I see the plug has been pulled on the Extreme Modified series. I am not happy to see them fold their tent, but I am not surprised it has happened. In the year or two this group was in competition, it never attracted the car count that made for entertaining racing.
If you are not familiar with the former Extreme Mods, it was a touring series for pavement modifieds with the more expensive engines than some other series run. I need to emphasize the words touring and expensive. These words wave like yellow flags for racing series in 2008. In my opinion, “touring and expensive” make it much harder to race than does “the economy”.
Maybe it is just the natural fall-out from too many touring classes with a sub-standard show. Some tours are healthy: I watched 30 sprints in the FSCA last night, the TBARA is rocking and the dirt late models have it going on too. This action is clearly a warning to other shows that have 15 car, follow-the-leader races.
Look at the bright side: maybe it will keep some good racers off the road and in action at their home track.
Modifieds are one of my favorite types of racecars, but after Lakeland I can see why they’re pulling the plug. Lack of cars and lack of racing.
I liked the idea of this series a whole lot more when they could run wings, sail panels and such. I’d like to think there is a happy medium out there somewhere with maybe more stock motor parts and the sail panels or something…
What needs to be done is to get back to the old-style “Florida Modified” that was run back in the early '90s… Using a glorified a Street Stock engine, and leave the rest to each driver and car builder’s imagination… Scott McDade won the modified championship a few years back at OSW using an engine from his dad’s “A” Bomber… The race fans could give a hoot whether the cars are a half second slower… Go back to simple engines with a claim rule… sure, you’ll pi** off a few guys who have dumped a ton of money into a big engine to race for $250 to win, but the cars that would come back out of the woodwork and the new drivers who can now afford to race this type of car would easily make up for the 4-5 cars you might lose…
Bingo, Dave!!! This division has been on a steady downhill slide since they started letting big, expensive motors in there. Scott McDade is a great example of how things should still be. Look at some of the names that got run off over the years:
Gary Salvatore
Wray Schaeffer
Scott McDade
Glenn Carter
Wayne Heckle
John Campagnone Sr & Jr.
Eddie & David Hartin
Dave Dunkin
Eddie King
Mike McCrary Jr
Rick Sirmans
Ben Booth
John Smith
…and easily over 150 others.
I remember a Modified Triple Crown weekend that had around 50-60 cars at each stop. The USA/SARA Mod Tours had at least 30 for every show (in the begining… before the divide & conquer mentality creeped in).
Get this thing back to where it SHOULD be, and maybe this class could prosper. It never will with the big-budget teams that were allowed to take over.
I will have to pass this along to his brother. It is a sad time for modifieds in FL. The expense just got way out of hand, they should have just stuck with the original rules of the Gulfcoast modifieds that Gary Robertson setup before Todd, and then Don, changed them all around.
I second that opinion. Gary tried to create a series that was affordable and through sponsorship establish a good pay back to the racers. Giving back this much money to the racers wasn’t exceptable to the promoters, resulting in promoters like Nerone and Cope conspiring not to give Gary any dates. he had no choice but to sell the series to Todd Hutto for $1.00 in hopes that the series would continue, which it never did.
Since the SARA days the series has been in trouble but I still tried to support even when I didn’t have a good motor and didn’t sit back and cry about the big motors I sucked it up and worked on my car. The biggest thing keeping people home and i have asked is the cost to get to the races and the payout if you think you need a big motor to win or run up front at any other places the lakeland and NSS then once again quit using the excuse for either driver talent or car setup to keep you from going. Now do I think you should be able to run a SB2 motor no I don’t but FASCAR said you could. I’m sorry if any of this makes someone mad but I’m tired of everyone saying you have to have a big motor. As far as the gulfcoast deal when I thought about running that it was 12,000 to 15,000 for a winning motor I have less then 10,000 in my big motor so where is the savings. If I want to run a street stock motor I’ll build a street stock. The series did just fine until the last couple of years when the split up the mods. Dave I honestly don’t believe that we would have full fields if the motors were cheeper. It still doesn’t change the fact that the ones with money will run up front and will always have new tires and the best stuff. I probally like the modifieds as much as anybody do to the fact I’ve stuck with them for 12 years and really like them
and I can remember alot of the old timers and trying to keep up there big motors at the time.
Skip Honaker
I mean no disrespect to you Skip but the one Gary setup was the most economical. Even if it cost $12,000 for a great small motor it would last longer and at least you were not competing against $40,000+ motors. Realistically they needed a touring series of just small tracks such as Citrus, Auberndale, and Charlotte County speedway. Make it the original GCM rules and watch the car counts come back up.
Skip (inadvertently) made a good point… the Mods need some strict tire rules also. Run a rock-hard tire, and nobody will need $10K motors (on the low end of the scale), or new tires every time out. This is more fallout from tracks and promoters who are also in the tire, fuel and motor business.
If anything, maybe there should be a boycott of the tracks that REQUIRE you to buy “X” amount of fuel, and “Y” amount of tires before you can race there. If nobody shows up, they have no strength to bully you guys out of the money it should take for you to compete.
No matter who you think should get the blame, the fact is this class priced itself right out of the ballpark. It’s not meant to be comparable to a LM or even a LLM budget… it’s supposed to be for the guy that would like to move up from a Sportsman or a Hobby Stock without having to clean everything you own out of the garage and start over.
Last I knew, there were over 4,000 IMCA/UMP legal Modifieds and over 400 tracks that run them. Over 100 of them show up in Florida during Speedweeks alone, almost ALL of them from out of state. SOMEONE has figured out to do it right, and it sure isn’t the people in Florida!
Why not just let it ago without tearing everything down about it. I know Skip does not have alot of money nor Art but they supported the series and they came. They were there and Art races weekly at Orlando and I hope we see Skip there soon also. They were not required to buy tires and I am not sure if they were still required to buy 5 gallons of gas but hey, they usually did buy gas or the car would not go.
It is sad enough to see these guys lose their series. They signed up for it at the beginning of the year and they did support it. But times are hard for everyone and according to the experts, a race must have at least 25 cars to
be worth your money. No one can change the times right now, all we can do is hope they get better. The SARA Mods were great, the Gulfcoast Mods were great, the Pro Mods were great, and the Extreme Mods were great because they have great drivers who gave their hearts to what they loved - modified racing.
Big motor, little motor - YOU GUYS ARE THE BEST and I truly hope to see you all again sometime. Writing that story was the hardest thing I have had to do in a long time because I truly cared about the series and those 13 cars that were there. I wrote for the Gulfcoast when they started and I have written for the Pro Mods and Extreme Mods and they have always treated me with the upmost respect because I respect them and what they love.
Thanks guys, you are the best and I do hope sometime you come to Orlando and give us a try so the fans can see what great guys you are.
I never said anything tearing down Skip or Art. In fact, I feel bad for them. They have spent a lot of time & money on their machines and deserve a chance to race.
I’m only tearing down the policies that ran them out of business. Before the Modified teams were forced (by the competition) into spending 5 figures on a motor, there were a hell of a lot more of them. That’s FACT and not some emotional response. I’ve heard figures as high as $40K for a motor (but even I don’t believe that), but Skip acknowledges the $15K range (and I personally know someone who spent 25K). How long do the rule makers think that kind of budget can be afforded by a whole field of cars? Obviously not enough of them can, or you’d have full fields. Especially at Lakeland.
But apparently, not enough guys like to go out there with their cheaper motors with absolutely NO CHANCE of running with the big budget teams. There are cars in the Charlotte County area, Inverness, Ocala, Bronson, Tampa/St. Pete, Desoto… and other than Tour regulars NONE of them come to these shows.
If nobody “tears it down”, then nothing will get fixed. How badly broken does it need to be before somebody notices it’s broken at all?
I respect what everyone as to say but I will say that 40,000 dollors motors is bs and to answer frasson 118 after I talked to alot of the big motor guys I will tell you that 12 to 14 grand is probally the norm and still cheaper the the gulfcoast deal and we have better parts. The problem with it is I beleive that we as the drivers let it get out of hand but if you look at alot of the dirt mods they are run anything from 355 to a 430 with no weight penilty which I feel like if they do away with the 7pds per cubic inch rules it would be easier for a guy to compete and could do it for alot less then 12 grand. I will say that I think when we have a good car count we put on as good of show as anybody but I’m probally bias towards the mods. I offered to help out the series but never got the go ahead. I truely enjoy the modifieds and leave them alone and get away from the 7 pds rule. I’ve talked to alot of the drivers and they still want a series and yes I would like to see more smaller tracks but until someone steps up and takes charge we will be left with no series. I would like to but money is standing in my way but I will continue to call people and try to put something together even if it is just a few races. On a side note I would really like to meet frasson118 so if I’m at the track and your there please stop by because I do respect what you have to say.
Without giving away who, the guy I was with said they got a motor in the low $20K range then changed a bunch of things and ended up spending over $30K on the motor and still was getting out motored at USA by a couple of drivers. So no I am not full of it. The finally had enough and went to a different series with a sealed motor rule. I hate seeing the end of this series just as much as you do Jane it is very sad.
it’s sad that this has happen… But after being in Florida and watching this series for years it seems as if the promoters rode this series into the ground just like the ole cowboy riding that nuke missile to the ground in that movie…
I feel for the drivers, dont care for the freakin terrible promoters and the other series should take notice of what these people are about: Themselves!! bottom line, the all mighty dollar and when they cant get promoter savy they just shut it down nice!!!
To the Promoters of this Series, DON N and all the people with a say in this series over the years SEE what your decisions have yeilded, Bunch of Idiots.
The long term vision of this series it seems was at the end of their nose instead of down the road!!!
They ran this series like they ran Orlando/NSS what a trainwreck…
For the most part this has been a fairly healthy discussion.
You’d like to think that between 3-4 of the people in this thread SOMEONE could come up with a good sensible package for the modifieds. If the prior leadership of the TBARA could run a successful winged sprint car club, why can’t there be a successful pavement modified club with an elected leader and such?
I Race a modified and have for the past 4 years. We got into modifieds because we liked what we saw with the traveling series. We have traveled with the Gulfcoast series for the past 2 seasons. No we did not make every race but we did make all the ones that time and money would allow. I have always wanted to run Lakeland but last weekend we chose to stay at home. Our reasoning for this was we have a motor pushing around 480 hp. We didn’t see the benefit in traveling 3 hours one way, with the cost of fuel, buying tires for the race, entry fee for the race, fuel for the car, and pit passes, to go out and run against motors pushing between 6 - 700 horses. Instead we chose to sit that out and race at Citrus this weekend where I know we will be competitive, this is still a 2 1/2 hour drive but it is the fact of knowing you have a better chance of winning and running up front. I did not want to see the series end either, we hate running at only one track but we can’t travel as often as we used to and we have to pick our races a little more wisely these days. I would love to see the Gulf Coast motor guys have a race at Lakeland it may not be the speeds ya’ll ran last week but I bet the racing would be better. My 2 cents may be bias because I have 3 Gulf Coast motors but alot of my racing buddies on the West coast still do as well. Don’t beat me up on this too bad just wanted to tell our reasoning for staying home. Not crying about the big SB2 motor and whatever else is out there but I have what I have and for know I will stick to CCMP and Citrus.
Skip… Thanks for the kind words. Would also like to meet you soon.
As someone who has zero dollars invested in this program, I don’t have any influence on decisions. But as a race fan, especially Modifieds, I know it can and SHOULD be better than it is. I hope it returns to the class it was meant to be.
