Whelen Mod Tour Artice... Interesting point of view to say the least!

[Mark Keeler]

This is an interesting point of view towards the Whelen Mod Tour...

The Whelen Modified Tour: NASCAR Celebrates 25 Years As The Division Falls To Ruins Around Them

[georgep]

TRUE, TRUE, TRUE
The modifieds need a Ted Johnson to open their eyes. NASCAR is the has been not the Modifieds.
The facts speak for themselves. People will not be able to pay the high $$$ to see the Sprint cup run. NASCAR is trying to close down local tracks by moving so many events to Friday and Saturday nights so that people stay home to watch the 10 lap heat races between commercials for the NASCAR race.
What will change the future if racing is giving USAC a kick in the pants to get their stock car division going and kicking Speed and ESPN to cover midgets, sprints and modifieds and IF USAC comes play them. That will get the money people to INVEST in those divisions and keep them healthy.
A tape delay of a whole show on a weeknight will do the trick. What if you had Sprints on Tuesday, Midgets on Wednesday and Stock cars on Thursday nights That would prime the pump for local tracks on Friday and Saturday to see that type of action in person.
Just my $.02

[AJ14]

USAC or ARCA or Bruton Smith really needs to step in and take control of auto racing in America . Sanctioning bodies all over America have that " deer in the headlights " look whenever NASCAR is mentioned . But USAC or any number of organisations are capable of putting on just as good a show as Cup . The Whelen series with USAC or ARCA would be a perfect fit . Put together with a USAC stock car or ARCA stock car series that runs 1 mile or smaller tracks( and dirt tracks ) as well as road courses , what a show ! Bruton Smith owns some tracks that would be perfect , like Bristol and North Wilkesboro . Bruton also has the leverage to get TV interested .

[JackTripper]

You have to look at this series and ask yourself - does NA$CAR sanction it because it's interested in the overall health of the series or do they sanction it so nobody else can?

Remember the All Pro series? NA$CAR killed off a perfectly good late model series by mandating perimeter chassis so the series could run bigger tracks. Why? Do fans really want to see late models run at Homestead? Nope. They just wanted another series to run it's bigger tracks.

NA$CAR effectively elmiminated any chance for the local late model driver to come out and run the All Pro series when it came to his track, and that's what puts butts in seats - the touring series versus the locals. I bleed Pennsylvania Posse blood and when the World of Outlaws came to town they were the villains and every PA native in the stands wanted our Posse drivers to kick their butts and send them packing. And you know what? The stands were filled every time, everybody made money and everybody was happy.

[Mark Keeler]

>>PERSONAL OPINION<< Bruton is only interested in padding his own pocket... he bought New Hampshire International (which has sold out EVERY cup race since they started there) so that he could move their Chase Race to Texas...

Texas' Chase Race happens to be on the first weekend of hunting season... Rumor up north is that Bruton will strip NHIS of it's second date being that you can't race in New Hampshire in November.

[georgep]

BUT if he did France would crush him like a bug. That is the problem.
DIRT was started to level the playing field, they destroyed it instead. The cars are cookie cutters and rolling bill boards.
TRI-STATE tried to fix the problem with the modifieds and get HUNG in the press for it.
THe most succesfull spin off was the All Star League where tracks worked together to bring the best of the best together. This is what it will take to fix the things that are broken.
The classes that are hurting need a solid set of locked in rules and specs for at least 3 years to justify building a car. WOO Started with 9 cars that traveled look at it now. If you take the multi track package and run one race a month at each track you get something that works. BUT you can not make it so that the cars can not run anyplace but with you.
The OLD modifieds where simple build it and race it. NOw you got to BUY IT and then race it.

[Winger]

DIRT was started to level the playing field, they destroyed it instead. The cars are cookie cutters and rolling bill boards.
:

Huh, When DIRT started it was to get tracks to work together under a common set of rules. It accomplished this with huge success. People still built their own cars at the time and innovation was allowed until Balough brought the "Batmobile" to Syracuse. Then the body rules became more restricted. I agree that now they are pretty much "cookie cutters" but the racers did that themselves. DIRT didn't mandate that. Everyone wanted the latest winning chassis. There are still a few racers that build their own cars. One's that are successful end up selling them to others. i.e.: Bicknell

[Todd McCreary]

BUT you can not make it so that the cars can not run anyplace but with you.

say what? that's just CRAZY talk.


is what track owners NEED to do is start new series that can't compete in the weekly show at their own tracks.

[AJ14]

I don't know about NASCAR crushing Bruton . Hes got a pretty big pile of cash himself . And i really believe that a viable alternative racing series would pull racers and fans from NASCAR in droves . At the very least , i sure would like to see a race event at Bristol or North Wilkesboro where the tour modifieds and sprint cars were the prelims for USAC or ARCA type stock cars . That would be an evening worth paying for .

[georgep]

Huh, When DIRT started it was to get tracks to work together under a common set of rules. It accomplished this with huge success. People still built their own cars at the time and innovation was allowed until Balough brought the "Batmobile" to Syracuse. Then the body rules became more restricted. I agree that now they are pretty much "cookie cutters" but the racers did that themselves. DIRT didn't mandate that. Everyone wanted the latest winning chassis. There are still a few racers that build their own cars. One's that are successful end up selling them to others. i.e.: Bicknell

Agree 100% but that was where the end of the modifieds started as we knew them. Cars a re safer now that a few build them. I have ab Olson and it is musch better built than the car I drove back in the day.
I guess it was just more fun to see the coupes and coaches than the bill boards racing.

[Winger]

I guess it was just more fun to see the coupes and coaches than the bill boards racing.

I agree with that. Modifieds, Dirt Late Models, Nascar cup cars are all rolling billboards that don't really resemble anything anymore. That went away when they stopped using gremlins, pintos, etc. and went to the sheet metal cars they have now. I got a kick looking at the Cadillac emblems on some of the dirt late models at the Ocala UDLMCS show last Friday. Even the asphalt late models take a stretch to recognize what they are. I don't mind the advertising, etc. on the cars but wish they resembled something that is actually built. And I hate the "sail" panels some cars run. Oh well, sure did get off topic here.

[Joe]

Let's calm down, folks. USAC has always been a grease fire. ARCA? Really? Great racing but no one will come to see it -- or they would have already. ESPN will not go back to covering low budget racing because it has bigtime sports programming now. By the same token, SPEED will not be doing local racing anytime soon for similar reasons.

Bruton Smith won't jeopardize his hundreds of millions to screw up his cash cow.

Modified racing in general is a mess right now, mainly because the costs are out of control.

So what if the cars all look the same? If the racing is close with a lot of passing, it doesn't matter what the cars look like.

[AJ14]

USAC was the largest and most successfull sant6ioning body in the US for decades . And they still put on a pretty good show . I imagine they could figure out how to build a new series . The same goes for ARCA . They just havn't ever had the promotional budget to work with .
Bruton Smith has made ALL of his fortune by taking risks . If he were the backer for the new race series we're dreaming about here , i suspect you would see some Cup teams come over .
Heres a scenario . Stewart Haas , Richard Childress , Tommy Baldwin , and the Red Bull teams ( along with a few others ) decide to go with Brutons' new series . The new series runs at Brutons' tracks along with others , one mile or less , and incorporates 50 lap Sprint or Midget races and a 50 or 100 lap Touring Modified race before the ARCA style stock cars run their 300 or 400 mile race . Of course the show begins early enough in the day to make sense . Virtually any TV and radio network ( actually Bruton has his own radio network PRN ) would jump at the chance to televise something like that . And with those teams , drawing fans wouldn't be a problem . Shorter tracks have less seats to fill anyway . As long as we're dreaming , lets dream big .

[andre]

Heres a scenario . Stewart Haas , Richard Childress , Tommy Baldwin , and the Red Bull teams ( along with a few others ) decide to go with Brutons' new series .

They cannot fill up the grandstands will ALL the top names nowadays, can you imagine with only HALF the top names!!!!!

Remember the 2 Indy car type series??? Cale Yarborough Serie???

Nascar as it is might not be at its best right now, but I would not see a very good success in cutting the quality of the field in half.

As for the smaller regional series in general, except for some very few top notch ones, they all suffer the same syndrome, too many of them and the quality suffers.

André

[AJ14]

I see your point , but really the number of name drivers has nothing to do with NASCAR not filling the stands . NASCARs problems are far deeper than that . And obviously a large number of open wheel fans would also show up for the " Bruton Races " , thereby adding to the crowd .
CART and IRL ( nee USAC ) fought it out for years , but you'll notice that the group everyone thought was top dog no longer exists . Just as it might very well turn out if a really viable rival series took on NASCAR . Fans and competitors might not be as loyal to NASCAR as you might think .
At any rate , this whole day dream started because the Whelan Tour is being sorely mismanaged by NASCAR . And i for one think USAC or ARCA or any number of other groups could do a much better job of running the modifieds . But as i said earlier , why not dream big and bring several types of auto racing back to the forefront . And give the fans a great and unique show on Sundays .