Greenville-Pickens

This is the new trend in asphalt racing. If car counts are down, just switch to dirt.

I read that like 33 dirt tracks have closed this year so I'm not sure why "just throwing dirt on it" is going to magically work. I mean, it will for a year or two...
 
AndyMarquisLive said:
This is the new trend in asphalt racing. If car counts are down, just switch to dirt.

I read that like 33 dirt tracks have closed this year so I'm not sure why "just throwing dirt on it" is going to magically work. I mean, it will for a year or two...
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Any close up in the north? Recently Mansfield in Ohio which has hosted truck races switched to dirt and has put on some great shows. I’m not sure how it’ll fly in the south but up here sprint cars and late models are much more popular than paved tracks. Helps when you have places like Attica, Eldora and Mansfield within 2 hours
 
Throughout much of the country, and certainly the parts I've lived in, it sure seems a lot easier to keep a weekly dirt program going than an asphalt one. I certainly prefer dirt and barely attend any pavement short track races, though I would if I lived near some of the historic or notable ones. However, I'm really not anxious to see more asphalt tracks make the switch, because there are plenty of dirt tracks. I would rather see both dirt and pavement short track racing thrive.
 
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I hate to see it but I can’t blame the owners. I’ve been to many K&N races at Greenville and the crowd was always terrible. It surprised me every year it returned to the schedule. If the crowd was bad at their biggest race, I can’t imagine what it would be at a normal race. No back gate money if the car counts are down as well... I prefer big asphalt shows but the big dirt races consistently have better crowds just about everywhere.
 
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I grew up attending races there on a weekly basis.
They were already asphalt in 1971 when I saw my first race, I was ten years old. The crowds were good in the 1970s and pretty good in the 1980s.

In the late 1970s Laughlin had a car there driven by Gene Morgan. I always thought that car was ahead of the other cars including the other Laughlin cars. There was cars built by Hopkins running there too.

Butch Lindley was my first favorite local driver. He was the 1973 champion, he ran a 1964 Chevelle, and won 7 races in a row. After that season he started running all over the country, usually the 200 lap Late Model Sportsman races. He was the national champion twice.

Jack Ingram would come and run the the 200 lap races at GP. Anybody from the Era remembers those brown number 11 cars. Always plain never one to win the best appearing car. But everything worked all through the 70s and into the 80s I never saw him come there unprepared. Those simple looking cars were beautiful and bad ass to me.
Johnny Allen was always fast too.
David Pearson the 1957 champion was always ridiculously fast.

Around 1975 I started rooting for Donnie Bishop. He had not won his first race yet. It was a lot of fun watching him learn to dominate.
Those drivers seemed bigger than life to me.

A lot of big names showed up at different times. The Allison's, Dale Earnhardt, Tiny Lund, Neil Bonnet, Pete Hamilton, Bobby Isaac etc...

Tim Richmond came to run a fund raising race after Butch Lindley suffered injuries that would prove to be fatal. A stunt driver was there and invited Richmond to try a few stunts in his car. I can't describe it but Tim nailed the slides and moves like a natural. I guess one would have had to seen to appreciate it.

In 1995 we adopted Brandon. It was the best part of my life. But I also knew the racing dream was no longer number one and eventually I sold my car and equipment. It was a frustrated dream that I never put together. But I am thankful to at least to have had the dream.
I am fortunate too have had the two great passions in life. They both made my world.
I have to admit that I haven't made the Saturday races a priority since fartherhood.

Hopefully some young person can build a lifetime of great memories at Greenville Pickens too, Dirt or Asphalt. There ain't nothing like the noise, smell and thrill. I always woke up on Sunday morning thinking about the upcoming race on Saturday night. It was a great way to live. It was everything in life.
 
Was recently in upstate NY for a month and was only 10 miles from Airborne Speedway and didn't know it. My wife had somehow heard about the WOO coming there, and I was like what the heck you talking about. I try hard to keep up with the WOO and had never heard of this track. That puzzled the heck out of me...well, just recently they converted from asphalt to DIRT! Ah, that explains it...too bad the WOO got rained out there. It is a nice facility outside Plattsburgh, NY.
 
Car counts at dirt tracks aren't exactly going up right now.

Lonesome Pine in Virginia is also looking into converting to dirt.
 
MRM said:
Car counts at dirt tracks aren't exactly going up right now.
Click to expand...

Dirt tracks are starting to make the mistakes asphalt makes: More practice, private testing, replacing heat races with single car qualifying.

They're increasing costs on racers for short term profit and taking away from the entertainment. Not to mention, most dirt tracks I've ever visited, the main event doesn't start until like midnight.
 
Here in East Tennessee, it's rare to see a heat race these days unless it's a Lucas Oil or World of Outlaws race.
 
The biggest problem with dirt tracks today is they don't pack the tracks anymore. They don't bring the clay from the top of the track back to the bottom, filling in the few ruts that did develope. The strangest thing is they will actually roto till the corners before a main event. It's like racing in a corn field. It's so dusty you can hardly see the cars because of the dirt in your eyes. This is something that has started in the last ten years. After forty or fifty years of trying to get a thick, compact layer of clay that didn't tear up easily, they have thrown all that work away.
 
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