Discussion: Good old days vs. new style racing

Spotter22 said:
Its a fact and its supported by data. And their is no "blame" I'm simply stating that the younger generation simply doesnt attend or watch racing like in the past.
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I see plenty of kids and the younger generation at local tracks, plenty...maybe the tracks you go to aren't doing well, but there are plenty of millennials and younger watching racing here in NE.
 
That's enough. If you want carry on with these personal attacks, do so privately.
Calling each other, or implying that each other is nuts or an embarrassment is not
the way to post. It's making the whole forum look bad.
 
Mopardh9 said:
I see plenty of kids and the younger generation at local tracks, plenty...maybe the tracks you go to aren't doing well, but there are plenty of millennials and younger watching racing here in NE.
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Ive been up north and and been to Thompson, the crowds arent like they used to be.
 
Spotter22 said:
Embarrassing myself? You are on a message board crapping on a sport you quit going too 10 years ago lol. But you know what, I bet you watch every damn one of them, you are just that grumpy type that likes to bitch about everything.
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I go to my local tracks, I don' waste my money on the crap that has become Cup racing. I used to go to Vegas, Bristol, Phoenix, Watkins Glenn, and NHIS. Since the racing, the gimmicks and the general atmosphere of Cup racing has become a floundering mess, I have become disenchanted with it. So again I'll ask you why you like Cup racing so much? How long have you been watching it? How old are you?
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
Do you think that racing will ever come back into vogue in the US or is it heading toward the status of boxing or something like that?
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I honestly dont know, its going to be up to the new crop of drivers to excite new fans and for the new fans not to care how it "used to be done"
 
ChexOrWrex said:
I call it that selling the real estate is seemingly far more profitable in the long term than keeping a racetrack up and running in a sport that is growing less popular year by year.
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I agree...... an example is the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway....... it is situated in the city limits in close proximity to downtown.... for years and years the Nashville City commissioners have wanted to shut down the fairgrounds and speedway to sell it to developers.... 1 way they have tried to stronghand this was by only giving the promoter a 1 year lease. In that way..... he couldn't afford to make improvements because he might not be there after that year. Just this year.... mainly thanks to folks like Darrell Waltrip and Sterling Marlin and a few other locals that have been championing the effort to keep it open for several years now..... the commissioners granted a 5 year lease to the current promoter...... they chose him over Bruton Smith...... Bruton wanted the city to do all the improvements...... give him incentives and he kept all the profits...... at any rate.... this is a local guy and has run the track for a few years now and has spent his own money making major improvements even though he was working on a 1 year lease and there were no guarantees.....
 
Spotter22 said:
Ive been up north and and been to Thompson, the crowds arent like they used to be.
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Crowds were great the times I attended, The World Series of Racing for the final was packed, so were the Whelen Tour events. Stafford draws well, so does Monadnock, Speedbowl, and most of the tracks north of here.
 
Just caught this thread. Been attending racing events since 1966. Sure there has been
so many changes but the loud noise, exhaust and rubber smells, and the taste of a beer and hotdog
are still there. Beating and banging nose to tail / hub to hub still takes place. All the rest
is white noise easily filtered out if you choose to.
 
Mopardh9 said:
I go to my local tracks, I don' waste my money on the crap that has become Cup racing. I used to go to Vegas, Bristol, Phoenix, Watkins Glenn, and NHIS. Since the racing, the gimmicks and the general atmosphere of Cup racing has become a floundering mess, I have become disenchanted with it. So again I'll ask you why you like Cup racing so much? How long have you been watching it? How old are you?
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Started watching in 1973, been involved since 1988. I like it because its RACING. I dont have to nitpick it, its racing. I adapted and find the good in it all, you not so much. But thats your problem.
 
ChexOrWrex said:
I call it that selling the real estate is seemingly far more profitable in the long term than keeping a racetrack up and running in a sport that is growing less popular year by year.
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That's what happened to the short track where we spent several years. The land was just too valuable to "waste".
 
Spotter22 said:
Started watching in 1973, been involved since 1988. I like it because its RACING. I dont have to nitpick it, its racing. I adapted and find the good in it all, you not so much. But thats your problem.
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It's not my problem, it's Nascars problem.
 
I'm sure with there being close to 1000 local short tracks operating in the country at any given time, some are always closing down, and some are opening up. It's a tough business in many places, and it is certainly always a shame to lose a historic track. In my experience, the biggest problems that shut down race tracks are NIMBY opposition from neighbors and local governments, and the rising costs of racing at any level. Many promotors have the skills to keep enough cars in the pits and fans in the stands. Rarely do I see pure lack of fan interest be the driving factor in a race track's demise.
 
gnomesayin said:
I'm sure with there being close to 1000 local short tracks operating in the country at any given time, some are always closing down, and some are opening up. It's a tough business in many places, and it is certainly always a shame to lose a historic track. In my experience, the biggest problems that shut down race tracks are NIMBY opposition from neighbors and local governments, and the rising costs of racing at any level. Many promotors have the skills to keep enough cars in the pits and fans in the stands. Rarely do I see pure lack of fan interest be the driving factor in a race track's demise.
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Its a huge factor. Motor Mile is one example.
 
TexasRaceLady said:
That's what happened to the short track where we spent several years. The land was just too valuable to "waste".
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Exactly!!!!!!!! That's where it's going...... around here the best and most valuable farm land is selling for 30+ thousand dollars an acre for development..... can't blame a farmer for selling it when he probably paid 500 an acre 30 years ago.... and is lucky to make 200 an acre a year farming it.......
 
Mopardh9 said:
Lmao...ok you must watch something else...whatever man, if you like the racing the way it is go for it, I for one think it's in a shambles.:cheers:
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I know you do, yet you know a LOT for someone who quit watching lol
 
Spotter22 said:
I know you do, yet you know a LOT for someone who quit watching lol
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Like I said, I watch the last 25 laps, I don't watch an entire race like I used to. I'll watch the lowlights, read about it, but I just can't justify watching what I think is a bad product. Believe me...I'd love nothing more to see this sport I loved dearly, turn around, get their crap together, get rid of the gimmicks and fix the cars. Honestly tho, I don't think it will happen.
 
Spotter22 said:
I honestly dont know, its going to be up to the new crop of drivers to excite new fans and for the new fans not to care how it "used to be done"
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I don't know either but some long standing trends will need to be reversed for it to happen. From what others have said the current crop of young guns are not being properly marketed so that would be a good place to start to see if fortunes can be reversed.

Spotter22 said:
Started watching in 1973, been involved since 1988. I like it because its RACING. I dont have to nitpick it, its racing. I adapted and find the good in it all, you not so much. But thats your problem.
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I know I don't have to nitpick Nascar as there is a lot of things I don't care for but I do normally enjoy the races up until Memorial Day. The nice thing for me is my interest in Nascar has moved over to the business side and I do like keeping a few toes in things as I enjoy this forum and participating on it.
 
My local short track (Columbus Motor Speedway) closed up a couple years ago, simply because the owners were old and wanted to retire, and their kids didn't want to run it. They sold it to the highest bidder, who tore up the track and put in a lacrosse complex. WTF? Of all the places to build a lacrosse complex, you choose a race track? It's certainly not in a desirable location, so I'm not sure why the track had to close.

Meanwhile, Columbus still has the old minor league baseball field that has sat vacant for nine years now......

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Initially they had plans to build a race track there, which was supposed to open last year.....

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I think a new short track would do wonders for generating interest in racing around here, especially for kids
 
Someone can watch two races and conclude the racing today sucks :confused:

That's like me concluding IRL sucks from the 2 hours I watched this year. Asinine.
 
I've only skimmed through this thread but I agree with everyone who says the cars need to be slowed down. Let' run 180 instead of 200. Would be a big start to improving the races again.
The 1990s were the peak to me. Early 2000s as well.
 
The 1990's were the peak for everyone. The racing back then was fantastic. Anyone who says otherwise either wasn't paying attention or they are simply lying to themselves.

The biggest difference I notice is how the cars run when they are close together. I think it's a side force issue. How many times have we seen cars get close at the 1.5 milers and they get squirrely just from getting too close when passing? Back in the 90's they could run side by side for laps at a time, door to door, without getting out of sorts. If you don't believe me, see for yourself and watch some old races on youtube.

That being said, I think the racing the past couple years is the best it's been in a decade. They are on the right track.
 
Michfan said:
Someone can watch two races and conclude the racing today sucks :confused:

That's like me concluding IRL sucks from the 2 hours I watched this year. Asinine.
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All you have to do is watch one race on a 1.5 mile track to see the issues that plague Nascar, it's pretty obvious.
 
Mopardh9 said:
All you have to do is watch one race on a 1.5 mile track to see the issues that plague Nascar, it's pretty obvious.
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Yeah , I agree. 1.5's should only get one date(ie:Atl.) a year is one idea I have.
 
I would like to see a few small changes to the car. For instance make both sides the same, this alone would cut some speed off because they would lose side force. There are only subtle changes needed that would slow the cars down ( or they will go into the wall and then the drivers will lift) and I agree with whom ever stated "cut 6" off all the way around.
 
When Ernie and I left the formula 4 and went truck racing there were 49 trucks at Seekonk. Last year there was only 20 on the roster and only a few made every race. No heats or consi, just warm-ups and the so-called feature. Not sure what the status of Waterford is anymore, last I knew just a couple of years back they were flirting with bankruptcy.
Weekly attendance is down, even with the 'big draw' shows like the mod tours the stands weren't as full as years ago. Six Flags in Mass. sits on the property of the former Riverside Park Raceway. Seekonk is under pressure. Urban sprawl, those that bought houses knowing the race track was there now complain about the noise, traffic and the ''low lifes'' who attend races. The grand kids of the original owners are just holding out for the developers to hit their magic number and it'll be gone

The rosters at local tracks are down from just 10 years ago, even more drastically from 20 years ago.
When my son expressed a interest in racing and I scratched out some numbers for a basic hobby/street stock he said nope when I hit 10k. You can't drag a car out of the junk yard anymore and go racing.

And then there's the sponsorship dilemma. Dunkin' Donuts pulled sponsorship of a local late model [ a pro stock to us Yankees], as did Cox Cable
 
StandOnIt said:
if you would pay attention to qualifying speeds, you would see many tracks where the top 5 aren't separated by a tenth of a second..sometimes less, sometimes a bit more. But I guess somebody will be along soon to say that is manipulation also. Racing series call it BOP or balance of performance
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I worked with a NASCAR team in the late eighties and that was just about the time when qualifying speeds were so close, 1/10 of a second meant racing or going home. Those were tough times for single team owners making a living racing. Guys like Dave Marcis, Jimmy Means and Brett Bodine, Buddy Arrington and others were racing used parts from other teams. Was the racing any better? Not necessarily but for the time, it was the best there was. I really liked those Busch Series cars with the V-6 engines that sounded like a mob of angry bees.
 
Whizzer said:
I worked with a NASCAR team in the late eighties and that was just about the time when qualifying speeds were so close, 1/10 of a second meant racing or going home. Those were tough times for single team owners making a living racing. Guys like Dave Marcis, Jimmy Means and Brett Bodine, Buddy Arrington and others were racing used parts from other teams. Was the racing any better? Not necessarily but for the time, it was the best there was. I really liked those Busch Series cars with the V-6 engines that sounded like a mob of angry bees.
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I always appreciated guys like Jimmy Means and JD McDuffie as they did their best with what they had. Also they didn't cause a bunch of wrecks like the backmarkers seem to do today.
 
Well with engineering today we simply cannot dial it back. Cheating would be too easy and too impactful if you took tech out of the car, plus it'd piss the hell out of teams and manufacturers.

I will say that WoO is some great old school racing, yet it has absolutely no parity and the driver matters much less than in NASCAR which I love. Schatz, Gravel and Stewart won 46 of the races this season in WoO, and it was extremely obvious their cars were dialed in so much better than the competition
 
Mispeedway15 said:
Well with engineering today we simply cannot dial it back. Cheating would be too easy and too impactful if you took tech out of the car, plus it'd piss the hell out of teams and manufacturers.

I will say that WoO is some great old school racing, yet it has absolutely no parity and the driver matters much less than in NASCAR which I love. Schatz, Gravel and Stewart won 46 of the races this season in WoO, and it was extremely obvious their cars were dialed in so much better than the competition
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I can go on the other side and say it had a lot to do with the drivers in WoO. these guys are racing against the home town boys every week. Every dirt track has a bit different surface, hard, soft etc., different banking. Yeah it takes a good car too but if you aren't a really good wheel man you aren't going to beat the home boys IMO.

It isn't like the playoffs this year in Nascar where Toyota's with a variety of different drivers (4) won 10 out of the 12 playoff races this year. It was definitely the car.
 
StandOnIt said:
I can go on the other side and say it had a lot to do with the drivers in WoO. these guys are racing against the home town boys every week. Every dirt track has a bit different surface, hard, soft etc., different banking. Yeah it takes a good car too but if you aren't a really good wheel man you aren't going to beat the home boys IMO.

It isn't like the playoffs this year in Nascar where Toyota's with a variety of different drivers (4) won 10 out of the 12 playoff races this year. It was definitely the car.
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I knew they had made a lot of changes but I didn't realize that the chase races had been extended from 10 to 12. Also I didn't know that Toyota and its drivers dropped the hammer on Ford and GM so heavily. Maybe those 2 will spend some money and that will mean better cars.
 
Skoalbandit33 said:
I knew they had made a lot of changes but I didn't realize that the chase races had been extended from 10 to 12. Also I didn't know that Toyota and its drivers dropped the hammer on Ford and GM so heavily. Maybe those 2 will spend some money and that will mean better cars.
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Better cars with the current generation specs? Doubt the racing will be better until the next generation car comes out in 2019, and if this car doesn't race well Nascar will have a lot more empty seats.
 
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