[QUOTE=UREZ2PASS;149968]Come home dude, you can’t save Florida racing on the Internet. LOL !
All kidding aside, you have some good ideas.
Boneman is the ambassador of Florida racing, but you very may well overthrow him when you move back.[/QUOTE]
lol! Not looking to overthrow anyone. Just want to help out.
I would love to come home… Was planning to do so the end of this year but I got a raise that made it worth staying here and advancing my career just a little bit more. The new plan is for the end of next year as long as I can find work in my field. I dropped the FL car off at the chassis shop last night to have the chassis gone over and the front clip done, so I am definitely committed lol!
[QUOTE=UREZ2PASS;149966]Really ? How many times in the last three years did anybody on this thread actually go to the track, pay to get in, or for that matter race.
Gotta stick up for dd39 on this though, he was there more than any of the current MOUTHS on here.
Y’all talk all you want but unless you were there, you don’t have much ground to stand on. You DID NOT SUPPORT THE TRACK.[/QUOTE]
I was there, I did offer help… shit we as a family offered to come mow/weed eat/ paint/ whatever when the lease first transferred. I wasn’t taken up on that offer. i did run the 1 and only SLM race Ozzie had. we did watch in the stands even after my class was clearly not coming back. i get the diehard OSW crew (maybe 10 people) that want to blame the direction the track went on people that didn’t support the track, i also get why people aren’t spending hard earned $ on watching support classes with minimal car counts. it’s a business that in order to succeed has to provide a service people want. it also has the responsibility of bringing fans in, Ozzie will advertise non stop for drag events/drift events. So he gets what needs to be done… when that slm race was planned last yr. like 3 weeks in advance (on top of another popular race that was planned @ the beginning of the season) no advertising was done until 1 week prior, meanwhile the drag track was already advertising for an annual event (that just happened the week before) a year in advance. the current gm at that time pushed hard for that race, he caught a lot of shit from people (admittedly me being 1) about how things were ran. After all the dust settled it was clear the gm was fighting for us but Ozzie wasn’t hearing it. i’m all for helping, supporting, and racing there. but the 2 yrs worth of broken promises to drivers and fans don’t exactly make that easy. even this yr. when they announced the divisions that were going to be on schedule people were very clear that they wanted other divisions as well… that was heard but not dealt with. lets be real… if you have track # 1 running street stocks, bombers,4cyl., and mods …track # 2 running slm,ss,bombers,4cyl., mods …track #3 plm,ss,bombers,pt, all the same admission fee where are you going? #2 or 3 this is what you have seen so far this yr. support divisions don’t cut it with the fans, low car counts either. don’t get it? go to showtime sat. sounds like they are doing “what cant be done”…curious what the stands look like… i know what the pits will be. another thing that might be a little hard to understand… transparency./ pr/ communication. the basis of every business. cant draw people in that don’t know anything thats going on. it shouldn’t be top secret, it shouldn’t require other people to disclose info, and fans shouldn’t have to investigate… Phil has gave more info than the track has, before that boneman used to, when does the track start? alot of people don’t even know about karnac, some don’t do facebook, so take a look what those people see. everything that they don’t do / cant afford to do/or is not possible is being done at other tracks including the track next door. i have no doubts on Donnie’s intentions (don’t know him), but its hard to do with handcuffs on. maybe we will get lucky and Donnie will accomplish getting the cuffs off. i’m just another one waiting…
If you go back to OSW threads from 10 years ago, you’ll see the same complaints, just the names are different. OSW never really seemed to do much advertising. They always seemed to use the very least expensive way of getting the word out whether it was effective or not. And here we are 10 years later discussing the same advertising problems.
Logic would tell us that in a city the size of Orlando ( must be 1 million or so ), if only .01% of them showed up at OSW, they’d have to cancel the races because they couldn’t acomodate that large of a crowd. How hard can it be to attract .01% of the population? Disney does it, so does Universal.
The answer is easy, you gotta get to all of them. That can’t and won’t happen on social media. It can’t be done solely by newspaper or radio or tv. Or posters in the window, or showing up at car shows and events. Too much time and a little money have been wasted on trying to lure racing fans to OSW. They don’t seem to be interested, at least not in large enough numbers to matter… It’s time to cultivate new fans, not just young fans, but new fans to auto racing. And they don’t know from Karnac. You’re going to have to go get them and convince them they’re missing something. And if they’ve never heard the sound of a V-8 racing engine, they don’t know what they’ve been missing.
I just hope that OSW is at a cross-roads, and not a dead-end. It aint over until the bulldozers move in.
Two of my sons are getting to the age where we could be running at the local track pretty soon. I hope I have the chance to jump back in to action at OSW on a regular basis.
OSW has not had a race program worthy of fans for a long time. Keeping it open for so long only ran it into the ground further. Every effort to draw in new fans was meaningless because there was nothing to see. The ones that came, saw no reason to come back.
I will say, there was about 25 cars that were dedicated to the track but they were far to few in numbers to make a difference.
The OSW oval track weekly racing program is dead and gone.
OSW is now a special events track, you don’t need a high school diploma to figure it out, anything else is dreaming unless a large amount of money is invested.
It will take big purses to attract cars and big advertising dollars to attract fans. Anything less is result in what we have witnessed the past decade.
I’ve seen that suggestion many times, and it’s very likely a good idea for OSW. But turning it into a dirt track doesn’t solve any of the other problems. Ozzy doesn’t seem inclined to spend any money or energy in promoting the track. Nor does he seem to be interested in hiring the appropriate staff to turn the place around. Will making it a dirt track get him motivated? I’ve read that this months General Manager is trying, and that’s good. Does he know anything at all about dirt tracks? Will Ozzy pony up the money for a grader and the other equipment needed to operate a dirt track? Will he hire someone who knows how to prep a dirt track?
But they also need professional marketing help. And they sorely need to spend the money to advertise. Just spreading clay over the track surface isn’t going to solve the problems over there.
[QUOTE=UREZ2PASS;149966]Really ? How many times in the last three years did anybody on this thread actually go to the track, pay to get in, or for that matter race.
Gotta stick up for dd39 on this though, he was there more than any of the current MOUTHS on here.
Y’all talk all you want but unless you were there, you don’t have much ground to stand on. You DID NOT SUPPORT THE TRACK.[/QUOTE]
I was there most every Friday!!! In the stands, eating the food and bringing ppl with me.
What would dirt do? COME ON MAN! Lets say Ozzy puts up the cash for dirt and equipment, hires a Gm with dirt background etc. DIRT would re energies the Orlando market.Create a buzz about the track and bring NEW life.You have the resources to pull fro, ie cars and traveling series, not to mention speedweeks in that dirt brings a major amount of cars to Fl. Its the drastic measure thats needed.And I believe the drivers will come.High banking short track 2 groves.Look at the numbers the dirt tracks are pulling twice the amount of cars than the concrete tracks.Other than the lates and the mods every other class can change over to dirt.
Just my 2 cents, Rob
Even though I am a dirt fan almost to the exclusion of pavement racing, dirt is not the answer to OSW problems or future. This track has been through so many different managements and scenarios all of recent vintage that have included so many bogus rainouts and schedule changes that the fan and competitor have lost interest in being involved. The solution I fear is to have someone with deep pockets willing to set a schedule, establish classes and stick to the plan until trust is reborn. This track cannot rely on the tourist dollar as the tourist attractions are now so expensive I doubt the tourist has budget or energy to participate after a day at Disney. Given the tracks location it might be better to try and attract Brevard countians as the traffic on 50 from Titusville is much lighter than the traffic from 50 west. I have visited the track on multiple occasions for the Joslin memorials and have always found it to be a very racy facility. It will be a shame if we lose it.
All the dirt tracks in Florida run Saturday nite,and all have decent car counts.A somewhat centrally located track like OSW converted to dirt would draw cars/crowd from East Bay,Hendry,BRP, and VSP…With 2-3 wide racing,that place would pack the house on a Friday or Sunday.
First off you would not get 3 wide racing there. Also if you notice dirt tracks have more sweeping turns than Speed World. You would have to rip up all the asphalt because if you just put dirt on it you would have to raise the walls to get the needed dirt for it to make it safe. And that costs money Ozie is not going to spend. He hates Stock Car racing I have heard from people I know that Drag race. But taking the oval track was part of the deal to get the Drag Strip. All or nothing. He has his little circus going out there and that’s the way it is. If he was a man of his word all the BULL SHIT he fed is the night he introduced himself he would have stuck with it. All those POS Drift cars that “Compete” or whatever you call it he charges something like $65 to run/compete. I’m just wishing some sort of miracle would happen because I love that place. Let’s wait until something happens like someone getting hurt to see what happens. Trust me I don’t want that to happen to anybody but it is going to happen. Have you ever looked at some of those cars!! WOW!!! I rather take a ride in a Electric Chair!!!
