The way I see things, many tracks are really in a need of someone to help them make business decisions on how to run their tracks at a profit. Turning them from a back gate race track run at a break even or loss operation into an old fashion front gate track where they actually make their money off of the front gate and actually show a profit. A race track that shows a profit is a much better place for the racers because these owners actually have some disposable income to spend on the racers purse, their points funds and even a banquet and trophies.
When your best customers are your performers you have a problem. We raced at Wonder Valley in the 90's. Times were better then, the people that ran the track put forth an effort to make it better and devised ideas to fill the grand stands any way they could. If it meant giving passes to Boy Scouts or youth groups, events for the kids in the stands they did it. Their reasoning was if they had people watching the races they could make money at the concession stands. Mini Sprints were the main attraction back then, we even did four abreast parade laps that was cool. We were followed by the lower 4 cylinder type racers like chevettes, vegas, and mini trucks. The purse back then was better than many purses today. They could look for at least 25 to 30 mini sprints and probably 60 to 70 cars for each of the lessor classes . Mini sprints was the main event and the loss leader, for the show. The support classes filled the stands. Their thinking was that the people in Salem would come and watch their friends and relatives race, figuring probably 4 or 5 people in the stands for each race car 0on the track and the mini sprints provided the main event.
Well as with many fairground tracks, those people fell out of favor following an ********, and the track was taken over by a gung- ho mini-sprint guy. The first thing he did was to chase off all of the support racers, he couldn't figure out why he was loosing money and not filling the grand stands any more. After loosing money for a couple of years he turned the track over to some folks that felt the same way he did about racing. They couldn't understand why mini-sprints weren't filling the stands and the purse dropped down and car count went down the tubes.
Then a new bunch came in. They were modified people and did not care much for mini sprints at all. They had profit on their minds but they were making money off of modifieds and selling parts. They felt the best way to maker money was to cut the pay out down even further. Wonder valley was and is just a bit small for V8 race cars but they wanted to race modifieds and V8 late models.
Well in their infinite wisdom the car count or crowd did not come back with the bigger cars on a little bitty track. So I guess with their eyes on a bigger track 40 miles up the road they decided to change from a Saturday night to a Friday night program, figuring that since they were running V8 cars they had a conflict of dates with the larger tracks further to their north. That did not help and was probably the death knell to a very neat little race track in Salem Indiana.
The above is a history of "Wonder Valley Raceway" as I saw it happen from my point of view, I might be prejudiced. This is how it got it's nickname "WONDER" as in wonder what they will do next. It is located 25 miles from my home, it is where we started racing over again 20+ years ago. I have been exiled for at least half of that time, but have watched with interest as things changed.
They had a class act to follow after the first group, times have gotten a lot worse. Somewhere lost in history is a lesson. Thunder Valley is a small 1/5th race track that was ideal for small 4 cylinder race cars. By racing only 4 cylinder cars the first owners had a niche market and enjoyed a very successful business for both racers and owners. By trying to be what they were not they came on to hard times.
No amount of Humpy Dollars for advertising is going to help Thunder Valley. They could use some of Humpys ideas about what sells and what does not and how get that front gate working for them again. The new managers have an up hill battle ahead of them. Salem Indiana could be a great market for a small dirt track catering to local racers. They are now looking at even more competition from the small asphalt track at the Big Salem track as well as from another small dirt track 20 miles to their south.
I take several phone call a week and get several pieces of junk mail from people that are going to help me grow my business. These type of things increase in hard times and slack off in good times, kinda of like a barometer of business conditions in the country. Right now the volume is up so I got a pretty good Idea what that means.
When push comes to shove the real answer for track owners or business owners is stop looking for a silver bullet for success and go out and work and make your own.
Honest Dad himself