Around 1998 or so the late Dave Cassidy asked me to attend a meeting to figure out how to improve attendance at 16th Street Speedway. I said, start on time, make sure the program moves quickly and isn't too long, have the best food you can at reasonable prices and make sure people can get it without waiting too long, and make sure the bathrooms are clean. I still stand on these as the basic principles and as simple as they are many tracks can't get this down. You have to start there as a baseline - if you don't do this no other gimmicks matter.

psullivan, you're 100% correct. Gotta crawl before you can walk.

[SpfldMile]

You are absolutely right, PSullivan. Just doing those things makes the experience better for casual fans, and especially female fans. You take a girl/woman to a dingy, dirty, wait for bad food fiasco on a Saturday sometime. If that was her first visit to a speedway, guess what, it was her last too. Not picking on women here, I agree.

[Charles Nungester]

Well im all for opening the pits to spectators, However there could be no moving traffic in the pits. Something like a shut down area when exiting the track. That or having the pits setup to where it's safe to enter the Sprint area when the sprints aren't running or finished their feature

Quite honestly, Its not value anymore. Its mediocrity (SP?) when tickets are sold for 12 bucks to a events of Sprint Car calibler. Some well respected car owner and I chatted last night briefly and said if one class track like LBurg or Haubstadt would pay 3000 to win 300 to start that they could pretty much OWN INDIANA in drawing the top teams and best racing. Time for the promotors to stop giving the gate away and making them quick run events that people want to come back too..

Seriously, Would Bloomingtons attendance seriously be affected if they raised the gate to 17? Why not? Because it's the place to be on a friday night in Bloomington.

Make your track the place to be and you can pretty much set your price.

Chuck