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#1 |
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Location: Fenton, Missouri
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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.
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#2 | |
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Location: Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
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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. Last edited by Bret Kepner; 11-22-2013 at 08:36 PM. |
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#3 |
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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.
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#4 |
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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.
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Gary Smith "another broke racer spectating" |
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#5 |
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Location: Saint Louis, Missouri, USA
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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. Last edited by Bret Kepner; 11-23-2013 at 02:59 AM. |
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#6 |
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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 |
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#7 |
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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. |
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#8 | |
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Location: Nineveh, Indiana
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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?
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Robert Swartz - Swartz & Lane 66 Chevy II Pro 95 Achieva EF/SA, 78 Mustang II U/SA (work in progress) #354 stock |
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#9 | |
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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?
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#10 | |
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I couldn't agree with you more. Great post. |
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