars at the previous race, and 15 last night at Lake View. The owners of the series are so relieved that they stuck to their plan, and it has finally blossomed into a professional looking, exciting regional series.
Most over-night successes take years of preparation.
I made my first visit to Lake View Motor Speedway in BFE South Carolina. Seriously, this place is out in the boondocks. There are plenty of racing farmers, that is the good news but there are also some dying small towns. It would be hard to generate local participation, but it looks like LVMS is doing ok.
No, they don't race every week. It is pretty common up here to run once or twice a month, but they had 67 cars in 5 classes and a pretty good count of fans. Of course it helped that they got to sit in brand new grandstands, and enjoy many improvements put in place by the new owners in the past year or so.
The track is 38 years old, but had fallen on hard times. They are back from the brink by investing in the track, even in uncertain times for their region.
AND then there is the Carolina Sprint Tour! Think a group like Florida's Top Gun sprints, except these guys run inexpensive engines based on the smaller 305. After several years of single digit car counts, the tour has finally broken through in 2019: 23 cars at the previous race, and 15 last night at Lake View. The owners of the series are so relieved that they stuck to their plan, and it has finally blossomed into a professional looking, exciting regional series.
Most over-night successes take years of preparation.