According to today's Sacramento Bee '15 may be the last year for the 3/8 pavement track at the Placer County Fairgrounds in Roseville.
  A search for a new operator for the fairgrounds goes out in March and the track's fate is up in the air after this season.
  Extensive remodeling a few years ago that resulted in a larger and much racier track hasn't stopped the slow decline of cars and fans .  NASCAR was dropped; too expensive, the late models were dropped; too expensive, schedule shortened this year from 22 to 15 races, last Saturday of each month and all of July will have 0 racing.
   Very nice facility, once very popular, but going to all cheaper classes has resulted in once full stands diminishing severely.  As one of the few remaining asphalt tracks in the state it would be a shame to see it disappear. Our annual trips north for the fall Rose Classic, a big deal show with teams from several states eventually resulted in our move to NorCal 30 years ago.  Any track shutting down is a loss to our sport.

    I agree that the costs to race are a big problem and always have been.  Way back people complained about the guy that got a new engine from a local car dealer sponsor when the rest of us were putting together  junkyard stuff.  It just seems to have incrementally increased 10 or 20 fold from the old days while the shrinking grandstands result in stagnant purses.
    Look at how grey haired the pits and stands are now, both in the oval and drag racing stuff.  A lot of the problems in racing are due to the fact that the younger generation has relating to 40+ year old technology.
   It's not possible for them to understand a carburetor when plugging in a gadget to tune something is their norm.  No one can work on their own personal cars anymore except to, maybe, put in eardrum killing sound systems or monstrous size wheels/tires.
    Darned few racers build their own stuff anymore. That goes from chassis to engines and a lot of the younger racers are kids whose daddy lays out big bucks so Junior or Sissy can have the latest and greatest.  When the kid isn't instantly the next  Kinser or Gordon they move on.
    I, begrudgingly, agree that crate engines may be the future. But I think that the biggest problem is finding enough of the instant gratification generation that want to get their hands dirty and be involved in this frustrating sport for the sheer joy of occasional success and spending a Saturday evening with people you enjoy is the bigger problem.

Mud we started talking about this several years ago. The money has been sucked right out of the economy. Limited budgets cant keep up with the Unlimited budgets(which are few and far between in racing today)and therefore stop racing. Just look at Top Fuel Entries...etc.

The crate is the solution to help rebuild the west cost in my opinion. Kid Harley did a good job showing that a couple years ago. this stat from the Wall Street Journal is profound: median income has fallen almost 10% since 1999.(source is census bureau) That is a lot of cash for the common person.

Mud, you and over4t make some spot on observations. I am in a tug of war in my mind whether to get back in from the sponsorship side of events but with my son running the company I find it hard to convince him there is a return on investment other than my own enjoyment helping the cause!

I stole thie folloowing comment from Larry Mickey on F-book.  It fits right into this whole conversation very well.  Way to many classes spreads the whole pool of drivers available way to thin per class.  The sad thing is, there are other classes on the horizon trying to get their piece of the action. "NOT GOOD"

"You need to take into consideration Duane, that there are way more classes of cars than there were 20 plus years ago. There were no mods, you had Sprint cars, Late Models, Hobby Stocks....those were the choices if you wanted to race. How many different classes are there racing today? The mid-eighties would find 50 Hobby Stocks to be the norm on a Sat. night of racing @ SMS."

And Larry is right to a point, but  with the costs of engines in most cars, crate would be the most economical way to go...I only know one DLM driver as of late that quit for a lower (or different) class and that is Mike Kirby.... There are still enough folks to go around, the issue is enough dollars to do it.....

And Mike, your right, with the dollars it costs to sponsor these days, your son is probably right.....but heck, its for the ole man, he's gotta do it !!!!   LOL

C‘mon guys, Pro Stock is the place to land, a happy medium per say.
Chad,
Although I dont know you, I watched you 3 wheel it at Pearsonville, along with Teams like Cowan, Bartel, Kuster, your program is of the quality we need.
Your part of the reason I got into this deal.
Lets roust David  Pearson and Butterbean and the like, knock this deal outta the park?
Our weekly pay out isnt far from Late Models, and our points fund is hedging $8 grand before the season starts, if the car counts are up.
Old retired Late Models will fly (as long as they got 11 inches either way of the front jack bolt thats a stock clip)

Dave

hogracer3d wrote on 02/09/15 at 10:42pm:



Correct Dave, it is a good class...but they need to be motor conscious too... biggest mistake that class made was getting rid of the 500 two barrel...

Dave, thanks for the kind words. I actually was interested in the division a couple years ago. I discussed it with Lee and was contemplating converting my late model. Dave Pearson even offered a chassis he had been building. At the time it seemed like the division was going to explode and the incentives were encouraging. Other than a few rules, and again traveling to be able to race the Biggest problem I had was all the controversy, crap talk, and what appeared to be absolute chaos, again resulting in low car counts was not inticing at all.
I really hope the division works out this time as you guys put on some of the best cleanest racing.
-Chad

Wally_Stewart wrote on 02/11/15 at 11:16am:


+1