It’s spring time and a few people have gotten their early taste of racing at southern venues while everyone else not-so-patiently awaits the start of racing in WISSOTA territory. With most early opening tracks already pushing their season openers back a week or two due to some heavy snow, tempers are growing even shorter and the anticipation builds with each passing day.
While we all whittle away the days and hours before we can hit the track, let’s take a little time to consider what this season means to racing as a sport and about its place in the grand scheme of things.
The entire country is in the midst of economic turbulence that has some playing Chicken Little and others quietly grinding it out. The price of fuel reaches new highs every month (or so it seems, anyway) and will most likely never return to the levels people may wish for. The cost of nearly everything else is on the rise because nearly everything is transferred at one time or another by truck; a bit of an over simplification, but I think you see the point. People have less expendable income than in the past and thousands are losing their houses and businesses. “How does this affect racing?” and “What can you and I do about it?” are the questions at hand.
The good news is people are going to build race cars and fans are going to find their way to a track regardless of the costs and hardships. It is our nature to do so and many are no more in control when it comes to racing than an addict is to the needle. We need it, we love it, we want it. How much of it can we afford?
The upcoming season is huge in determining the direction racing will take in the seasons to come and what this sport will look like to the next generation. Racing in our area has changed for the better during the last couple seasons because promoters really made the effort to listen to and heed drivers more than an ever before. An upstart organization forced WISSOTA's promoters to make sweeping changes and step up their game in all aspects. The upstarts learned that it is a lot easier to promise someone the world than it is to deliver that world, and as a result have faded away. Racing in our area has begun to reunite and that is the best bet for it to grow or at least hold its own until the economy stabilizes.
We are already seeing (or hearing) of drivers who will run less regular weekly shows and more big-money specials and touring series. Is this the way racing will be in the future? Is this the route fans will also take? If so, we will almost certainly see a significant percentage of tracks close in the next couple years. As the competition thins, the survivors will grow stronger and racing will continue on as always but with fewer choices.
I personally think that this is an inevitable phase racing must go through every generation or so. People see successful race tracks and think they want a piece of that action. Each track spreads the talent and fan base a little more thinly until it disappears in some places. It is survival of the fittest and it is healthy and natural.
I know many fans - myself included - who watched more specials than weekly events last year. How long can that go on until the weekly shows begin to suffer to the point of breaking and tracks begin to lose their audience at weekly shows? It has already started at some tracks. How do they counteract the dwindling weekly shows? With big-money specials, of course. Unfortunately, most of these specials pull fans and drivers from the weekly shows at other tracks and the whole vicious circle grows bigger.
Will some tracks abandon the weekly shows in favor of monthly or bi-weekly specials? It works down south and out east, maybe it will here as well.
The bottom line is simple enough: Racing, as a sport, will survive anything the economy, government or nature can throw at it. It may have to morph and adapt, but it will be here long after we are not. The question remains: what can we do to help it? That, alas, is not so simple.
The first thing that needs to happen is tracks and promoters need to figure out a way to work together. I give big kudos to the promoters in areas where tracks are already offering bonuses for supporting a group of tracks in that area. It is a great beginning. By the same token, there are still some tracks and promoters who year after year stab their peers in the back and do more harm than good. These tracks will eventually find themselves on an island of legendary proportion. To survive, race tracks have no choice but to work together, plain and simple.
Most people do not have the resources to spend money on a car or sponsor a race but almost everyone can volunteer some time. As a fan you can offer to help out your area track for an hour or two each week. Every track has to mow, clean up garbage, repair fences, pick rocks and countless other time consuming tasks that simply have to get done. Many tracks will even offer you a pass to the races for your help. I have rarely met a race fan without something to say about the way a track is run. It is even more of a rarity to find one who will help do something about it. Personally, I volunteered for five years before I started officially working at a track. Having been responsible for a lot of the mind-numbing weekly tasks,I can tell you firsthand how much your help on a Tuesday or Wednesday is appreciated.
With sponsor dollars drying up it is more important than ever to project a good family environment to potential investors. Tracks need to promote family entertainment and family values. They need to entice the young and get them interested early. They are the future but in many ways they are the present as well. Racing needs to be the top option for the entire family to spend an evening of entertainment together. This makes it even more important to put an end to the select few fans who week after week drink themselves into a stupor and whose communication skills are reduced to shouting words that can’t be put in this article. Tracks need to be quicker to remove them and their “friends” need to be quicker to shut them down. Unfortunately, the few bad apples reflect more on racing than the hundreds or thousands of well behaved fans to the mass population. It is always the bottle throwers and fighters that make it on TV, not the man helping the little old lady up the steps. If I was a business owner with a blank check looking to promote, I would be very aware of those things and they would affect my decision on where that money goes.
The last thing I would like to touch on is purely my opinion, but I think it is worth mentioning and will start a debate or two if nothing else. Whether I am right or wrong is not as important as the general idea.
Many people have used the analogy of racing being like a three-legged stool. The three legs are the tracks, the drivers and the fans and all are equally important. That is a big load of fertilizer and only exists because two of the legs don’t want to play understudy to the most important one.
Tracks are always going to be there because there is money to be made. If one goes away two more pop up. Don’t get me wrong, it is nice to have a great venue to go to and tracks are important but when they start to put themselves above the other parts they eventually crumble and the fans and drivers turn elsewhere. We are watching it happen at some places at this very moment.
The popularity of lawn tractor racing, bar stool racing and a dozen various types of animals being prodded around tracks shows that real race fans are hard core (no offense to those sports intended) and will watch no matter what. Race fans are the greatest bunch of people on the planet. All you need to see to know that is watch the way race fans rally around a member of the racing family in need. It is heart warming to watch them aid the needy and raise money to ease the expenses when tragedy strikes. It is important to remember, however, that racing started with a bunch of buddies running for a half-barrel or 12-pack in front of no fans. Fans are great and they make possible racing as we know it, but they are not as important as the final leg.
The drivers (and/or car owners) are what makes racing work. They put out the big bucks and spend the countless hours to put on a show knowing all along they are never going to get their money back. For years, maybe even decades, they have been abused, underpaid and neglected and it is time they get some love.
Pay is about what it was 20 years ago and it doesn’t take an MIT degree to figure out that costs are not the same. When a track wants to save money, they often cut the purse as opposed to making their operation more efficient. When the weather is bad the drivers take the financial hit. Why is that? When did they start controlling the weather? The Brewers don’t pay their players less when the weather keeps fans away, do they? They are often left out of the decision making process altogether when it comes to rules and procedures yet they are the people directly affected.
Drivers are not without blame here, but they have been getting the short end of the stick for a long time. Imagine spending enough to buy a nice house on a hobby. You take it out and put on a show for people and get paid enough to buy a small dog house for your efforts. That’s bad enough, but now, thanks to the Internet, you can find out what a moron you are the minute you get home from the track. All tracks have “Fan Appreciation” night, but I only know of one track that had “Driver Appreciation” night, a night when the track workers donated what little they got paid to the drivers.
Look at it this way: A race track can be a corn field or a shopping mall; a race fan can go to a movie or a football game; a race car driver can bring them all together and create magic and memories that last a lifetime.
As always, these are my opinions and my ramblings only and if you were in any way offended, Dr. Phil is on at 3 p.m. Peace out and see you at the track.
