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Racing Toward Midnight or Right up there with running out of toilet paper
from The Inside Groove by Dick Berggren in last months Speedway Illustrated
I recently sat next to a little girl and her father in a local short track grandstand. The kid was maybe 8 years old, and she excitedly told me she had come to see the Figure 8 cars. But as is so often the case at today's short tracks with more than three divisions, the program was long. At around 9:30 p.m. it was well past the kid's bedtime. Yawning, with the Figure 8 cars still several events away, she asked her father to take her home. She didn't see the race she had come for and a young fan was lost.
At many short tracks today, the pits are full but you can fit more people in a medium-size Winnebago than are sitting in the grandstands. That's because the majority of local tracks have become "back-gate" operations with four or more divisions. At the back-gate tracks, racers not only pay for their cars, they pay their own purses as well. And the shows are typically long.
One of the best-run short tracks in the country is Thunder Road in Barre, VT. Built by former CBS announcer Ken Squier when he was in his early 20s, now nearly 50 years ago, Thunder Road draws huge crowds who pay 10 bucks each to watch.
But like so many other tracks, times have changed at "The Road", as local fans call it. In the early days there was just one division. "We could build real heroes," said Squier, because the announcer could focus on a few people who made two or more appearances each night. With 35 racers, in those early days an announcer would talk heroes and villians, young guys and veterans, underdogs and big winners. When there are more than 100 cars, there's only time to announce each driver, the car number, and maybe the sponsor. Announcers can't build characters at back-gate tracks because there are too many cars for that. People become fans of characters.
So today's back-gate driven, local-level racing plays before grandstands that are primarily filled with empty seats. During the 2007 season, I went to a five-division track with fewer than 300 people in the stands, but there were so many cars, the pits overflowed into the near-empty spectator parking lot. Nobody can sell a track or car sponsorship when they can promise 300 fans.
It's a crazy way to run a race track, but I've come to the conclusion that a lot of crazy people operate race tracks. For their customers, running races toward midnight is right up there with running out of toilet paper in the lady's room.
Late shows trample curfews, pissing off the local government and neighbors. But more important, every one of these guys ( and gals ) who runs a show deep into the night should look at the grandstands at 8 p.m. and then look at the same stands at 11 p.m. People who pay for tickets to race nights that are too long leave before the program is over.
Would you walk out of a good show?
Too many divisions, caution flags that fly as soon as someone gets sideways or spins off the track out of harm's way, and long clean-ups after crashes combine with too many cars to run too many race nights too late. It's not what people pay to see.
Last summer I was at a track where after giving the field a dozen laps behind the pace car before the feature, the flagman threw a red. Why? Because one guy in a field of more than two dozen was still in the pits trying to get his engine started. In all, it was nearly 20 minutes between the cars lining up behind the pace car and the moment that guy's engine finally came to life and the race began.
I called the guy responsible for the program and asked what gives. "I have too much respect for my drivers to not do that," he explained. "They paid for their tires, they paid for their fuel - so they deserve the chance to race."
He didn't understand that the fans in the stands who paid for their tickets deserved to see a race, not wait around while someone tried to start an engine. I didn't stay for the whole program because there was still so much to go and the night had gotten long. Judging by the empty spaces I saw in the parking lot as I drove out, others had less patience with the program than I did and had already left.
The only local track in America that can run races toward midnight and get away with it is Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway. Everyone else had better have their show done by 10 p.m.
from The Inside Groove by Dick Berggren in last months Speedway Illustrated
I recently sat next to a little girl and her father in a local short track grandstand. The kid was maybe 8 years old, and she excitedly told me she had come to see the Figure 8 cars. But as is so often the case at today's short tracks with more than three divisions, the program was long. At around 9:30 p.m. it was well past the kid's bedtime. Yawning, with the Figure 8 cars still several events away, she asked her father to take her home. She didn't see the race she had come for and a young fan was lost.
At many short tracks today, the pits are full but you can fit more people in a medium-size Winnebago than are sitting in the grandstands. That's because the majority of local tracks have become "back-gate" operations with four or more divisions. At the back-gate tracks, racers not only pay for their cars, they pay their own purses as well. And the shows are typically long.
One of the best-run short tracks in the country is Thunder Road in Barre, VT. Built by former CBS announcer Ken Squier when he was in his early 20s, now nearly 50 years ago, Thunder Road draws huge crowds who pay 10 bucks each to watch.
But like so many other tracks, times have changed at "The Road", as local fans call it. In the early days there was just one division. "We could build real heroes," said Squier, because the announcer could focus on a few people who made two or more appearances each night. With 35 racers, in those early days an announcer would talk heroes and villians, young guys and veterans, underdogs and big winners. When there are more than 100 cars, there's only time to announce each driver, the car number, and maybe the sponsor. Announcers can't build characters at back-gate tracks because there are too many cars for that. People become fans of characters.
So today's back-gate driven, local-level racing plays before grandstands that are primarily filled with empty seats. During the 2007 season, I went to a five-division track with fewer than 300 people in the stands, but there were so many cars, the pits overflowed into the near-empty spectator parking lot. Nobody can sell a track or car sponsorship when they can promise 300 fans.
It's a crazy way to run a race track, but I've come to the conclusion that a lot of crazy people operate race tracks. For their customers, running races toward midnight is right up there with running out of toilet paper in the lady's room.
Late shows trample curfews, pissing off the local government and neighbors. But more important, every one of these guys ( and gals ) who runs a show deep into the night should look at the grandstands at 8 p.m. and then look at the same stands at 11 p.m. People who pay for tickets to race nights that are too long leave before the program is over.
Would you walk out of a good show?
Too many divisions, caution flags that fly as soon as someone gets sideways or spins off the track out of harm's way, and long clean-ups after crashes combine with too many cars to run too many race nights too late. It's not what people pay to see.
Last summer I was at a track where after giving the field a dozen laps behind the pace car before the feature, the flagman threw a red. Why? Because one guy in a field of more than two dozen was still in the pits trying to get his engine started. In all, it was nearly 20 minutes between the cars lining up behind the pace car and the moment that guy's engine finally came to life and the race began.
I called the guy responsible for the program and asked what gives. "I have too much respect for my drivers to not do that," he explained. "They paid for their tires, they paid for their fuel - so they deserve the chance to race."
He didn't understand that the fans in the stands who paid for their tickets deserved to see a race, not wait around while someone tried to start an engine. I didn't stay for the whole program because there was still so much to go and the night had gotten long. Judging by the empty spaces I saw in the parking lot as I drove out, others had less patience with the program than I did and had already left.
The only local track in America that can run races toward midnight and get away with it is Tony Stewart's Eldora Speedway. Everyone else had better have their show done by 10 p.m.
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