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

[georgep]

Try this

You had Tony George doing the INDY RACING LEAGUE. Back in the 1960' and 1970 you had the ALL STAR LEAGUE.
Now you take the promoter who always makes money Bruton Smith and you start the Stock Car Racing League. Has (3) divisions Grand National, Limited Sportsmen and the Modified Sportsmen.
That puts the cream at the top the feeder series and then the third feeder series.
Sportsmen Modified would just be like dirt has now, big block small block. limited sportsmen are the Busch cars and of course the Grand National are the cup cars.
You could then SELL that package to about any 1 mile or less track as a two day show. Qualifying Saturday and 3 mains on Sunday. The big deal is getting the rules to work so that with maybe just a tire change you can run with the existing rules. Get Hoosier, Firestone and Good year to make (2) compounds available at each race and let the owners decide what sneakers to put on.

[Joe]

The problem is there just isn't that big of an interest. You can't get the stands full for a second-rate program. USAC officiating is fine, but they have no ideas on how to run a business.

And why would Bruton Smith abandon the big leagues and/or waste time promoting short track races.

NASCAR will rule this sport for some time. On a side note, I saw where some guy from Georgia is leasing North Wilkesboro Speedway.

[andre]

On a side note, I saw where some guy from Georgia is leasing North Wilkesboro Speedway.

There it is:

http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2...lkes-speedway/

[SeminoleWind]

I love racing of all types, Nascar cup as well. I do sincerely believe that Nascar does not really care about the regional series or local racing. They are used to counting their profits in millions, not the hundreds that regional or local racing send to Daytona.
I have decided not to attend any Sprint, Nationwide or Truck races this year, including this weekends races at Atlanta, as a small protest. Maybe others will consider the same.
How viable could an organization be (Nascar), if it were boycotted by the sports most hardcore fans? (Us) Are those 30 thousand empty seats at every Cup tour stop vacated by the curious yuppie, or the longtime grassroots racefan?

[Shiloh64]

NASCAR's Modified Tour has been around for years, with different sponsors, the latest being Whelen. It pretty much operated out of the New England-New York-New Jersey area with a couple of annual ventures to Martinsville,VA, and to some degree had the modified market to itself. In more recent years, the ROC series, primarily in mid and western NY and the True Value Modified Series, coming out of the remnants of the old Claremont,NH Speedway modifieds, have siphoned off a lot of the travelers. The TVMS seems to be quite healthy, car counts are usually in the 30+/- range, d they have scheduled more races in southern New England, taking advantage of the weekly modifieds (and their fans) at Stafford Springs and Waterford, Conn.

The modifieds that compete at NSS (each winter) are cars that run regularly with TVMS as well as the Whelen Tour. These NE/NY modifieds also combine for a few mid-week open shows at southern NE tracks, during the summer months. Probably, less travel (in today's economy) is an attraction that has weened cars away from the more widespread Whelen tour?

Lastly, there's a new breed of fan that follows the NASCAR Cup racing. They can name every driver, crew chief, sponsor, own every die cast car, etc., in the Cup series but are lucky if they even know that there's a short track in their vicinity and wouldn't recognize a single competitor at that track, unless it was their brother-in-law. LOL That's the way of the world with the "new" race fans.
Shiloh