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OT: So you’re an advocate of crate engines?
KW: Oh absolutely. They’ll save the sport. I’ve had people say, “Oh Bob Sargent isn’t gong to pay any money at Macon.” I say you need to understand this isn’t about what kind of money we’re going to pay. Look! The track shut down. All we’ve done is open it back up. Is that any good?
The problem with dirt racing is the cost is too high. You’ve got to remember at the local dirt track racing the most you’re going to fit is 2,000 people in the grandstands every week. You’re asking 2,000 people in your local area – 2,000 – to show up at your dirt track every week. When they can go to a softball game, or the movies, or stay at home and watch Cup races.
If only 1,000 people show up, you still have to be able to make money. The only way to do that is to cut the cost. You shouldn’t have to spend $45,000 on a dirt car to go race. OK, if you’re going to spend $20--$30,000 on a motor, and $15,000 on a car – you’re looking at a minimum of $35,000 to run a Late Model car – and that is before you tap the wall once. You tap the right-front of a Late Model and you’re talking $1,500 right now. You’ve ruined the rack-and-pinion, you’ve ruined the spindle.
But there is a place for those cars. Bloomquist, Moyer, Babb those are the big guys…
OT: So, you’re OK with a Super Late Model type car that’s touring.
KW: Oh yeah. We’re talking local cars.
OT: You agree that crate motors have a purpose at the local level?
KW: At the local short track racing -- you keep the cost down to get people on the race track.
OT: But at the touring level, it doesn’t seem to me to be the right place to apply a crate engine program – like NASCAR is trying to do in what used to be the Busch North series. At the PRI Show, there was a well-attended meeting by racers, and engine builders, and promoters to discuss crate motors. One racer said if you put a crate motor rule on me, I’ll spend the remaining money on the chassis. What do you think?
KW: The guy is being an asshole. Because he is assuming that everybody has the same amount of money he has. That guy doesn’t need to be running crate motors, he needs to be racing against Bloomquist and Moyer [with open engines.]
Here’s what I believe. There are about three to five different levels of dirt racing. If you want to spend $30,000 on a motor -- that is what you want to do. And you want to race every Saturday night at your local track. Then you need to be prepared to lose money, and the possibility of your local track shutting down.
In if you want to spend $30,000 on your motor, and you want to have a tractor-trailer like most of these people have – it’s funny about dirt racing, everybody complains they’re going broke, but everybody has a tractor-trailer – OK. Tracks are shutting down. It seems to me that the racers are OK, but the promoters are not.
You’ve got to make it to where the promoters don’t have to pay so much to keep the racers happy. Take Late Models: what you do is put a cheaper motor in it, and then you pay a little bit less so the promoter can stay in operation. Because the problem we have is that the tracks are shutting down.
We don’t have a problem with car counts. The problem is that tracks are shutting down. Everybody’s got it backwards. Since the invention of racing, all short track racers bitch about money. That is a common theme, we all bitch about the pay.
My theory is this – let Moyer, Babb, run the Elite division. Let them run the traveling series – nobody that can afford that except the ‘big time’ guys. If you look at say, World of Outlaws, there isn’t but about 10 or 11 that travel the whole circuit anyway.
Where the WoO get their car count up is that they come to a local track, and the locals come in and bring the car count up. I learned that. Schrader taught me that. You look at the points of the WoO or UMP, they’re only a handful of them that travel. Same with WoO Sprint cars.
You have to quit thinking about yourself. You’ve got to quit thinking, “Boy, I’m a race car driver and I can’t go here because I’m losing money.” If you keep that (stuff) up, there aren’t going to be any tracks left.
OT: How do get racers buy into that? What about the guy that doesn’t want to race a Chevrolet crate motor, he wants to race a Ford crate motor.
KW: Then do it. There is going to be a lot of divisions. We’re going to run Super Late Models and crates [at Macon]. Schrader and I just got back from Columbus, Miss. There were 32 Late Models and 55 crates.
You have a racer who has a wife and a kid and a $40,000 a year job. He can go racing now. He can buy himself a used Late Model (off of Moyer). He going to sell you his used Late Model for say, $10,000. Now all you have to do is spend about $7,000 to buy the [crate] motor and headers. You can show up your local short track in one of these big-time guy’s used racecars and now you can go racing. For about $15,000.
The example is in the Northeast. They don’t have any big-time classes and they are successful as hell. Look up at Thunder Road. They don’t even have Late Models and they pack the place.
OT: So you have a plan for the local racer.
KW: I don’t know everything, but I do know this. Everybody bitches and complains, but nobody wants to help fix anything. Then, if you say anything to try to fix it, they’re there to quickly cut you down. All it is about is giving racers a place to race. It’s not about the cost as much as it is – is that local track still open? That is what we’re facing now.
I can promise you this. If somebody came in right now and said Super Late Models are banned and all you’re going to run is crates – everybody would run crates. You won’t quit racing. You won’t stop racing. You’re not going to say you’re not going to race anymore because you don’t get to race that 800-hp motor. You’re going to race.
Check back next month for PART TWO!