The shortcomings of short track racing

[MRM]

Short track racing seems to be growing. At least it does to me. One reason short track racing isn't growing any more than it could be is how the tracks lack getting information to their local media or the local media doesn't give a flip. Here's a perfect example.

Tony Stewart came to a track near me on Saturday to race in a USCS sprint car event. His appearance was kept quiet (per his request), until he came there and news spread like wildfire on social media. Unfortunately for me, I was not on social media all day and didn't know anything about it until the race was over. Any way, Stewart won the feature and apparently was very cordial with the fans.

This should be huge news. But no one where I live, that is not on social media that follows any kind of racing, knows a thing about it, and now it's Wednesday. I don't know if this is a failure of the track itself for not getting that out to the local TV stations and papers or it was sent to them and the media could care less. I haven't talked to anyone at the track to see which is the case. But this is a perfect example of why short track racing still has shortcomings to overcome.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Short track racing seems to be growing. At least it does to me. One reason short track racing isn't growing any more than it could be is how the tracks lack getting information to their local media or the local media doesn't give a flip. Here's a perfect example.

Tony Stewart came to a track near me on Saturday to race in a USCS sprint car event. His appearance was kept quiet (per his request), until he came there and news spread like wildfire on social media. Unfortunately for me, I was not on social media all day and didn't know anything about it until the race was over. Any way, Stewart won the feature and apparently was very cordial with the fans.

This should be huge news. But no one where I live, that is not on social media that follows any kind of racing, knows a thing about it, and now it's Wednesday. I don't know if this is a failure of the track itself for not getting that out to the local TV stations and papers or it was sent to them and the media could care less. I haven't talked to anyone at the track to see which is the case. But this is a perfect example of why short track racing still has shortcomings to overcome.

I've worked on both sides of the coin here.

It's not necessarily that local media doesn't care, it might just be that they don't know. When I worked in general news, they had no idea how popular Potomac Speedway was until I started covering the races there for them during my spare time.

A lot of this truthfully, falls on the racetracks. You'd be surprised how many of them have just adopted the mentality that the fans won't come anymore, so they don't even bother trying and instead make all their money on the back gate.

If the local media doesn't know and the track doesn't care, how are they going to get exposure?

I've had TV stations out at Carteret County Speedway multiple times. I also send them video of each race and they often run it on their Sunday night sports show if they get it in time. Local papers run stories I send them every week. I often send stories to local papers when I cover a race at another track to help get exposure.

Carteret County Speedway, South Boston Speedway, Motor Mile Speedway, Langley Speedway ... these tracks all get local media exposure and a good bit of it. It takes effort.

But, unfortunately, there aren't many promoters left in racing. Instead, we have managers. We have too many people who are focused solely on the numbers. They lack imagination on how to get new fans to the track. They don't know how to create buzz. All they know how to do is crunch the numbers and keep the gates open ... and that stuff is important, but you need fans in the stands.

I was arguing with the lady who runs a dirt track in Florida on a radio show, which then went to Facebook. She quite literally said millennials are lazy, that the fans she has know how to change a tire unlike millennials, that millennials won't show up because they'd rather play on their phones. If you've already decided that young people won't show up at all, chances are, you aren't even trying.

 

[gnomesayin]

Interesting topic. I know of a couple dirt tracks that had built more effective and informative online presences 15+ years ago than they have today. Drivers too. They all later landed on Facebook, which is a hideous god awful platform and is now slowly dying as a community organizing and promotional tool. Then Twitter, which is somewhat better for getting news out, but also limited.

I'm not sure how to approach the topic. Short track racing is very disorganized, and some tracks flourish and are doing as well as they want to, and others die for many reasons including the poor promotion mentioned here.

Several of the touring series have gotten much better at promoting themselves online and through local media in the past few years. Part of me hopes that trickles down to local tracks and gives them a template to work from.

 

[HoneyBadger]

Interesting topic. I know of a couple dirt tracks that had built more effective and informative online presences 15+ years ago than they have today. Drivers too. They all later landed on Facebook, which is a hideous god awful platform and is now slowly dying as a community organizing and promotional tool. Then Twitter, which is somewhat better for getting news out, but also limited.

I'm not sure how to approach the topic. Short track racing is very disorganized, and some tracks flourish and are doing as well as they want to, and others die for many reasons including the poor promotion mentioned here.

Several of the touring series have gotten much better at promoting themselves online and through local media in the past few years. Part of me hopes that trickles down to local tracks and gives them a template to work from.

It takes a lot of work to do that.

Before all of our races at Carteret County, I put together an entry list which includes the drivers' car number, name, age, hometown and primary sponsor. Every race, every division. Also working on creating an overall database on our website, but it takes time that I don't have.

You would be amazed at how many tracks don't post results, don't have any information on their website such as start times or ticket schedules, don't update social media but once a week and so on.

 

[kyle18fan]

It takes a lot of work to do that.

Before all of our races at Carteret County, I put together an entry list which includes the drivers' car number, name, age, hometown and primary sponsor. Every race, every division. Also working on creating an overall database on our website, but it takes time that I don't have.

You would be amazed at how many tracks don't post results, don't have any information on their website such as start times or ticket schedules, don't update social media but once a week and so on.

Yet you have time to be here

 

[DIDIT]

I grew up during a period when the only way we heard about upcoming short track races was through weekly publications such as Mid American Racing News or Speedsport News. I would read every page I could get my hands on. I would guess that attendance today is close to what it was back then. We travel 6 months each year and most of the time I am on the lookout for tracks near us. I think my point is most racing fans will seek out information vs finding out through the action of promoters.
I get what you are saying about Tony's appearance. We do live in a time when we are instantly aware of something happening.

 

[MRM]

It's not necessarily that local media doesn't care, it might just be that they don't know. When I worked in general news, they had no idea how popular Potomac Speedway was until I started covering the races there for them during my spare time.

A lot of this truthfully, falls on the racetracks. You'd be surprised how many of them have just adopted the mentality that the fans won't come anymore, so they don't even bother trying and instead make all their money on the back gate.

If the local media doesn't know and the track doesn't care, how are they going to get exposure?

In this instance, I don't know who was at fault. I stated that in my original post. I've worked at several area tracks, the same area where this track is, and they could care less.

 

[gone]

It is the track's responsibility to promote itself. Too many "promoters" don't want to spend much money or time, so instead of advertising or chasing the local TV and radio and newspaper sports journalists, they just do free stuff like Facebook - and even there they rely mostly upon their followers to keep that chat going.

The problem with word-of-mouth efforts like social media is that any publicity you get is random and mostly contained among those who already know you. TV and radio and newspapers are more shotgun approaches where new people are more likely to find you - there the stories are presented to their face, without people having to search them out. On the Internet, if you don't know that a track exists then you're not likely to find their web site or Facebook page.

Some tracks are lucky to have racers who take it upon themselves to promote the races for the tracks, yet many of these tracks don't appreciate it. For example, about ten or so years ago "promoters" of Rolling Thunder Raceway were whining about low fan turnouts - so some of their 4 cylinder racers brought their cars out to local shopping malls and did other promoting for them all for free. The next race night the crowd was the best it had been. Would have thought that those racers had made their point - that promotion is necessary to bring in customers... but did Rolling Thunder management follow up? Nope, it assumed the fans would now keep coming on their own, or that the racers would do all of their promoting work for them. The result? The racers got tired of doing the promoters' work, the crowds dwindled again, and the track has been closed and for sale now for years.

On the other hand, Bowman-Gray advertises all the time and gets video clips of its racing shown on local TV. Lazy "promoters" think that if they already had the big following that Bowman-Gray has then they wouldn't need to do and pay for all of that promotion. They fail to notice that by doing what they're doing, Bowman-Gray has huge crowds while their own grandstands are mostly empty. It's all in the promoting, folks. Back about thirty years ago, when other local tracks were also doing real promotion, their stands were full and Bowman-Gray's stands were empty - due to how much better the actual racing was at those other tracks.

Bringing in a popular nationally known racer usually works to draw extra fans - and create an opportunity to keep those fans if the track can impress them. Odd that a track would pass up that opportunity in today's fight for entertainment dollars, even if the celebrity requests it.

 

[kkfan91]

Yep until I went looking for info on tracks near me this year I'd never know most of them exist

 

[gone]

When I first moved here, I already knew about Bowman-Gray because of it being an old time NASCAR track. So I went out and found it. Since I'm a racer I tend to make more effort to find racing than the average person does.

I found the other tracks in the area by seeing them in the newspaper and the occasional TV or radio advertisement.

Despite being active in the local race scene, the only way I found out about our newest track (Rolling Thunder) was by a chance overheard piece of somebody else's conversation in the pits at 311 Speedway. Found that Rolling Thunder had been operating for over a year, but their promotion style was keeping it a good secret...

 

[HoneyBadger]

It is the track's responsibility to promote itself. Too many "promoters" don't want to spend much money or time, so instead of advertising or chasing the local TV and radio and newspaper sports journalists, they just do free stuff like Facebook - and even there they rely mostly upon their followers to keep that chat going.

The problem with word-of-mouth efforts like social media is that any publicity you get is random and mostly contained among those who already know you. TV and radio and newspapers are more shotgun approaches where new people are more likely to find you - there the stories are presented to their face, without people having to search them out. On the Internet, if you don't know that a track exists then you're not likely to find their web site or Facebook page.

Some tracks are lucky to have racers who take it upon themselves to promote the races for the tracks, yet many of these tracks don't appreciate it. For example, about ten or so years ago "promoters" of Rolling Thunder Raceway were whining about low fan turnouts - so some of their 4 cylinder racers brought their cars out to local shopping malls and did other promoting for them all for free. The next race night the crowd was the best it had been. Would have thought that those racers had made their point - that promotion is necessary to bring in customers... but did Rolling Thunder management follow up? Nope, it assumed the fans would now keep coming on their own, or that the racers would do all of their promoting work for them. The result? The racers got tired of doing the promoters' work, the crowds dwindled again, and the track has been closed and for sale now for years.

On the other hand, Bowman-Gray advertises all the time and gets video clips of its racing shown on local TV. Lazy "promoters" think that if they already had the big following that Bowman-Gray has then they wouldn't need to do and pay for all of that promotion. They fail to notice that by doing what they're doing, Bowman-Gray has huge crowds while their own grandstands are mostly empty. It's all in the promoting, folks. Back about thirty years ago, when other local tracks were also doing real promotion, their stands were full and Bowman-Gray's stands were empty - due to how much better the actual racing was at those other tracks.

Bringing in a popular nationally known racer usually works to draw extra fans - and create an opportunity to keep those fans if the track can impress them. Odd that a track would pass up that opportunity in today's fight for entertainment dollars, even if the celebrity requests it.

Social media is more important than newspapers, radio and TV to be honest. A lot of people don't read the newspaper or watch their local news on TV anymore. Your average race fan, if they're watching on TV, they're watching Fox "News" Channel.

It's still important to pursue local print and TV though. And advertise on radio. But it's not as effective as it was even five years ago.

I have an all of the above approach, but social media is the most important thing by far.

The tracks that don't care don't even do social media right though. A couple posts here and there and that's it.

 

[Mispeedway15]

I would say track prep for the feature is a bit of a drag but having Eldora and Attica as my local short track is not that bad. Lol I’ve got nothing

 

[Bobw]

Local NBC station would do a 30 second segment on the 11 o'clock news of the nights racing at Seekonk. Didn't last but 2 or 3 years. I don't know about the Ct market with Waterford, Stafford and Thompson if they're covered or not, if so we don't have any stories picked up.
I remember a weekend when they were running at NH and Kenny Schrader showed up and ''borrowed'' a car at Seekonk one night. Jimmy Spencer and iirc Mikey showed up at Thompson and ran in a modified race. . Wasn't on the news. If the tracks don't promote no wonder the stands aren't full.

 

[DIDIT]

I would say track prep for the feature is a bit of a drag but having Eldora and Attica as my local short track is not that bad. Lol I’ve got nothing

But, when do they race at Attica? Been here waiting for weeks for a race and they just cancelled tonight too.

 

[gnomesayin]

Social media is more important than newspapers, radio and TV to be honest.

It is, and that's why I'm hoping more tracks start taking cues from some of the touring series that have figured it out recently. You're right that it is a lot of work, but what it takes is one very engaged and savvy person who is invested in getting the word out and showcasing the product.

 

[dirtguru]

When I first moved here, I already knew about Bowman-Gray because of it being an old time NASCAR track. So I went out and found it. Since I'm a racer I tend to make more effort to find racing than the average person does.

I found the other tracks in the area by seeing them in the newspaper and the occasional TV or radio advertisement.

Despite being active in the local race scene, the only way I found out about our newest track (Rolling Thunder) was by a chance overheard piece of somebody else's conversation in the pits at 311 Speedway. Found that Rolling Thunder had been operating for over a year, but their promotion style was keeping it a good secret...

I don't know if you follow Bowman Gray but Spectrum has a Discovery Channel series that followed the Modifiy drivers during the 2018 series. It was the second time they had done this. It's on Spectums entertainment on demand channel 1002 . It's pretty good promo for the track. Seems to be helping them keep the large crowds on Sat. nite.

 

[gone]

I don't know if you follow Bowman Gray but Spectrum has a Discovery Channel series that followed the Modifiy drivers during the 2018 series. It was the second time they had done this. It's on Spectums entertainment on demand channel 1002 . It's pretty good promo for the track. Seems to be helping them keep the large crowds on Sat. nite.

I saw "Race Night" (about Bowman-Gray modifieds in 2018) on Discovery last year, but after just three episodes they axed it and showed reruns of "Street Outlaws" instead. More episodes were supposed to be available via a special app on their web site, but I didn't bother to go to all the trouble of setting up their app and then chasing the episodes. I think in another thread somebody else indicated that those other episodes may not have ever materialized.

 

[gone]

It is, and that's why I'm hoping more tracks start taking cues from some of the touring series that have figured it out recently. You're right that it is a lot of work, but what it takes is one very engaged and savvy person who is invested in getting the word out and showcasing the product.

I may be short-changing advertisement via social media, but in my experience you can't rely upon it alone.
The problem with social media is that it has a lot of "preaching to the choir" - meaning that it mostly is seen by the people who already are in the know and are going to be there anyway. Unless you land some "influencers" your message doesn't reach a lot of new eyeballs. But I'm not saying that social media is a waste of time - it just shouldn't be your only effort.

 

[HoneyBadger]

It is, and that's why I'm hoping more tracks start taking cues from some of the touring series that have figured it out recently. You're right that it is a lot of work, but what it takes is one very engaged and savvy person who is invested in getting the word out and showcasing the product.

Tracks need to hire people full time to do it.

 

[gone]

I'm going to veer back to the original topic (The shortcomings of short track racing) to complain about how some short tracks are shooting themselves in the foot. I went to one of my local tracks last night, to give them another chance (after disappointing me last year several times)... they blew it again. Since this post will be negative I won't say the name of the track. I'm just venting in hopes that other track promoters will notice and try to avoid junk like this.

Got to the track, and hey! Looks like they spruced up the place. Some new paint, the grass was cut, and no trash laying around. (Those had been recurring problems.) But then I noticed that you could hardly hear the PA system, and the scoreboard is still dead.

Show started about an hour late (not unusual) - promoter waited until showtime to try to fix a hole in the track that had developed two weeks ago... his hasty "repair" didn't hold and this hole was in the racing groove - upsetting cars and causing at least two wrecks last night.

Apparently their timing and scoring system is flaky. They had trouble qualifying the top class, and every time there was a caution it took them forever to figure out how to line up cars for a restart. And there were a lot of cautions. They had the flagman doubling as the chief scorer... several times we watched cars circle the track while he left the flagstand to go up to the booth to figure out the lineup. Could tell they were having trouble with their radios too - they kept holding up restarts to swap out radios and batteries.

The track crew was very slow to assist spun cars and wrecks. Part of the problem was their dilapidated tow trucks, and part of the problem was no apparent concern by track workers to respond very quickly. We shouldn't have to hear the announcer trying to implore track workers to respond. The main tow truck started having problems itself... they dispatched a second two truck that ran even worse - and so slowly that they got the first truck working again before the second truck finally wheezed its way onto the scene.

They had a new flagman, and he was impressively showy using the flags (a good thing). But he also had a loud cursing argument with a track worker, and another not quite as load argument with the promoter, during the show - right in front of the whole crowd both times (very unprofessional). Noticed this morning that the promoter tweeted that he's looking for yet another new flagman now.

The intermission was just sudden dead time. No announcements or even music on the PA, until it was time to implore the first feature cars to line up (which nobody seemed to be in any hurry to do). This announcer was largely silent all night, and only announced the name of one feature winner (and it wasn't even the top class winner). They advertised their own food a few times, and read the sponsor billboards once. Not one word about drivers or their sponsors.

All of this foot-dragging wasted at least two and one-half hours. I live about a half hour from this track, and didn't get home until 2:30 this morning (I left as soon as the last race ended). I'm a hardcore fan, but I can't say that I'm planning to go back anytime soon. The stands were about one-third full (although only a handful of us stayed for the whole marathon).

Promoters, I hope you don't recognize yourselves in any of this!

 

[kkfan91]

The problem in Pa so far this year is its rained pretty much every weekend, some tracks have been trying for over a month and haven't gotten the season openers in yet

 

[HoneyBadger]

The intermission was just sudden dead time. No announcements or even music on the PA, until it was time to implore the first feature cars to line up (which nobody seemed to be in any hurry to do). This announcer was largely silent all night, and only announced the name of one feature winner (and it wasn't even the top class winner). They advertised their own food a few times, and read the sponsor billboards once. Not one word about drivers or their sponsors.

It's amazing how bad many of these track announcers are. They just don't care.

I know I'm not the best track announcer in the world, but there are certain things that don't require "natural talent."

 

[Mispeedway15]

But, when do they race at Attica? Been here waiting for weeks for a race and they just cancelled tonight too.

When it stops raining all the time lol

 

[gone]

It's amazing how bad many of these track announcers are. They just don't care.

I know I'm not the best track announcer in the world, but there are certain things that don't require "natural talent."

Sad thing is, this track used to have a good announcer. He was well liked and he knew how to keep interest up without becoming overbearing. He knew all of the drivers and car owners and a lot of the crews, and when somebody new showed up he would go talk to them before the races started. He made sure to announce key names and sponsors for all teams - even backmarker teams in the lower classes. But the current promoter chased him away not long after he took the track over. Hired a buddy of his instead, because he was an auctioneer... not sure if last night's guy is the same one, but I remember hearing the new guy when he started and he was definitely a fish out of water. Neither of them will listen to constructive criticism - no matter how diplomatically you try to phrase it.

 

[racingfan7]

I think there's still a decent amount of healthy short tracks dirt & asphalt out there, I consider any track that can get all their classes a decent show and not just a couple cars parading around and low car counts to be good.

What baffles me is the car counts in K&N Pro Series, ARCA lately. The so called top tier series before you get to national touring and both series can't even get 20 cars to show up to a track anymore.

 

[gone]

Sad thing is, this track used to have a good announcer. He was well liked and he knew how to keep interest up without becoming overbearing. He knew all of the drivers and car owners and a lot of the crews, and when somebody new showed up he would go talk to them before the races started. He made sure to announce key names and sponsors for all teams - even backmarker teams in the lower classes. But the current promoter chased him away not long after he took the track over. Hired a buddy of his instead, because he was an auctioneer... not sure if last night's guy is the same one, but I remember hearing the new guy when he started and he was definitely a fish out of water. Neither of them will listen to constructive criticism - no matter how diplomatically you try to phrase it.

Update: promoter just tweeted that he has just hired a new announcer. Somebody from the midwest.

 

[DIDIT]

I'm going to veer back to the original topic (The shortcomings of short track racing) to complain about how some short tracks are shooting themselves in the foot. I went to one of my local tracks last night, to give them another chance (after disappointing me last year several times)... they blew it again. Since this post will be negative I won't say the name of the track. I'm just venting in hopes that other track promoters will notice and try to avoid junk like this.

Got to the track, and hey! Looks like they spruced up the place. Some new paint, the grass was cut, and no trash laying around. (Those had been recurring problems.) But then I noticed that you could hardly hear the PA system, and the scoreboard is still dead.

Show started about an hour late (not unusual) - promoter waited until showtime to try to fix a hole in the track that had developed two weeks ago... his hasty "repair" didn't hold and this hole was in the racing groove - upsetting cars and causing at least two wrecks last night.

Apparently their timing and scoring system is flaky. They had trouble qualifying the top class, and every time there was a caution it took them forever to figure out how to line up cars for a restart. And there were a lot of cautions. They had the flagman doubling as the chief scorer... several times we watched cars circle the track while he left the flagstand to go up to the booth to figure out the lineup. Could tell they were having trouble with their radios too - they kept holding up restarts to swap out radios and batteries.

The track crew was very slow to assist spun cars and wrecks. Part of the problem was their dilapidated tow trucks, and part of the problem was no apparent concern by track workers to respond very quickly. We shouldn't have to hear the announcer trying to implore track workers to respond. The main tow truck started having problems itself... they dispatched a second two truck that ran even worse - and so slowly that they got the first truck working again before the second truck finally wheezed its way onto the scene.

They had a new flagman, and he was impressively showy using the flags (a good thing). But he also had a loud cursing argument with a track worker, and another not quite as load argument with the promoter, during the show - right in front of the whole crowd both times (very unprofessional). Noticed this morning that the promoter tweeted that he's looking for yet another new flagman now.

The intermission was just sudden dead time. No announcements or even music on the PA, until it was time to implore the first feature cars to line up (which nobody seemed to be in any hurry to do). This announcer was largely silent all night, and only announced the name of one feature winner (and it wasn't even the top class winner). They advertised their own food a few times, and read the sponsor billboards once. Not one word about drivers or their sponsors.

All of this foot-dragging wasted at least two and one-half hours. I live about a half hour from this track, and didn't get home until 2:30 this morning (I left as soon as the last race ended). I'm a hardcore fan, but I can't say that I'm planning to go back anytime soon. The stands were about one-third full (although only a handful of us stayed for the whole marathon).

Promoters, I hope you don't recognize yourselves in any of this!

Reading your post was very interesting as it was just about the same thing that we experienced Saturday at "The Track That Action Built".
First I want to say that this is my favorite dirt track and in spite of the issues we really enjoyed the show.

Said racing started at 7, well if the middle of qualifying was considered racing they were on time. Actual racing started around 7:40

Sadly they had an electric guitarist blaring out the National Anthem that sounded like...well you know.

Immediately we noticed a lack of push trucks and between the two sprint divisions there was around 60 sprint cars.

They only had one tow truck. A couple sprint cars flipped and with the one tow truck and a handful of push vehicles, red flags were long.

Ruts made for exciting racing early on, but became so bad that the cars were bicycling frequently in the turns and almost out of control.
They brought out a grader that had one speed, "painful slow". The grader worked all four turns three different times during the night.

During downtime the announcer said very little about the delays and what we should expect. Then dagnabit they started playing the All Star Race over the PA. Yep, we were recording it and were avoiding any updates so we could watch it the next day. Didn't work, we heard it all.

Racing ended around 12:30 and that was 3 divisions.

This track is under new ownership, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they quickly made adjustments to improve the show. Next week the All Stars are there for two nights so we will see.

On the good side they had excellent car counts in each division, when they raced they ran the show efficiently, the weather was beautiful, there was good attendance for a weekly show, the concession food was good and priced reasonable. Finally, this track has a racing museum with a few old cars on display, tons of pictures, videos, driver memorabilia, and a very knowledgeable staff. The museum is free with your admission.

Hopefully next weekend we will see some improvement.

 

[Spotter22]

Short track racing seems to be growing. At least it does to me. One reason short track racing isn't growing any more than it could be is how the tracks lack getting information to their local media or the local media doesn't give a flip. Here's a perfect example.

Tony Stewart came to a track near me on Saturday to race in a USCS sprint car event. His appearance was kept quiet (per his request), until he came there and news spread like wildfire on social media. Unfortunately for me, I was not on social media all day and didn't know anything about it until the race was over. Any way, Stewart won the feature and apparently was very cordial with the fans.

This should be huge news. But no one where I live, that is not on social media that follows any kind of racing, knows a thing about it, and now it's Wednesday. I don't know if this is a failure of the track itself for not getting that out to the local TV stations and papers or it was sent to them and the media could care less. I haven't talked to anyone at the track to see which is the case. But this is a perfect example of why short track racing still has shortcomings to overcome.

Why would Tony want it to be kept quiet? He should let the track promoter know so he could capitalize on the appearance.

 

[Rpmx]

My understanding is that Tony has two ways to make an appearance. One is incognito, where he just shows up and races and doesn't cost the track nothing if they don't put it out that he is coming. (they do know, but cannot advertise he is coming) The other way is pay Tony a appearance stipend (that goes to a charity) and advertise to your hearts content.

 

[Spotter22]

My understanding is that Tony has two ways to make an appearance. One is incognito, where he just shows up and races and doesn't cost the track nothing if they don't put it out that he is coming. (they do know, but cannot advertise he is coming) The other way is pay Tony a appearance stipend (that goes to a charity) and advertise to your hearts content.

If this is true its sad, these guys should go race without an appearance fee. Hes got enough money

 

[toledo47]

This track is under new ownership, so I will give them the benefit of the doubt and hope they quickly made adjustments to improve the show. Next week the All Stars are there for two nights so we will see.

They only have 1 night of ASCOC this year. That is Sunday. ASCOC is also racing this week Friday at Attica and Saturday at Wayne County.

 

[DIDIT]

They only have 1 night of ASCOC this year. That is Sunday. ASCOC is also racing this week Friday at Attica and Saturday at Wayne County.

My mistake, they just have a regular 410 show Saturday, then the ASCOC on Sunday. BUT, they are at Attica Friday night..
So it is two nights for us in the area.

 

[toledo47]

My mistake, they just have a regular 410 show Saturday, then the ASCOC on Sunday. BUT, they are at Attica Friday night..
So it is two nights for us in the area.

Couple of big racing weekends in a row in Ohio. Last weekend WoO late models had 2 races scheduled (Wayne County got their race in, though Muskingum rained out) and ARCA at Toledo. 3 big All Stars races this week. Hopefully they get a decent weather weekend. I’m hoping to hit one of the ASCOC shows, all 3 are just over and hour from me. Have only been to Fremont and Wayne County once each, and never seen the all stars at either. It’s hard to beat the All stars at Attica though. Thinking about hitting the final USAC race at the Indiana state fair mile as well. Have seen them at the dirt miles at Syracuse, DuQuoin and Springfield, would be kinda shame to have not done the one at Indianapolis as well...
Gotta wait and see what the weather looks like. Ive been to races on 6 weekends this year and 4 have been majorly affected by rain.... This weather is getting really old