Nobody hates Crate racing. I'll pose my question again.
Can you name one benefit to racing or milestone obtained by Late crate racing which has not come at the expense of Super Late racing and I'll add in Limited Late racing? I don't think you can name one thing. Sure some individual highly skilled racers both lower funded and better funded have success leaving Super Late racing or some other venue for crate Late racing. And yes the lower funded skilled racers had success where they would not if they stayed and competed against Supers and others with better funded equipment. But it was all at the expense of Super Late Model racing and other established classes.
I think I understand how a staggered solid axle race cars tires need to be used through out the turns to be efficient. Yes I understand basic differences and abilities to use their staggered solid axle across classes effects how different classes of cars need to be used. This fan watches and looks for how great drivers are able to use their equipment through the corners to gain a racing advantage no matter what class of car is on the track. It's very interesting how great drivers no matter what class their racing will beat their competition in the turns and with great racing skill.
As a fan though spending my money to get into the stands it's just a heck of a lot more >>FUN<< watching Super Lates, Big Blocks and 410's do the same. And it's my opinion which I tried to explain in my previous post all gains in speck racing no matter what name is put on it by a promoter, comes at the expense of Super Lates, Big Blocks, 410's and other established classes of racing. The seeming surge in open stocks is not because stock car racers are anti crate or anything else, THEY JUST WANT TO BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO PUT SOMETHING TOGETHER AND GO RACE. There are the same hard working under budget love of racing racers who choose to race Supers, Big Blocks, 410's etc and yes it's JUST BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THEY WANT TO DO! And they can do it for less money then the entry level cost of speck racing in this area. All we read about or hear about is the greatness of how someone can now compete in the new class. But at what expense? The expense is obvious. It is at the expense of car count in established classes which is the result of not only the elimination of lower funded skilled racers from the big three classes but the lack of support from fans after a class is rapped of cars. Over all when a big three class is gone, SO ARE THE Lower budget RACERS WHO RACED THERE and now cannot afford the high, YES HIGH, entry level cost of crate racing.
It's really friggin sad to pit next to a young racer who spent most of their life putting a car together to race and then the next night seeing them walking in the pits without their car. You ask why? I ask them why and get it explained to me they have their car but they don't have the money to get it to the track. Put a car together and then you can't race it because the going way of the day because of the SELL from promoters feeding off of tracks and racers, worked. What's crate racing got us? It's got us high pit entry tickets, shit for tow money and squat payout.
I've also watched enough crate late racing to say it's total bullshit some racers have an engine advantage. Brad who's add is atop this page and Vicky seem to have done what was and is necessary to maintain engine parity and at least I think engine parity is presented to everyone eyes every race. I can't nor will argue against what I see so often on the track. They have given racers engine parity and done their job well on it.
My only problem with doing so is it has come at to much expense from racing, racers and track owners. As a fan and supporter of racing I can only answer from my experience about the expense to racing and racers. All my thinking about if crate racing marketed to a specific income level of racer ends up hurting tracks because of demands it puts on them to charge racers is just that only thinking on it. Each track owner knows if it's really good for their track or not.
That's not just a crate late issue, it's a regional issue. We have 410's, rush sprints, Super lates, crate lates, limited lates, big blocks, rush mods, emods, economods, promods, pro stocks, street stocks, and the several divisons of mini stocks, drawfs etc. 2 new divisons have been added to that within the last three years, and 358's are gone and rightfully so. There doesn't seem to be a home for 305 sprints now and yhat was a decent class.
Sure some new drivers emerge and old ones unretire for one more run because it intrigues them but on the whole, they're filled with drivers from other classes. Even if it's a new driver it's probably an owner from an existing class shifting divisions like Powell or expanding their stable like suppa. Bruce sold his emod stuff and his son is driving his sprint. Suppa pulled out the crate and took proper from the mini stock ranks. So any new class, not just rush, takes from other divisions. It just so happens that two most recent additions were from rush..... pro mods and sprints and at the expense of what? Rush mods effectively and for the better took the place of 358's and made people move north, run with or move to big blocks, or crates. Rush sprints has taken from various sources and will likely replace 305's and pro mods have taken from open emods and is trying to muscle out economods which is growing.
Then when you look at the shifts in the last year. Eric wilson went from a crate late to an economod, dellinger went from a crate late to a rush mod, schell drove suppas crate then his own slm now back to his own crate, randy hall went from suppas crate late to retiring to unretiring and filling the emod dave scott vacated, wyatt scott started driving his dad's vacated late model, ferry is driving ferringers economod from last year, hess vacated the suppa slm to team with knight and they're both running supers, eck is running suppa's slm.
So there are a lot of lateral shifts but it doesn't really grow the driver or owner pool exponentially. Every new series shuffles driver and owners. The engine thing is intriguing to me because max destroys people in crates here, Pegher included. Then they go to florida and pegher won the week series and max fought for 3rd or 4th all week... wonder what tech is here vs there. That being said blair's know their stuff. Max never has an ill handling car. There is no question however that crate racing and rush habe a certain target audiencd and they market and manage extremely well. Which is the same for penn ohio. Guys are jumping ship from rush to that because they pay and take care of their drivers. It's well run.
It's one thing when a new class or series comes to a region but when one series or entity creates a subdivision within each class whether one is necessary or not is when monopolizing is the goal. They want to get people in the rush family and keep them there. Why run opens when we have everything for you right here, from stocks to sprints. It's like hotel california, check out anytime you like but you can never leave hahahaha.
Edited by sicario, 16 April 2018 - 12:54 PM.
