Belle-Clair Speedway not racing weekly next year in 2015? Saw this on the tracks Facebook page.

There is one reason why it isn't working on Friday nights, TRi City Speedway. Having two tracks within 25minutes of each other, racing on the same night with the same classes hurts the sport.
Belle Clair should try Sunday nights. Twice a month, run crate late models. Mods, street stocks and 600 micros. Throw in some midgets too. A race fan is a fan of racing. Belleville provides good racing, the track shouldn't have to suffer. There could be times where the weekend is washed out on Friday and Saturday and the best night to race is Sunday. Belle Clair has to try something new or it will be a has been. That would be a shame to lose a great racetrack
 
There was plenty of cars to have 2 tracks running on the same night. I think the problem is Belle Clair needed some improvements, to the facility and some of the people involved. To attract people to the races, the place has to look updated. If this was not true you wouldn't see ballpark owners spending millions of dollars every few years. The die hard fans will go anywhere and sit on anything to watch a race. There is not enough of that crowd left. I think Don did all he could do with the limited amount of control he had. To make it racing now days the track has to be owned, not just promoted, by someone who is passionate about racing. We all know the fair board doesn't care about racing, they care about money.


my 2 cents
 
i'm sorry 20rocks, i disagree. just didn't work @ tri because had LM's too. lots of crates really run at BC in LM class. just look at guys like jim gibson, solid driver, just not enough car to take on LM's. shoot the stallion instead of coming back to drive a LM might go back to a crate & come back to BC like in the old days. also have classes like sportmans tri doesn't have. in my opinion as a fan, hard to go up against tri. facility is top notch & they do so much right. but sure nice to have 1 track up north & one down south with the spotty weather like we have in the lou.
 
the people have spoken tri city is the place to be, the closing of Belleville had nothing to do with racers not showing up its all about us not going to Belleville. so the blame is on us.
 
The race on sunday if it rained on friday didnt work because a lot of racers are one night a week racers. They made other plans for the rest of the weekend. They couldnt cancel the family camping trip for the weekend when they found out the races were cancelled at 4pm friday. I cant say it would or wouldnt work. It would take a promoter trying it and finding out. I would be there for sure. It worked for years at St. Charles but it has been a while since the area has had sunday racing and people have other routines now. It may take some time to get up and going good. Will someone be willing to invest that time and money??????
 
Not a huge fan of Sunday racing and I would be scared in today's economy most local race fans would use up their weekly racing allowance on Friday and Saturday night jmo.
 
jumpinjack1dw said:
why is it always about money, start small like all things do and work up according to attendance and races
Click to expand...
Start small? Define "small."

Renting the track from the Belle Clair Fair board, how much? $1000 per night?
Insurance, how much? $1000 per night?
Staff- At least a crew of what, 5 paid officials, if not more (probably a lot more) to run the show, how much? $500-$1000? ( and yes, you can get your buddies to show up and officiate, but believe me, you aren't going to get a whole lot of folks to commit to 16 weeks, one night a week, for no pay--just look at you previous comment, "I work cheap (but you didn't say free), and have my own flags"
Food for the concessions, ice, soda, etc, invest another $500 to $1000.

So, have you got a spare $5000 laying around (before you even think about paying the purse, and believe me, you don't want to face a pit full of racers who could care less 50 people sat in the stands that night, they just want their purse money) to risk on one nights racing and hope to break even, plus have all the manpower, promotional ability, organizational skill, track prep knowledge and everything else it takes to open up for that first night?

Yes, it's all about money. Even if you want to run one night of tricycle races, you are still going to have to do some serious organizing and lay out some cash, for rent and insurance, and the probability you are going to lose money for the foreseeable future until you can get established and get a big enough crowd regularly to fund your adventure is in the highly likely/almost guaranteed category.

I'd venture to say you are going to need about $30000 bankrolled just to get you started, and good luck getting enough cash flow to keep you going for a season. So yes, unfortunately, unless you plan on putting some cones in a field to race around, having no insurance, a handful of your buddies waving flags and selling cans of coke out of a cooler with some hotdogs and potato chips thrown in, plan on it taking a boatload of cash to be ready for opening night. And hope you make it to night 2.

Sorry if this sounds a little harsh, but the reality is everyone wants to get paid, from the fair board to the janitor, and that takes money. You need just as much cash to run a single class of hornets in rent and insurance as you need to put on the full program, and neither are cheap and you are almost guaranteed to lose money for a few years, not just a few nights, when you decide to be a promoter. So hopefully, if a person steps up to run it, they have some deep pockets.
 
it would be a loss to the racing world if BC were not to open--- I would think they will still have the open wheel series-and fair events--IF I HAD ANY $$$ I would put together a B-Mod series to run on Sundays---3 qualifying nights-with features then a big pay off night--support classes???
 
just make it a powri/ open wheel track

midgets, micros and mods and mabye a sprint class? only other sprints are down in farmington?
 
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