OT: Is there a way of knowing just how much worse it is these days?
HW: I don’t know what the percentage is. I’ll just say it’s epidemic. It’s truly epidemic. That’s why we started the 600 Racing deal with the Legends and Bandaleros and so forth -- was to get people where they could afford to race again. And not only be able to get into racing but to stay in it. Staying in it is where the big problem is today.
When you’ve got to buy $800 worth of tires to race every Saturday night, who can afford that? When you’ve got to buy $25,000 engines and you can only run seven or eight races in ‘em, how do you do that? How does a 19-year-old A.J. Foyt or Tony Stewart afford to do that? They can’t. Those particular guys can’t. The danger that we have is that we end up with the best race drivers being rich kids. Because that’s all the ones that can afford to race. And that’s something we don’t want. Because it’s not just for rich kids because some of them are good race drivers. We need to make it available to where people of modest means can race. Because that’s where the majority of great race driver have come from.
One of Wheeler’s solutions to get people out from in front of their electronic entertainment centers and on track is to support spec racing like these Legend cars build on an assembly line.
OT: Other than your 600 Racing cars, what can local tracks do?
HW: Understand that America has changed and is not ever going to go back to the way it was. Too many people are living in the disco days. We’re not a nation of farmers anymore so we don’t have barns like we had to build race cars. We don’t have service stations that let us come in there and let us work on our cars and stick ‘em out in the front for advertising.
We don’t move into a house with a garage; we may move into a condo. Also, gas is astronomical and we may not be able to afford a big truck, a Ford F-250 or 350, we might only be able to afford a F-150. What does all that mean? It means that the racecar has got to get lighter. And the easiest way to make it lighter is to make it a little bit smaller.