[Seadog]

Originally Posted by 50mcrewguy Yes we have, we were at Winchester in April when we were rained out. Also we had a decent car at Anderson then got crashed at the start.

Are you running Winchester or Toledo next month?

[SPRINTCAR]

No wings
No last chance race
Run a B main and you might find yourself running a C main
Not as wide of a tire

[Jackslash.com]

When the guys in the USAC office are making more money than the racers on the track, something is wrong with that.

[Gifford G Solem]

Originally Posted by rocket5612 Kevin, My suggestion to you is, if you want more cars, work on your schedule. Racers with full time jobs are who made USAC, and then carried it after the Texas and Indy scoring debacles nailed the coffin for sanctioning Indycars. Today's working environment does not allow a lot of time off for these guys to go racing. Race on Saturday nights for the most part. If racing weekdays is necessary, do it as few nights as possible. Remembering of course that people who do real work for a living get around two weeks of vacation time. This is especially important since nobody is making a living racing in USAC, except the guys who rent their rides out to the wealthy individuals who choose to spend their money trying to "make my kid the next..."(take your pick of NASCAR driver who came from USAC). A 20-30 race schedule is plenty sufficient in my opinion. Next, work on making the series' one car for pavement and dirt. Do whatever it takes to make this happen. Please do not go to the chassis manufacturers and get their opinion for what to do. They are in the business of selling cars and parts. Asking for their opinion is like asking the oil companies to develop alternative fuel vehicles. Having dirt and pavement cars plays into their hands because instead of selling two cars(one primary car and one back up) they sell at least four (one primary dirt and pavement and one back up dirt and pavement) for each driver. Narrow up the RR tires in the sprints and midgets on dirt. Require an offset rule for dirt that allows the same rear axles to be run on dirt and pavement(this would also elminate the flips that occur from drivers "getting over on the LR" which will increase safety). Require the engine to be on the centerline of the chassis and at the SAME location from the rear axle to the motor plate for both pavement and dirt. Require the seats be at a minimum height while maintaining the required head room above the driver and the main frame rail (I believe 2" is required above the driver and 4" is recommended but I'm not sure on that). Eliminate direct spindle mount hubs on dirt. Require six pins for both surfaces. Require a specific size fuel cell be used. Also, in the midgets close up the allowable wheelbase. Only allow about 2" or less to move not 10" like it is now. I am not as "up" on the sprint car rules to say but I am willing to bet there is a wide gap there too. Nobody wants to be 100% like NASCAR but one thing I will have to say about them is they are not afraid to write rules and then back them up by ENFORCING them. USAC does an extremely poor job of enforcing their own rules. Go to a NASCAR late model race sometime and see all the various things they check on the top running cars. USAC fails miserably in comparison to those guys when it comes to tech inspection. Next, for the survival of USAC purchase ARCA and get the USAC brand back on TV. They seem to have a good thing going and you could run shows where you race the Silver Crown cars or Sprints then run the ARCA event. This gives the fans a great package like NASCAR does with the Nationwide and Sprint Cup series' in the same day/weekend. Plus ARCA already runs some of the same tracks as USAC Sprints and Silver Crown. (Winchester, Salem, DuQuoin, Springfield etc). Eventually, I would turn the Silver Crown series into a 200 lap event series with either "breaks" or pit stops whichever can be made to work best. Too often the same guy leads all the laps in the Silver Crown series and there isn't as much passing due to the lack of chances to work on the cars. Anyway, these are my thoughts. People can take them or leave them, but its what I think needs to be done for the long term survival of USAC racing.

Excellent suggestions for Kevin Miller, from Rocket 5612. You composed that well - great job and thanks. From an old (really old) AAA and present USAC fan and my 46 year old race fan son (the kid's only been going to sprint/midget/silver crown for 43 years).

A few thoughts:

Adopt a new format where heat races actually mean something. Invert 16, Top two in each heat go to a dash. Something similar to the Outlaw deal. Dashes are far more exciting then last chance races.

We also need to package the shows within a 3 hour time frame. No race should end after 10. When I grew up in California going to the pits after the races and hanging around the drivers meant everything. Here(Indiana) we race load up and head to the car wash while street shitters are running. If the feature ended at 9:30 and u said stay till 10 and talk to fans i'd say no problem. Leaving a track at midnight during sprintweek sucks for the racers and the fans.

Pavement sprints...most teams going to Richmond will have 2k wrapped up in three sets of tires. Anyone can do the math on that one after travel hotels etc etc. Hoosier sold midget tires to teams for Iowa that were unreturnable and will never be used again(8.5). We all know Hoosier pads Usac's pocket which I understand.....but doesn't Usac need to look out for their competitors on this one? There were 20 cars there and the racing was great. More pavement tracks like that....Anderson can have there HBO special not 50K sprints and midgets.

Another thought is the good ole frisbee toss. Each driver sign one and throw it over the fence before the feature. If your frisbee has the winning driver on it u get a free usac shirt. More stuff like that that makes it more of an "event."

Everyone seems to think TV is this answer. Maybe we should have starters then. Or how about we tie a midget behind a sprint and race that? How about some suggestions on how to make the racing better besides "we need tv"
and bring back the "combo car." Maybe instead of pavement sprint races run 10 races with wings on the dirt car that would be fun.

[Kirk Spridgeon]

Originally Posted by Jackslash.com When the guys in the USAC office are making more money than the racers on the track, something is wrong with that.

There is nothing wrong with someone making money. And I'm quite certain that USAC is not making money hand over fist like some of you people think. Especially when they're promoting races on their own now, taking the chances that all those other tracks are taking. I'm all for seeing the drivers and teams get some return, and that has actually improved over the last few years. No one has said anything about the raise (albeit small) in purses this year in USAC. And that doesn't even include the $10,000 to win races that have been added this year....

I really wish we could get out of a mindset from 10-20 years ago or more. This is 2009. As much as the pavement side of things is in the tank, I can't believe that you could ever find better racing than we have on dirt right now.

[kinser]

If I remember correctly the last purse increase was in 92 or 93 before they raised it this year
Posted via Mobile Device

[Kirk Spridgeon]

Originally Posted by MRmcgillicutty Adopt a new format where heat races actually mean something. Invert 16, Top two in each heat go to a dash. Something similar to the Outlaw deal. Dashes are far more exciting then last chance races. We also need to package the shows within a 3 hour time frame. No race should end after 10. When I grew up in California going to the pits after the races and hanging around the drivers meant everything. Here(Indiana) we race load up and head to the car wash while street shitters are running. If the feature ended at 9:30 and u said stay till 10 and talk to fans i'd say no problem. Leaving a track at midnight during sprintweek sucks for the racers and the fans.

The beauty of USAC racing is that the heat races are solid anyway. Outlaw heat races are still usually bad, even with the dash format. If they would just make guys transfer through the heats to make the feature invert, things would be much better. With a car count like we had in PA, you can do the same thing - heat invert was 6 or 7, and the top four would get to start in the first three rows. Unfortunately, dashes often lead to less exciting feature races.

Ya know, they pleaded with the teams to stay after Grandview and especially Big Diamond. I heard Klepper tell the fans repeatedly to heat to the pits and meet the drivers, teams, and cars. That race was over EARLY, and there was only one quick support feature to run. There wasn't a race the next day. And by the time the fans got in there, there were about 3 cars still outside the trailers. It seems like you guys always try to set a track record on loading up. And the funny part is - you could dang near cover travel costs to Pennsylvania just on t-shirt sales if you'd just stick around a little while. The PBR fines bull-riders who don't stay for 15 minutes after the event to sign autographs. Pretty simple...

I don't envy the teams, especially those who run multiple divisions. But it seems like no one is willing to do their part. I surely wouldn't be such a die-hard fan if not for guys going the extra mile and giving me a face and a personality to go with the cars on the track. I have found with all the people I've brought to races - they don't want to watch cars go around the track - they want to watch people they've met and can identify in cars wrenched by people they've met and can identify. Thank goodness for guys like Robbie Stanley, Tony Elliott, and Jack Hewitt being around when I was younger to get me hooked on sprint car racing and sprint car drivers...

[Kirk Spridgeon]

Originally Posted by kinser If I remember correctly the last purse increase was in 92 or 93 before they raised it this year Posted via Mobile Device

So the new staff at USAC raised the purses after their first year. Seems like a good thing to me. I hope they can keep it going and raise purses more often than every 15-20 years...

[Charles Nungester]

Can I be smart for a change and say. I don't know the answer