Well,my brother (zero for) is at East Bay tonite,and. The crowd is HUGE,the payout is HUGE,t_shirt giveaways,etc.Maybe all you guys who run asphalt tracks could learn a thing or two.
But,its the same old stuff.Yes,DeSoto seems to have a handle on his track,but last week I saw Rex Guy do his Yoho impersonation by being a track announcer.Oh boy…
So,come on fellas let’s make a concerted effort,and try to keep the paved tracks from going under.
SS–
Aside from having the dirt, what other differences would you (& 04) say there are at East Bay that is drawing the crowd?
What are the car counts?
Being the only dirt track within 150 miles of Tampa, and near Tampa plays a very significant role…
Apples and oranges.
[B][I]I think the paved track //dirt track successses and failures are the same about everywhere.
Up this way, few paved tracks are what we can call successfull, and the dirt tracks are doing very good.
For the participants, it is…in general… cheaper to race on dirt, shorter race, less tires and fuel, open wheel more popular and spend less on body parts, more fun to drive, etc., etc., etc. Never forget the ‘‘how much it cost to play’’ is more important than the price of the toy.
For the fans, well…in general… more exciting, more action, faster pace of races, better car counts.
The numbers speaks by themselve.
A good paved track with the right management can make it, we can see it for exemple at Beach Ridge in Maine, all other paved track in Maine are barely surviving while BR is rock and rolling.
But…in general… dirt tracks have a edge on their competition.[/I][/B]
I wonder if the fans come mostly from Riverview or from Tampa. It’s probably the only thing going on in Riverview. Eastbay and Showtime just seem to have a big fan and racer base.
Also, i think Eastbay has been open continuously for decades. That helps a track keep and grow their fan base.
You could maybe chalk it up to dirt is a better show than asphalt. But you have dirt tracks like Putnam that can’t keep the gates open.
Putnam this past weekend had at least 50 before one car got on track due to rain. VSP, Bubba, N.Florida and now Putnam all with in a hour and a half are all having sucess.Not to mention new series comming on SSMS midgets.FOMS Micro sprints Emods series and TQ latemodesl allong with the FMSA minisprints and dirt sprint cars.The pure stocks a class just below a hobby stock has blew up the last year or two and paying good as well.So its easy to see why Dirt has taken the lead if you will.The tracks seemingly work together all have big races at the end of the year.What the other guys have? TBRA
Rob
It is like this guys,dirt track is closer and has more action happening with six cars than blacktop racing can provide with twelve.the only way the blacktop tracks are going to survive is getting more cars on the track.six or eight cars following each other doesn’t work.rarely is a six car race on asphalt what you can call exciting.I’m sure there wasn’t a big payout for all divisions last night as evidenced by the fact there was only six sprints.the late models had seventeen the other seven divisions had between ten and fourteen.but the action is closer with that amount of cars on dirt.i haven’t seen a line like that for a blacktop race at the ticket window in a long long time.the blacktop promoters need to grow a pair leave their own tracks one Saturday night and go buy a ticket at a dirt track and take notes.recently kil made speedway in Ohio ceased operations after sixty six years of continuous operation.the scene of racing has changed and more cars and better payouts along with more effort are the only thing that will save blacktop short tracks.
The Thunder Stocks have 25+ car fields at VSP and also have 5-6 special $1000 to win races along with a $10,000 to win race in May…But like someone said above,apples to oranges 
yep,but its no. fun seeing 5 cars on asphalt
You have NSS,DeSoto,Showtime,Auburndale,Citrus,OSS,and a few others, that have different rules from each track and or the Bring house series.
They’re might be differences in tires,remember when Punts Gotta was only running Goodyear? Little things like that can kill a car count.
NASCAR has 43 cars that run at every race.People would rather stay at home with a big screen TV and watch a race from Martinsville,than go to 3 Palms and watch 4 races with 5 cars and no grandstands,costing 10 bucks,and you have to bring your own chair.
Its sad.this is a problem that could be fixed.I would rather watch asphalt over dirt.Yet,dirt has become more fun to watch.Better and closer racing too.
I put a post on here 2 years ago about the egomaniacal ways of the track owners.They’re heads are so far up their behinds that they will NEVER see the light of day.Only the guy from DeSoto gets it.I’m afraid others are likely to go under.
…and when a track has a great economical but fast division and has a growing car count… they cancel it. I am speaking of the e-mod division at NSS. Several teams were building them for the 2015 season. We now have about 10 mods running and about half of us are e-mods with a little extra and a 4 barrel carb. 100+ hp down over the top five who are still on the F-53 slicks for one more race. The rest of us are already on the R-750, because we didn’t run the slicks last year in e-mod to ‘use up’…
Our beefed up e-mod motors will be good for short tracks like Citrus, Bronson. A’Dale, Showtime, and maybe even Desoto…
Miss racing with Jon and Jarret at NSS.
-JIM-
[QUOTE=zerofor;157678]You have NSS,DeSoto,Showtime,Auburndale,Citrus,OSS,and a few others, that have different rules from each track and or the Bring house series.
They’re might be differences in tires,remember when Punts Gotta was only running Goodyear? Little things like that can kill a car count.
NASCAR has 43 cars that run at every race.People would rather stay at home with a big screen TV and watch a race from Martinsville,than go to 3 Palms and watch 4 races with 5 cars and no grandstands,costing 10 bucks,and you have to bring your own chair.
Its sad.this is a problem that could be fixed.I would rather watch asphalt over dirt.Yet,dirt has become more fun to watch.Better and closer racing too.
I put a post on here 2 years ago about the egomaniacal ways of the track owners.They’re heads are so far up their behinds that they will NEVER see the light of day.Only the guy from DeSoto gets it.I’m afraid others are likely to go under.[/QUOTE]
Well thanks brother (steady steve) for posting your last thoughts under my name.)But your sentiments are pretty right on the money.