What would you do?

Start on time. Run the show in a timely manner. The next race should be on the track as the previous race is exiting the track (see Haubstadt). Keep the excitement going, too much downtime creates boredom.

I like the idea of having a punch card for attendance...attend 5 regular nights, your 6th is free (or however you want to work it).

Offer reserved seats for the regulars for special shows. If you've attended x amount of races in the season, you are guaranteed your normal seating arrangement for the special shows with prepaid ticket purchase.

I also like the idea of having drivers pull their cars on the track to allow fans to get pictures, autographs, etc. Highland used to do this back in the 90s and I still have the pictures.

Some tracks have gotten away from the lengths they went to to accommodate junior fan club. Belleville still does a great job, though. I used to be so excited every year when Highland gave away the quarter midget. Kids are the future of this sport.
 
Long time listener, first time poster.
See quite a few good ideas here and wish to add or maybe even repeat a few of them.

#1 Barring any major on track mishap have the show over and people on their way home by 10:30, which brings me to #2 and #3
#2 Spin and you're in, no matter if it's heat, semi, or feature! The driving over the head and banzai into the corner would stop and the driving and racing would improve as a result.
#3 Time limits strictly adhered to! No matter who it pizzes off!
#4 Sprinkle the track with some water between races and keep the dust down, one time around the top isn't going to kill anything or anybody. You are running people off by covering them up with dust everytime they come!
Some nights I would rather have my fingernails pulled out with pliers and have rubbing alcohol thrown on them than to sit through some of the races and whole nights that have been ruined and could have been avoided by following 1,2,3, &4. If a hard core fan is sick of it, what do you think a new fan or casual fan thinks of the same handful of cars stinking everything up night after night?

#5 Scheduled night off once a month, could be used as a rain date.
#6 One class of cars on track every other night or so and have the fans down for a meet and greet. 15 mins tops. Have the driver ready with some hand outs or their sponsors information, that way the sponsor may feel he's getting a little more bang for his buck.
#7 Drivers need to get up to the grandstands or to the front gate as people are coming in,unless they are needed for a life and death emergency in their pit area. By the time the races are drug out on any given night, little kids that would really like to meet you guys are asleep or long gone and a lot of racers have also packed up and left. The fans know we're not perfect but try to keep the smoking, drinking, and cursing to a minimum when the small kids are around.
#8 Most fans don't understand or know engine rules and really don't care, they want to see a good race! This one is a slippery slope but I think the top 12 should be inverted every night and make for passing and force some exciting racing instead of a long hot lap session. Racers will whine about earning their spot and how they want it, but, it's not about them, it's about the fans! If something isn't done here eventually the racers will be racing for each others entertainment only.
#9 Allow a small cooler into the grandstands with some soft drinks in it. If a fan can bring their kid a soda or a water, chances are their going to buy the kid a hot dog or hamburger with the money they would have spent on the drink anyway.
#10 Hand out a few grandstand tickets to the racers at the beginning of the season with the stipulation that they are to be given to first timers only. Have them give them to co -workers , neighbors, anyone but family and friends. Have a place on ticket for name & address for the recipient, send them a flyer in the mail so they know when there are special events.
Racers, promoters,owners and others associated with racing are going to have to think outside of the box or in the near future the party is going to be over. There are far too many other things available to people to do on a Fri or Sat night than to go to the races. Appeasing your current crowd doesn't make any new fans!

Sorry for writing a novel and I won't post on the other post"Why I Wouldn't Go" as I covered that here.

JMO and thanks for reading!
 
Good one Extreme,


Take your racer out and show it off!


Most of us on this site live in the bubble of Racing-Is-The-Greatest-Sport. I live in a neighborhood (Wildwood, MO) where most don't know a race track exists in the STL area, or they will say, Gateway. When in conversation with local friends, and they talk stick and ball sports, I'm a pain in the butt, because I'll say, "if you want to see something really exciting you should go to a local dirt track..." Their only exposure to racing is NASCAR on TV. I have dragged my fair share of newbes to the track, some get hooked, some not. (Their number one complain is the dust.) If the only sports you watch are on TV or in a stadium, sometime inclosed, the dirt and dust is a shock. I will tell them, it's not always like this, but the damage has been done.


I have said before the racers have to some of the promoting themselves. When I lived in California, I used to take my race car to local car shows. Number one question was, "where do you race it?" The grand poop-pa of car shows around here is the Easter Car Show at Forest Part in St. Louis. 1,000s of cars of all types, and mega crowds. But I have never seen a race car. (Maybe a street/drag machine.) There are some hot rods that are loud, but can you imagine a late model or modified, etc., etc., rumbling in to take their place. That would draw a crowed. Talk about the perfect demographics, car people everywhere. If ready, I plan to take my vintage '32 Chevy, center steer modified to the show, bet I will get a lot of questions about the local vintage racing.


Promoters, have ready, track season hand-outs for the racers that show their cars.


Drivers/Owners have hand-out about you and your car... kid takes it home and pesters their parents to go see you race.


It's all good...
 
-Start on time EVERY night.
-Get done at a decent time.
-Don't waste time watering and repacking the track and such when it doesn't really even help. (Biggest complaint at my 2 visits to Highland this year)
-Allow fans to bring snacks and coolers in.
-Have the two caution rule and if someone intentionally spins or stops on the track, black flag them.
 
The Big Wheel has something in his first paragraph, ALOT of people don't know that our area tracks even exist. No longer do you hear or see on tv or radio the old BE THERE BE THERE BE THERE commercials(aside from occasional special shows). I believe promoting what we have in the area should be fundamental in filling the stands.
 
little302 said:
Im with Al.. Great Food!! Something that really touches the tastebuds.. Like the Pork sandwich at Highland!! Its the thing that made me look forward to going to Highland!! Deep fried anything is good!!
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Then the track should offer free Cardiac-Vascular tests as well!

I love that stuff to....!!!
 
M We need to reach out more to the kids...maybe getting local cars to all the local schools with the promoters pushing to get the kids out for great family fun! Take groups of 5 through the pits to meet and great their fav team. Get the kids back on the track like the old days with kids riding to pack in the track. Drawings every week to have honorary kids it the pits all night with their fav team!!! If we don't do much to get these kids here more, we ain't gonna make any progress. Kids need a more hands on approach and close up look to get more into the sport we all love. If these sponsors knew they was helping bring more kids to the sport by helping we would see more sponsors wanting to help! Maybe even have a deal where the kids can get a meal with their fav driver every week in the stands lol
 
Big pre-season car show/party AT TRACK
Ab products (55)
Bring Dashes back.
More Jr Fan club rides
Kids play area like tc has.
 
RACN911 said:
Military Night (I'm not Military, and have seen tracks do it, the attendance seems to go up)

5 nights attendance, 6th night free. Pit pass, general admission etc. Something along them lines.

65 and over free.

Kids get one free hot dog, or some sort of discounted item. (kids bucks) give em a fake buck and let em get what they want..

Kids birthday parties. Have a little area (top row, bottom row, or whatever. every track has a family section) if they bring 4-5 friends that have never seen a dirt race, that's 4-5 kids that are going to be hounding their parents to go the rest of the summer.
I do love the Nickle races, fan appreciation,jr fan club, pick three, the attendance dice roll B Ville does.


Anyone from Aviston gets in free to any and all racetracks....... can't say I didn't try.
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Great post! Also if the last line works...........lets have an east alton season too!!
 
#44




racin90



Registered User
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Join Date: Aug 2003Location: east alton,ilPosts: 4,920






I agree with alot of the posts and very good points!! We do need to support our local tracks for whatever reason or there wont be anymore in the future! My big beef is this one........bob Wente told us in driver's meetings that we were there to put on a show........not to race. He was right!!!! If a certain class cant get their act together in my opinion pull them ALL aside and tell them if you dont get your act together then you will run last till you do or get some weeks off. No exceptions. Ive seen some really great hornet racing compared to a boring 1 person late model win. True it still takes a man to wheel that 1 car to a win but fans really deep down like wait......love a great close race. If we can make that happen as much as possible and not see 6 yr old tantrums thrown when some dont get their way it makes for a great show. I said this before and got blasted for it but you CAN run a show without big race cars. If it was side by side and jaw dropping racing there would be some fans that would kill to see that week in and week out. Sportsmanship goes along way as well. Very seldom though ive seen it more this year do i see after a race fellow racers congratulate the winners or top 3 for their acheivments. I like the Groupon deal......its the wave of the future. the ticket stamp thing would work great as well. I beleive in giving our Military individuals free passes as much as they need due their serving our counrty. Put butts in the seats and youll make money off concessions. Put butts in the seats and you may gain future racers as well. Id pick a class every week and have them interact with fans or kids in some way. Like the jr fan club......pretty cool. the party bus at Tri city is a great idea as well. Congrats on them for that move as it cost them to do that but also brings in future fans and who knows......maybe the next Kenny Wallace as well. Great thread Jimmy Dearing to start. Hope it helps in some way or another. One note and this might sound weird..........but why cant we make the street stocks run like the old sportsmans ran............no fenders or front nose pieces and make them look like classic racers? Even a monte body with buggar bars visible out front would look pretty cool in my opinion. Save drivers too on body pieces as those can add up as well. This post works here too...just food for thought. Great threads!
 
"Kids" that is where it all begins... Build your fans, audience, racers, worker, ect, from the ground up. Starting with the kids! TCS has the right idea. Trick-or-treating at the track, and breakfast with Santa; that's thinking outside the box. Fayette Co also has a great plan with the kids/High School Sport Compact Class. Even if tracks did this once a month, they could reap huge benefits by doing so. You can let them build their own car, or drive a car from the regular class. This will give them the confidence and experience to begin their racing career!
Building your audience will not happen over night. I think some tracks think past common sense. But if you make YOUR race track an enjoyable place for children to be, they will spend their LIFE there!
 
Shaw18 Racing said:
"Kids" that is where it all begins... Build your fans, audience, racers, worker, ect, from the ground up. Starting with the kids! TCS has the right idea. Trick-or-treating at the track, and breakfast with Santa; that's thinking outside the box. Fayette Co also has a great plan with the kids/High School Sport Compact Class. Even if tracks did this once a month, they could reap huge benefits by doing so. You can let them build their own car, or drive a car from the regular class. This will give them the confidence and experience to begin their racing career!
Building your audience will not happen over night. I think some tracks think past common sense. But if you make YOUR race track an enjoyable place for children to be, they will spend their LIFE there!
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Amen Mr.Shaw !!!
 
jdearing said:
If you were in charge of taking care of getting fans in the stands?? Looking for ideas that you have either seen done, and worked or something you would do to get fans in the stands?

Looking for realistic ideas, not free beer, wet t-shirts or anything like that. Lets see the replies roll in.
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Call Springfield Mo. dirt track and run the show with the same rules. Such as even on the 1st lap, be the cause of a caution for any reason and you go to the back. Start on time finish in 3 hours. Many others.

Promote: Like Don Hoener is doing.
 
BUCI said:
Promote: Like Don Hoener is doing.
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This is something many promoters need to do a better job at. Don Hoener and Kevin gundaker have done great jobs at promoting their tracks. Many promoters just expect people to show up and don't advertise. This website doesn't get used enough or at all by certain tracks (MMSP, SFCR, Callaway, fredericktown)
 
Tell the kids to leave the iPhone at home and they might enjoy the races a lot more. Why should the parents waste their time when they all wanna be on FB and text all night long.....Seriously,there are a lot of good ideas here.....;)
 
1) Invite local media (TV and radio) to the track (promotes the track, the drivers, and the track and drivers sponsors)
2) Have an updated website with finish order, points, photos and short video clips. Driver profile pages with links to their websites. Utilize Facebook, Twitter, Youtube...social media is the cheapest way to reach thousands of people. The track should attract more sponsors if thousands of people are viewing their pages on a weekly basis.
3) Weekly promotions (i.e. military night, teen night, t-shirt raffle, dinner with favorite driver at the track, a tour of the pit area during intermission for a family, ride with your favorite driver, nickle race, etc.) This could be advertised via social media for free.
4) 4 consecutive nights of grandstand admission and the 5th night is free
5) Get the kids involved and promote racing at the schools. Without a family involved in racing, I would have never heard anything about racing in grade school. Some high school shop classes could build cars. There are several college/universities in the STL region that have engineering departments with lots of young adults who may be interested. Not everyone grows up in a "racing family." 90% of the people I work with didn't know anything about racing which means their kids didn't either. Several of them have now been to the track more than once!
6) Last but not least, if you want to keep the people coming to the track every week you need to put on a good show. I understand it's not cheap to run a track, but the long term viability of a race track (since you can't easily pick up and move it) is the dirt. It has to provide good racing on a regular basis. There is no perfect track prep and mother nature runs the show, however, there are ways to make it better and I am sure it would pay off in the long run. I read this article a long time ago and found it interesting. http://www.circletrack.com/techarticles/40158/viewall.html

One final thing, bring in several types of cars throughout the year on different nights. People need variety. It's nice to see more open wheel racing in this area and I think the tracks are doing a great job mixing things up.
 
crash9 said:
This is something many promoters need to do a better job at. Don Hoener and Kevin gundaker have done great jobs at promoting their tracks. Many promoters just expect people to show up and don't advertise. This website doesn't get used enough or at all by certain tracks (MMSP, SFCR, Callaway, fredericktown)
Click to expand...

Expectations by the promoter... Yep. Happens a lot. Build it and they will come mentality doesn't work. Any promoter that does at least 3 of these things a year will see their attendance increase. The kids is where it is at, but the high school hornets is what makes me go to the trailer every night.
 
I subscribe to the theory of having the races over at a decent hour also, at least for the classes where racers have a long drive home. Used to be a track locally here (since bulldozed for a subdivision) that had a pit reporter for intermission. He would interview a few selected racers and the kids loved it when their hero was talking about a controversial heat race or how he/she expected the feature to go. Did I mention tech?
 
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