5 replies to this topic

[jo73]

I put this out there to see the various opinions from racers and fans alike.

What class would you drop at your local track and why ? Or what changes would you make if you had that option ?

My local track has always been Lernerville. I would not drop any of the classes they currently run. Changes. You betcha, just my opinion.

Spints, 1 RR tire for the night. No sanding,grooving or siping. Fronts and RR Shock, non adjustable.

Big block mods, let the 358 guys come in and give them a weight break.

SLM, drop the stupid tire rule. Give them 1 popular RF and LR tire and thats what they have to run for the night. Again no touching of those 2 tires. Let the steel block guys come in. All tracks have scales. A simple weight break makes all players even.

Sportsman, I know this isn't going to be popular. Forget the crate motors. Why is it that you now have to run a metric chassis only ? The Penn/Ohio series is growing. Give these guys a weekly track to race at and accumulate points. If a series race is scheduled at another track then give the sportsman the night off and either bring in the crate lates or add some money to your purse for the night.

I really think this is how track owners need to start thinking because it just doesn't make sense to limit the options given to the racer. Weight breaks and leveling the playing field as far as tires and shocks go I believe would help the less funded teams.

[FanJim24]

Lernerville:

 

Overall: the surface is too fast on the top. One groove isn't racing. Work the surface either slow down the top or make the bottom faster. On the surface before this one there were still 3 grooves in the corner at the end of the night some nights. 

 

Sportsman, ban Vicki from the property. Open the motors back up, give the crates a little less of a weight break. 

 

Definitely get rid of the tire rules. There are some excellent drivers who run other places now. 

[jo73]

Well I really thought this would lead to some non racing conversation. Go figure.

[sle21]

I put this out there to see the various opinions from racers and fans alike.

What class would you drop at your local track and why ? Or what changes would you make if you had that option ?

My local track has always been Lernerville. I would not drop any of the classes they currently run. Changes. You betcha, just my opinion.

Spints, 1 RR tire for the night. No sanding,grooving or siping. Fronts and RR Shock, non adjustable.

Big block mods, let the 358 guys come in and give them a weight break.

SLM, drop the stupid tire rule. Give them 1 popular RF and LR tire and thats what they have to run for the night. Again no touching of those 2 tires. Let the steel block guys come in. All tracks have scales. A simple weight break makes all players even.

Sportsman, I know this isn't going to be popular. Forget the crate motors. Why is it that you now have to run a metric chassis only ? The Penn/Ohio series is growing. Give these guys a weekly track to race at and accumulate points. If a series race is scheduled at another track then give the sportsman the night off and either bring in the crate lates or add some money to your purse for the night.

I really think this is how track owners need to start thinking because it just doesn't make sense to limit the options given to the racer. Weight breaks and leveling the playing field as far as tires and shocks go I believe would help the less funded teams.

For the sake of discussion, I'll take a stab at this.

Firstly for all divisions, getting ride of a tire rule just to mandate another tire rule doesn't do anything. Guys think that mandating a hard spec tire makes costs cheaper. It doesn't. All it means is I have to stick another set of tires for just one track, and secondly the well funded teams will still replace them every 1-2 races regardless of wear because a new tire is always faster than a used tire.

I'm not a sprint car guy, but mandating a spec shock or tire prepping rules only means that you will stock extra parts or ties just to run a particular track. Secondly if your running a super late model or 410 sprint car competitively, money is not that big of an issue.

Steel block guys can run with the super late models already but with no weight break. A weight break here would be nice. The only thing that would really help with this division is to eliminate bump stop or dual spring setups. This would reign in spring and shock package costs considerably and allow the lower funded teams the ability to setup their own car again instead of relying on a spring g crusher and a specialist to help.

358 mods can run with big blocks and I think they do get a small weight break. For what it's worth, I'd rather have the bigger motor than the small horsepower motor with a weight break. Lernerville is a motor track, I'd take horsepower over a small weight break any day.

Sportsman need to have the open motor option. Crates just limit the guys to one track.

The top three divisions are what they are. The reason they are so popular is the lack of rules. With the cost of technology today, there isn't going to be a way to reign in costs on the top three to make it more fair for less funded teams. Those changes would have to be made nation wide such that no one is restricted to a single track.

You all say that there are too many classes, but if you combine classes you'll just have guys drop out of racing because they cant afford to update equipment.

What would be nice at Lernerville is to maybe rotate divisions? Bring in rush late models perhaps? Either better track prep at the bottom for more racing grooves, or allow the track top to bottom to go slick so horsepower doesn't enter into the equation.

[dirtstudent2]

Tires set the cars limit of performance.  Tire performance is forced on racers by group effort between tire manufactures, racing hardware manufactures, hardware vendors, promoters of racing and track owners.   The more you can split class performance levels via tires and other products forced on racers, the more opportunity there is for sales.   That along with hooking racers into more chances to win or do what they feel is reasonably good because of having more classes is what created and is still creating new classes of racing.   More classes does nothing beneficial for race fans who buy tickets at the front gate. 

 

The solution to more classes is to have fewer by giving weight brakes to so called lower cost cars combining classes.  Just for for an example knowing anything specific can be picked apart; give unsealed crate based engines or Limiteds a weight break and aero help that they can beat what's now on the track as Super Lates and let the racers pick what engine and weight they want to use.  Same with 410's, give 360's and lesser engines enough weight break they can beat 410's and let the racers choose what to run.

 

There is no other solution because product pushers of both hardware and services will keep doing all they can to divide and control what is raced by doing all possible to control what tracks present to their front gate fans.

 

My suggestion to reduce the number of classes for "car" racing is only run stocks, 410's, Supers, Big Blocks and Emods, giving what ever weight break is needed to put the most cars on the track with different amounts of power.  Tracks need to decide if their main goal is competing for stocks, 410's, supers, big blocks and emods to come through the back gate which they need for front gate fans or if there going to continue to compete for under the table crumbs offered by tire manufactures, product manufactures, race promoters and various racing class promoters.

 

From a fan point of view watching 4 or 5 classes is enough and depending on the car counts may be more then enough.   I also like to watch front wheel drive racing.  So for me if you did drop one of the 5 classes mentioned for a replacement class I'd like it to be front wheel drive racing.  Now that's 6 classes and 6 is enough. 

 

edit:  I like watching emods.  Weren't emods created to be something you could throw just about any engine in and spin the tires?  It's total bull to get into racers pocket books forcing them to buy better tires to go faster and then start down the path of OH Heck, because of the better tires were now on a path to force some sort of speck engine on them.  Money money money all out of the racers pockets and set and controlled by first hitting them with not just a speck tire, but a tire specked to a product marketing level to get more money out of them. 

 

Wasn't the whole initial point of emods years ago to make them run a hard tire so you could throw a bone yard motor in and go win a race?  Or am I wrong about that too?  

Edited by dirtstudent2, 15 December 2017 - 10:43 AM.

[jo73]

Yea, DS2, the emod on the 8" wheel and tire combo was to equall the field. Just like most, you better have the hot chassis, the motor, and the $$$.