Jason Posted February 22, 2004 Report Share Posted February 22, 2004 You guys got any ideas why no one has tried building a short track for weekly racing in the Dallas/Fort Worth area? One would think that area would be a nice spot for a new short track. Jason Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tqj3 Posted February 23, 2004 Report Share Posted February 23, 2004 Jason- Have you counted all the successful asphalt short tracks in Texas? Maybe that's part of the reason. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
txtom Posted February 23, 2004 Report Share Posted February 23, 2004 Jason, Some of the Metroplex guys here can add something, here are a few of my thoughts after living up there from '84-'93-- 1. The last asphalt track up there, really never had a good following. It was a 1/4 miler called "Salvage Speedway", off Fulghum Road in Wilmer-Hutchins south of Dallas. Went there a few times in the mid-70's, and it never had a great deal of fans or cars. 2. Where would you build it? From West Ft Worth to East Dallas is a lot of real estate, and you have several obstacles along the way-- Property costs, among the highest in the state, in an area you would want to be. Zoning and permit problems, including alcohol restrictions (Dry cities and counties), politicians that would make San Antonio's city council look like choir boys, and the inevitable resistance from any neighborhood group within 10 miles of it. DFW politicians are still patting themselves on the back about Texas Motor Speedway, like they had something to do with it coming here. Nascar was big-time, national exposure. They don't give a tinker's damn about some local race track. (Ask anyone up there if having TMS in DFW made a significant difference in the exposure one of their local dirt tracks is getting) Lack of support fom city officials. Dallas just lost a track to build a school. Must have been the only spot of land up there available.....If it had not been a school, it would have been a developer looking to build a 300 home subdivision. Taxes from one track against 300 houses and the people working to pay for them? Not hard to figure out which direction a city council will go. 3. As big as anything is the sheer size of the dirt track market up there. And just about every dirt track driver up there I know or talked to, likes it just fine. I would think a weekly asphalt track would have a tough go of it up there. NOT saying impossible, just tough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hray Posted February 23, 2004 Report Share Posted February 23, 2004 Tom, You're right on the money. I tried several times last year to get some of the hot shot modified drivers to show up at a TAMS race with us (especially when we went to Wichita Falls & Oktober Fast), but they wanted nothing to do with asphalt. They are perfectly happy with dirt modifieds and late models, there are tracks everywhere, the purses are as good as asphalt, and they can run summer and winter and a different track almost every nite. The closest asphalt track would be WF or Altus. Now, how about a 1/2 mile at TMS???? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jracer98 Posted February 23, 2004 Report Share Posted February 23, 2004 Two major thoughts: 1. Bad investment. Existing operational racetracks seem to be struggling. Trying to make one cash flow while servicing debt will be even harder without "pent up demand". There is no pent up demand in Dallas that will lead to an effective car count in year 1. I would not build it myself. 2. It needs to be out in the country. DFW is growing in every direction and tracks that were remote 5 years ago are in trouble with cities and houses. Unless it is way out in the tulies, it will be vunerable in a few years. Racers will tow out there but will a grandstand full of pure fans? To me, the most reasonable deal would be to pave the dirt track at TMS. It only exists to have an opportunity to sell more tickets during the big races anyway. They have a big weekend nut to cover booking the WOO and dirt track late models. If they paved it, their day to day overhead would go down and they could put the Texas touring series' cars on the evening show and sell it out like thr does in Austin. That might net out better on the money. With those expensive condos there, I don't see them running a week to week noisy show and frankly, I don't think that putting up with all the crying and drama of Saturday night racers is that attractive to them. Running late models on a 1.5 mile track is silly. There aren't 3 cars that can really win. Running them "in their element" three wide on a progressively banked half mile copied directly from Tucson or Irwindale in front of 15,000 paying spectators Saturday night after the Busch race would rule. After watching such a thing for a time or two, the local dirt track racers might support a new weekly track or a conversion of an existing local track. Just my opinion on spending someone else's money! Jay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lbeaver087 Posted February 24, 2004 Report Share Posted February 24, 2004 well if you go to the tms web site you will not only see the big track the dirt track you will also see an asphlt track their too i think it is a 1/4 mile Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jracer98 Posted February 24, 2004 Report Share Posted February 24, 2004 little legends car flat track . Jay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
97car Posted February 26, 2004 Report Share Posted February 26, 2004 Face it there are more dirt cars in that end of the state,there used to be a track about across from Grand Prarie speedway also in the 60s.A friend said if the track you are talking about had been larger back then it still moght have been around longer.Besides the crowds up there are used to the action on dirt. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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