OT: You’ve explained the car part of the equation, but is there something tracks can do?
HW: I think a track operator has got to understand they own the racetrack. They make the rules. The competitors don’t make the rules. And they need to make rules that are geared toward inexpensive racing. Be bold enough to say, ‘Okay guys, we are not having $25,000 engines. We’re not going to make you buy $800 worth of tires a race. You know, you have to run this tire and it lasts 12 races and the new set doesn’t do you any good.’ You’ve got to be bold enough to do that.
Quite a few promoters have done that. There are a lot of tracks that run the crate motors, for instance. But what’s happened? You’ve got to watch out. You put the crate motor in the car and then the guy starts spending a lot of money on the chassis.
So you’ve got to stop that. You start spending it on shocks. I mean shocks for Cup racing has just gone completely wacky. Go run tubular shocks. We used to run them and the cars worked fine. Put a shock rule in. Put a tire rule in. Put a gear rule in. Get an engine rule. If you put those kinds of rules in, there’s not a lot they can do to the chassis to spend a whole lot more money.
Another national spec-type racecar, built by the users, are IMCA/UMP Modifieds based on parts you can still acquire from a junk yard. Claimer engine rules are also in place to discourage extravagant engine combinations/costs.
OT: Wouldn’t that send short tracks to Spec racing like IROC?
HW: It is, and that’s the only way this whole thing is going to survive. For all intents and purposes NASCAR is spec racing. Busch is going to be spec racing before it’s all over. Composite bodies, engines made by maybe one person, who knows.
You don’t care what kind of car is out there as long as it’s entertaining the fans. How it gets built, who builds it is immaterial. More important is: Can you pass?
Can you have close racing and all that? This Car of Tomorrow is a great example of a spec race car - once they get it figured out – it’s going to result in much, much more competitive racing that the fans are going to like a lot better than they do now.
OT: OK, Humpy, if you were just coming into business today, would you open up a short track?
HW: I would. Sure. I’d still do it because it’s fun and it can work. But if I were doing it, not knowing what I know, I’d go up and talk to Tom Curley at Thunder Road first. Or the Vendettis at Seekonk. Or Todd Fisher at Susquehanna. Or Mickey Schwims down in Dixie Speedway in Georgia. Or Charlie Powell in Florence (SC). The guys that are making it work - the Deerys up at Rockford.
They’ll basically tell you just about what I just finished telling you because they all know that’s the answer. Some of them haven’t got that far yet with it, but others like Tom Curley, I mean he’s operating a track, he’s running it on the wrong night – Thursday night. He’s in an area that really doesn’t have a big population, Barry, Vermont. And I’ve been up there in July when it was 38 degrees and the place was packed. So he’s doing something right.
OT: Would your track be asphalt or dirt?
HW: I don’t think it makes any difference. If it were asphalt, I’d have some awful hard tires on the cars so they’d get sideways in the corners. If it were dirt, I would not have any dust. If I had dust, I’d pave it right then because, you know, hair-dos are 40 bucks today.
If they were saying they’d put goggles on and hats, there are a few people that will do that. But to get your consistent 5,000 people, they’re not going to do that. Roger Slack over here with our Tuesday Night Summer Shootout 10 race deal, we averaged 212 cars a night this year and he’s finished at 10:15 every night.
OT: What kind of people do you get for that?
HW: We get as good a crowd as anybody does with a weekly racetrack. We get around 3,000 people, sometimes 5,000. And that doesn’t include the back gate. The back gate with 212 racecars, I mean you’re going to get about 1,000 people just in the back gate.
As usual, ‘Ol Humpy may be ahead of the curve again.
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