In consideration of car count and class...

Welcome to this fledgling blog. My apologies for those anticipating the December 14 kick-off, I hope the 28th will work just as well for you. The following piece can be found in the January 2009 issue of Dirt Modified Magazine. Enjoy!

Just recently, a few of us in the racing media were sitting around, holding a bit of an informal roundtable, when the topic of discussion turned to racing programs and their car counts. It was in no time at all that the consensus was reached that for some tracks to strengthen their programs, or to even hold on to their programs at all, they need to eliminate the number of classes that are now on the card every week.
The weekly show that runs five, six or even seven (yes, seven) classes has got to go – at least the majority of them anyway. Some are successful with this formula, but not many. With this restructuring, the modified class, particularly the B-modifieds, will play an important role, as the open-wheelers have become the strongest part of many weekly programs, and in fact are now the featured class at a large number of facilities, particularly here in the Midwest.
Many facilities that those of us in the previously mentioned discussion have attended that still stick to an extreme number of classes have seen the car counts within each of those classes diminish in recent seasons. Many of your five or six class tracks are putting a show on for the fans that features seven, eight or nine cars per class. Sometimes there are a couple or three more, and sometimes there are even less. In a day and age where people are working to get the most out of their entertainment dollar, there is no entertainment what so ever in watching, two, or even one, heat race that means absolutely nothing as far as the feature is concerned. Then, on top of that, you watch a feature that looks just like that heat race that wasn’t very exciting to begin with. No wonder there are tracks that are seeing more and more empty seats.
I’ve become greatly discouraged by the train of thought that a race program has to be a non-stop package of auxiliary entertainment from the minute the gate opens to when they shut out the lights at the end of the night. The whole idea is that the races are what should be entertaining. I don’t need singers, bands, celebrities, things blowing up, contests and fly-overs to make my night at the track a good one. I want a good race, period; and that means a well designed race program as well. I don’t go to my local theater to catch the latest Bond flick only to have the manager step out and address the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, this movie is going to blow you away, but before we get started, let’s all step outside and look to the sky as Air National Guard Unit 333 salutes America in their F-16s.”
Don’t get me wrong, it is nice that as race fans we can pay tribute to our country, that’s great; but when all the smoke and mirrors have been put away, it is the product on the track that pays the bills. Eleven car features don’t pay too many of those bills where I come from.
Here’s where I step back into the Dark Ages for some of you younger readers. Back in the early 1970s, at my hometown track, the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, they ran a two class program on Saturday night. Those shows would average 10,000 people each of those Saturday nights. Those numbers aren’t me throwing figures, they can be easily documented. Ten–thousand people make up a larger population than most of the towns in Iowa, and we gathered every week to watch a two-class program.
Now some people will say that the entertainment options have changed radically since then, but Des Moines still had Triple-A baseball and movie theaters like it does today, as well as other options. Granted there were only four channels on TV and professional sports were absent on them most of the time, but we weren’t all squatting around the fire, scratching drawings on the cave wall either.
Racing may not seem as big of a “thrill sport” as it does today in the age of monster trucks and cage fighting, but it had to have something to draw that many people back then, and I think it still does today. This KISS theory (Keep It Simple Stupid) applies to today’s racing programs as much as it ever has.
Let’s say your six class program is drawing in 80 cars at the local track. That is an average of just over 13 cars per class. All classes are not going to be divided evenly, so you may have one or two classes over that average, while the remainder are all under. That leaves two or one-heat divisions, no B mains, and your features. Stretched out over four or five hours as some places unfortunately do, that is a weak night at the races and it is no wonder nobody wants to see that.
Take that same program, and reduce the number of classes to three or four. That takes you per class average to some where between 20 to 26 cars. Yes, the track will have made some people mad by eliminating their class and they will move on, but the majority will stay and make some changes to run at their local track. Now you have three-heat race classes, and some nights a B-main if you only start 20 in your feature. That adds some excitement to the program and puts some butts in the seats. It also becomes a more attractive draw for some drivers who enjoy the increased competition. Winning an eight car feature is fun, but besting 20 cars is much more of a challenge, and that much bigger of an accomplishment.
So what does this have to do with mods and B-mods? At a large number of facilities, the thinning of classes will bring the modified classes to the top and allow them an even larger piece of the spotlight. Modifieds are already the featured class at many tracks, and trimming a couple of bottom feeding classes may just push two or three additional drivers to make the jump to that class, further strengthening its numbers.
Standing to gain even more are the B-modifieds. This class has already grown in leaps and bounds as some modified regulars have moved to B-mods to cut expenses, while some stock car and hobby stock drivers have made the change because the class has opened the door for them to now race a modified, something they have always wanted to do.
By eliminating you stray outlaw bomber classes, limited stock car class or pro stock classes that are drawing those very low numbers, you now have a large field of drivers that may very well give the B-mods a hard look based on both the cost, and excitement factor. The modified classes are now growing, and that in turn will build a more solid program at the local track.
In the history of racing, no facility has ever seen 100 percent of its clientele happy with the classes and rules, so why try to make everyone happy with multiple classes of sub-par car counts? In these tough times, its time to cut back, therefore strengthening the base in the end. Fans will be happy with the bigger numbers and better racing, and track operators will in turn be happy with the bigger numbers they are seeing too. Everybody wins. Now, let’s see how many are willing to make the jump. I’m hearing some rumblings around the Midwest of some class cutbacks, let’s hope it is the start of a long-term, and successful trend.