Bobby

If Whitey weren’t out of town, this could be a special attraction gold mine for intermission! Meet the drivers and ToyotaTim! Watch him tune shocks! Always thinking of marketing, here....

It's nice to see them talking about change (and doing things differently), driven by economic necessity.

As an FYI, Gina is Promoter and Track Manager, Brad is Race Director.

LIKE, LIKE, LIKE!!!

Very happy to see that there will be full time promotion/track management. Also glad to see the long overdue, "out of the box" recognition of the long race days and the need for a shorter, alternating program. Along those lines, I was hoping to hear some at least preliminary thinking about mix of classes (a strategic overall look, how to integrate cars (including dirt) in non-traditional ways, etc) but perhaps that will be considered with time.

Wristbands from last practice honored?

I know I was.

Indeed. It seems most tracks treat food service as a nuisance rather than something that can be done well for profit. As a result, you only eat the bare minimum to get you by. Because you have to, not because you want to. A hugely overlooked area in my opinion.

Racingjunk.com is one. I think there are others that will be suggested. Also check the facebook page for your track, or for dirt racing in your state. If you want an in with the drivers, ask the announcer or track owner who is most approachable. They will know. It would be very beneficial if you could find someone located near you who you could help for a year or two to learn the basics, ideally someone not at entry level so they will have something to teach you while not being worried about you becoming immediate competition.

If you only have one nearby track, you probably need to worry more about being displaced from your track than outgrowing the dirt classes. Obviously we cant see what's happening in Kansas, but around here the classes are fairly stable and you can start on the bottom and move up as you wish. There is one exception here which may translate to your state and that is Camaro/Nova cars, which go in and out of eligibility, depending on what tracks and classes are open. The essential thing is to learn basic dirt setup principles, which you can learn in any rear wheel drive class and, for the most part, will transfer up the scale, although they get more complex. If you have multiple dirt tracks within a few hour radius running similar classes, or your local track runs classes under a national sanction (IMCA), you are in luck and can safely buy anything you can afford without getting stuck with it down the road if/when the local track closes or changes hands and rules. Edit - I hope you aren't looking at what we call a full (not Limited) mod, as those are NOT the place to start. You could start with a Limited mod, since they have similar suspension to stock cars, and not be nearly so over your head. I personally would recommend starting with what we call a Pure or Factory Stock. We have one driver around here who ran a Pure for a couple of seasons, under the direction of his long time racer father, then moved to a full mod and is doing well.

Fowler, Harper, Yantis - Good to see those names again. In another decade they will be as obscure as the other names on that flyer.

Agreed. I remember him running dirt modifieds on the USMTS tour a while back.

I think Tim has a point, to some extent. We are no longer able to support racing under the old idea, where the track dictates both how you will build your cars and how much they will pay you to race them, which may not be compatible. Just as in business, where you can't dictate both how someone will do a job, and what results they will get. One variable is controlled, the other goes wild, you pick which one you want. If the variable that must be controlled is payout, then what spec the cars are built to must float. On the other hand, if the track is going to enforce a class specification, then the payout must be whatever the racers can tolerate. By the same token, if the track is going to both dictate what classes/rules/payout combinations are, and reserve the right to kill certain classes after investments are made in them, they will have to let the variable of how many participants they have go wild. People who could still afford to heads up race according to specs they don't control would be welcome to. But you still need a volume of racers to participate and pay the track bills. What I propose is an alternative. It may flounder, it may take off, it may be way more interesting than people think at first. It would cost almost nothing to try. It would also provide a fall back position for heads-up racers who are not on their game on a given night because of mechanical problems, accidents, etc.

That's one option for how to do it, but as you say, it isn't the most exciting one. But since you've put it that way, lets put it in perspective. How is that different from what we have now, aside from the attitude of the announcer? What I envision is to have the different speed cars running against each other. Cars begin in reverse order of speed, fast cars chase down the slower ones. Hare and Hound. Just to illustrate, with easy math - a thirty lap race, slowest car is eighteen seconds, fastest is fifteen. Total race time is 540 seconds (18 x 30). Eighteen second car gets a 90 second head start (540 -450) compared to the last car. The race is over or flag thrown at 540 seconds, anyone crossing sooner (breaking out) loses. Winners are determined by how they cross the line. It is all visual. After the last car starts the entire race is anticipation over how it is going to end. The math wouldn't be complicated. The track would calculate when to throw the checkered flag (or have the announcer announce it, as a flag in the hand of the flagman would give a clue to the racers), and you could let the cars figure for themselves when to start. Everyone would have to submit a "dial in" to the track. The track publishes the total race time for the slowest one, and puts the cars in order. Driver's would calculate their own delays and start whenever they want, depending on their race strategies, probably with a timer inside the car or with a spotter.

Top-Shelf I agree with much of what you say (probably all of it, actually). I'm glad you said it, as some of it (that it is boring) is not politically correct to say about our beloved asphalt racing. My own thought is the first five laps and last five laps are interesting. So why do we have 75 lap races when you only want to see 10? Because we tell ourselves that we "have to give the fan value". If we were honest, we would own up to the fact that we are putting on boring shows and do something else. The enduro concept is actually what I used as a guide for how certain aspects of this would work in practice.