Trends In Our Sport
 

Forgive me for thinking out loud & sharing this, but lately I've not been able to get this out of my mind... Has anyone done, or know of gathered data for the following metrics:

• New racers, by category, class, state, city
• Parked racers (same criteria)
• Racers who've sold off operation (same criteria)

Also:

• New race tracks (state, city)
• Track closure (state, city)
• Operating tracks (state, city)
  • Basic revenue data (profit - loss)

I'd be curious how drastic the changes would look in graph format over a 50 year period.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Gary, I can give you a sixty-five year "track report", (and I may be the only one who can).

No matter how many people want to argue it, the fact remains the sport has had roughly, (plus or minus five percent), the same amount of dragstrips operating at any given time between 1955 and 2013.

It's a fact; I've spent most of my life gathering proof.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Thanks Bret...the sky isn't falling..!

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Thanks, Bret!!!

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

That is amazing. Do you have a record of just the ones in South Carolina? There are a few newer ones, but it just seems like a lot of them are gone, especially the ones closest to me.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bill. most people can only see the past in one dimension. A state may have been home to seventy tracks over a sixty-five year period but the most important fact is they weren't all open at ONCE!

Even when viewed by decade, the number stays amazingly constant.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Interesting.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bill,
I can reference to 25 different dragstrips in SC.
thanks, Roland

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Except in "California"

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bret also knows in his home state the 3 drag strips in the last couple years have closed, and no new ones have been built.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

In the "last couple years"? One closed two years ago but the other two of which you speak closed ten and twenty years ago, respectively. Missouri currently has five operating tracks, though.

It's important to remember the period during which California had what folks would consider a large number of operating tracks was astonishingly brief. However, California STILL has a dozen operating dragstrips which many folks STILL consider a "large number".

You're less than halfway there if you're trying to find 'em all, Roland.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bret I was only making the point that even though it might be status quo, there are areas in the country where drag racing scene isn't doing well. Such as KCIR a major city with out now a operating drag strip. And yes you're right time flies by, seems like just yesterday those historic strips were still open.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bret, some of those in Cali are closed, or closing. Irwindale land just got sold, and the smart money says the new owners have already greased the pockets of local government to have it rezoned by late next year for major retail development. In 2011 at the March Meet, Richey Pauly had a long conversation about the fate of Pomona, and a similar land/lease arrangement with NHRA that could have the Winters and the WF relocated to Famoso. All eyes are on Fontana now as we wait the fate of Irwindale.

But the real trigger of my thinking wasn't just SoCal, but drive-in movie closings across America, and racing in Florida. In the 20 some years I lived there, 2 new tracks opened while 4 closed, one re-opened (Lakeland). I took a look at the Miami Hollywood Dragway tribute page on FB and saw so many familiar names that have left the sport, or parked their cars for various reasons, including economics.

Another point has been the decline in weekly bracket participation as that of divisional and national events (I would attribute to the current economic climate).

I must admit I was dumbfounded to discover Samoa and Redding were still operating as of this year, although Redding hangs in the balance as well.....http://reddingdragstrip.info/wordpre...3/11/RFP-1.jpg

It appears the "super track" era is on the decline...with no new facilities replacing those that have closed. But again, I wished I knew of compiled info.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

I, too, didn't want to refer to any particular state. However, using the posted example, the fact remains California has twelve operating dragstrips as of November 23, 2013. As for the future, more will close and more will be built. The ratio can only be determined after the fact.

Florida also currently has twelve operating tracks with the addition of a new one just six weeks ago.

In most areas of the country, 2013 bracket racing attendance was higher than in the past eight years. The midwest had a banner season and not too many track operators are disappointed. The majority of suffering tracks are in areas of high competition among facilities. A track at which I regularly compete is one of nine dragstrips within a one hundred-mile radius, (eight are within a seventy mile radius!), but it, (and all but two of its competitors), did exceptionally well this season.

I'm not sure of your definition of a "supertrack" but there are now more National Event-style facilities, (seating capacity over 10,000), than there EVER were in the past.

Drive-ins, however, are not my forte. :)

Sure, KCIR closed. However, Kansas City still has two operating dragstrips within sixty miles. It could be two tracks worse.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Trends? How about the youth caring more about video games than getting a license, cost of cars (let alone race gas, entry fees, showroom cars not in the guide etc), or the aging curve of class racers, general economy stagnation, more choices for discretionary income, dysfunctional sanctioning body......those are more discouraging than track availability. More encouraging is the on-going investment of racers building $100k plus cars, the new blood from the factory race cars.....these single purpose cars will be raced somewhere, and the Northern Class Nats may be a start of racers taking ownership of our future

I would guess there is enough passion and $ to run this out about 10 more years, could be wrong, hope so...it's the trend I see

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

I guess it's all perspective, My nearest track (of the four I must travel to, to be in the points series here) is 2hr's. The next is on an island 3hr's away. Third is 4hr's and the farthest is 5 1/2 to 6hr's. This is each way. Gas here is $5.10 per US gallon. All four tracks here are doing fine because they work together to coordinate 2 major meets per track on alternate weekends and the locals keep them running in between those major meets.

I see lots of new cars/people and notice a lot of old cars/people are gone. Total amount though seems to be the same, the only difference I see is nobody in the stands at 3 of the 4 tracks. (one track has a couple hundred to a thousand show up on big weekends, not just family either, actual "spectators")

When I was young, we had a local stockcar track 1hr away and the nearest dragstrip was about 6-8hr's away. That was it. Period.
Now there is a stockcar track 10 minutes from my place, they run gocarts too, there is mudbogging 10 minutes the other way. There is a 2 mile long sportscar track with 50 or so turns in it 15 minutes from here. There is "thunder in the valley" rally trucks and truck pulls here. There is lawnmower racing a couple hours away as well as boat racing, etc,etc,etc.
I fully agree that we're not a "car society" anymore, but to compound it, dragracing ain't the only game in town anymore. You want to race belt sanders? Look up the closest place to race and have at it.

I have no fear of "dragracing going away" because there will always be the select few that will drag anything and everything.

I think today it's more "I have X amount of $$ for my automotive hobby, what my hobby is though is no longer limited to stockcar/dragcar.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Looking at how packed it was at this event I would say this is where things are trending.

http://www.lsxtv.com/news/camaro-ver...ld-cup-finals/

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bret, how about Pennsylvania tracks? As best as Dad and I can come up with, there were fourteen tracks that ran, at one time, in PA. Six are still running.

1. Maple Grove
2. Numidia
3. Beaver Springs
4. South Mountain/Quarter Aces
5. Pittsburgh Raceway Park (Keystone)
6. Lucky's Dragway (Erie)

The eight that closed:
1. Sunset Raceway (Mercer)
2. Skyline DRagway (New Castle)
3. New Bethlehem
4. Peterson Memorial (Altoona/Tyronne)
5. York US 30
6. Pittsburgh Int'l Dragway (Cecil)
7. Pocono Drag Lodge
8. Vargo Dragway (Perkesie)

Ohio and WV we could only come up with three each that closed. In Ohio, Howland, Meander and one up by Toledo, Glass City?). WV Fairmont/Eldora, Princeton, and Winfield. I'm sure there are more, in each state, those are just the ones we could remember (many closed before I was born in 1979, sadly).

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

My reference to the 25 tracks in South Carolina was taken from a book called "The History of America's Speedways" written by Allan E. Brown and was printed in 2003. He has a newer version out but I do not have it in my collection yet. I see several of the tracks have had two or three names but my count was just the physical locations. Mr. Brown probably gets to add tracks each time he releases a new edition. My copy is a third edition. Bret has the most knowledge about the history of drag racing of anyone I know about and he most likely raced at all of them, even when they were drag racing horses and mules.
Roland

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

One that I know of in Ohio was Riverside (Proctorville, across the river from Huntington). Went there as a kid and have great memories of it. Another one in WV was Raleigh County (Beckley). I'm not sure if Fort Gay is still running - also known as the 100 yard dash. Originally a sand drag and truck pulling track that converted to asphalt drags (at the same distance).

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Add to the closed in my lifetime in PA. , Vultee Airport [Allentown] ,Allentown Fairgrounds, Wind Gap , KelReca, Hatfield, and recently, I heard ,Quarter Aces.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Tom, dont forget Reading Fairgrounds.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Be real interesting to see how many spectators today, compared to the 70's, and 80's.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Guys, your numbers are far from reality. Pennsylvania alone has had over sixty dragstrips.

Roland, Allan Brown was the first to make an effort to accurately chronicle all North American racetracks. He was a pioneer who archived a phenomenal amount of information prior to electronic gathering techniques. Allan retired almost a decade ago after printing three editions of his original book; the last was published in November, 2003.

I met Allan several times and he's a fantastic guy. Unfortunately, he was never a big drag racing fan, (although he enjoyed the sport), and his final listing, while impressive, included drastically fewer drag strips than were actually in operation over the years.

Almost twenty years ago, I formed a consortium to precisely locate, confirm, research, chronicle and archive all of 'em. The effort demands the hours of a full-time job each week and requires a massive effort from the members of a very small group. Our project isn't a hobby. It's a lifelong ordeal; it's a commitment to which we have each made huge sacrifices. It's no different than campaigning a Stocker every week of the year.

We take this project seriously, (excruciatingly so). We can never finacially recoup our investment and, therefore, have set a simple goal of making sure the information is available to people in the future. I'm not talking decades in the future. I'm referring to CENTURIES in the future.

There is no "web site". There is no "e-mail list". There is no FaceBook page. We owe no free information to anybody in this pursuit. Those who have assisted us receive our undying thanks and many, many people have assisted us.

I never meant my original response to Gary Smith to become a "Name Those Tracks" thread. He wondered about the data progression over the sport's first sixty-five years and I offered a response proving, as James Perrone noted, "the sky isn't falling".

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

I agree with Bret 100%, but I have been around for a bit also.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

I have to agree with Randall. I remember when I was 14-15, getting your license and dreaming of what your first real car was going to be was part of being a teenager. Nowadays it's not uncommon to meet young men, 18-19 years old that don't have a drivers licence?

Another point is the lack of mechanical knowledge of youth today. A case in point, had a lab tecnichian yesterday. He came in to do a test on a torque unit, wanted to measure the angle to insure the unit was in calibration. Plant where I work, we build remanufactured diesel engines. He comes over to me with a puzzled look on his face. His measurement tool was a 3/4 drive and the machine tooling was 1/2 inch. Told him to make that tool work you need a simple 1/2 to 3/4 adapter and we can run your test. He looked at me in amazement, and said, "they make such a thing"?

Also agree in that the economy is not strong, business can't/don't want to pay higher wages. Another major spike in gas prices certainly won't help. If we were to suffer another serious recession (we're due), that 10 years might be optimistic.

Yes, the graying of the drag race community is a concern as well. That's true of most hobbies. The 100K cars are a good example of this. I agree it's great to see that kind of committment. If those of us with lesser operations are forced out, then there will be no feeders to move up! A local association may be the only option we have left to Class Race?

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

I can think of three more in Ohio that closed, Kettlersville and Wayne trail both owned by Ted Jones and also Hyde Park.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Randall, you make valid points. But there are lots of youths into cars and racing, just not the kind we are into.

Last weekend I went to Fayetteville Motorsports Park in NC to make some test and tune runs-they had a group there called 'Horsepower Junkies' that rented the track. They had 4 classes of competition as I recall, and there were probably 125 or 150 cars there with lots of spectators-as many as I have seen at any local track in a long time. The cars were all new muscle-mostly '98 and newer Corvettes (even a couple Z06's) , camaros, mustangs, Crysler 300s and even a few new caddies-only a spattering of imports and the only old cars were a 69 chevelle and a 70 AMX. The new muscle all had tags from what I saw and many of them ran in the 11's or quicker. There were at least 40 late model corvettes.
Almost all of the cars had power adders, especially turbos and pro chargers. It was kind of a hokey deal- no rules or scales and all heads up-and a 'party' environment. And lots of broken rear ends too, I might add. I can't imagine many class racers or bracket racers being caught dead at such an event, but by the same token this Horspower Junkie crowd looks at other forms of drag racing and they just aren't interested.

These people are spending money on their cars. What is a 2008 Corvette worth, and then add on the forced induction and etc?

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Other PA tracks: Green Pine (no idea where this was, just heard a number of the older guys talking about it when I was a kid... ok, after searching for it, says it was around Williamsport) and Kremer, which was pretty close to Beaver Springs. Chicken coops there now, as I understand it. I think I've actually been past it, but it is unrecognizable. My dad raced his street '70 Dart 340 4spd there once. Said it had a dirt shutdown area, and not much of it! I think there was a motorcycle dragstrip in the Reading area as well.

Here's an interesting page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lost-...26629034080783

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Randall,

I couldn't agree with you more. Great post.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

on a better note for Missouri,and Kansas city,there is talk of plans about a dragstrip near the river and bluffs near kc

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Cool,

I have not heard that rumor.

Sean

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Plans for the new dragstrip out here in western Washington (Shelton area) have stalled. It seems once the roadcourse was put in, issues among the powers that be, put the strip on the fast track to nowhere. Our fingers are crossed, but no one is holding their breath.
Danny Durham

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

:( I was just by the area yesterday. There were cars on the road course and I watched for awhile from the main road. I saw NO evidence of any progress on the drag strip. It looks like the ongoing battles among the powers that be have hampered the progress of a drag strip. Still we are hopeful of completion in the future (someday soon?). The facility is HUGE and would be a great financial boon to the area.

P.S. Danny at my age (64 very soon) I don't dare hold my breath for anything. I might not recover.

Re: Trends In Our Sport
 

Bret,
I finally got to shake hands with Tom P.
I ran into him while I was working as Race Director for Hot Rod Drag Week.
It was nice to see the face and hear the voice of the guy behind the keyboard.
Back in the early 2000's It was fun sending info to you guys about the tracks I knew of. Hope your data turns out good. I can't wait for the Drag Racing History Lesson.