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The xfinity and truck series has empty stands. At Atlanta is was a double header on Saturday and there was nobody there. I'd guess less than 3 thousand.
At Phoenix last Saturday about the same.
The cup races have more but Atlanta was empty. Daytona can't be counted since it is Daytona
Las Vegas had a decent cup crowd.
You won't find attendance stats because NASCAR won't release them unless something changed this year.
They are ripping out grandstand s all over because of the look of empty seats on TV.
And they replace the ones with this color scheme that makes it look like people are in the seats.
NASCAR is in big trouble. Monster got them for a third of what sprint was paying and it was a two year deal ending this year.
What is odd is the drivers never thank monster in victory lane which is not what they have done with all other sponsors before monster.
Once you buy the AMA and D37 memberships...the rest of the races are less expensive.
Way less "bros" in the off road crowd...its more laid back...and you'll get more seat time than most people want on a race day.
The Shop
However, the tracks in my area are pretty tame and we still are not getting many racers. I think tracks need to bring more incentives to racers. Racing for a cheap plastic trophy isn't enough of a reward for a lot of people. I understand most tracks cant afford to have big cash payouts and prizes, but what about just offering free practice days or race entries as a prize. I think a lot of people would enjoy that as it brings more value to the race for them and it wouldn't really cost the track much if at all.
In MX, most don't realize where all the riders went, yet off road is flourishing and is in a growth mode.
No amount of helicopters rounding up riders seems to faze the core group, you've got to wonder what percentage of participants in the sport get injured and never return. Very few Scramble and Enduro and Dual Sport riders show up at tracks. They choose to ride elsewhere, time, seat time and safety seem to be the prime obstacles.
Decades later track owners and promoters have mostly failed to respond to what consumers want. Catering to a minority is a flawed business model.
Grew up with MX and love it to death. But this year I'm moving to Hare scrambles and off-road with my boys. I'm 34 with an 8 year old on a 65 and a 6 year old on a 50. I'm switching mostly due to my kid on the 65. Our local peewee tracks are made for little kids just starting out on something like a pw50, no fun on a ktm 65. And then our adult MX tracks are a huge step up in skill level. Tracks around here don't split up practice days. Everyone runs together at the same time, 65's with 450's. And it's too dangerous for my kid on the 65. He isn't doing the huge jumps, and frankly neither am I now that I have kids, a job, a mortgage, and a stay at home wife with no income. Only a handful of people are doing these jumps, but the risk is too much.
So we are switching to off-road.
Like I said before, Pala and LACR are a good example of vet tracks being way more packed than the main tracks. I remember back in the early 2000's going to Elsinore and seeing both the main and vet tracks being filled with riders, not just one or the other.
I think Miles Mountain in PA really fits the bill. Awesome layout, great dirt, natural hills, big safe jumps. This video is from about two years ago...you get the idea.
https://youtu.be/lnaqVxNH6AA
Breezewood in PA also has a good setup. Their Vet track has a killer layout, and their main track is super fun
Both are great people running the races. Lots of old guys of course but also kids and ladies. At Calvmx you can watch Scott Burnworth hailing ass on old Ossa’s. Occasionally Marty Tripes is running the BBQ.
Rick Doughty runs the ARX races, they are usually at Glen Helen. Races at Comp Edge, Perris, Glen Helen to name a few. Great groups of people just out to have fun and make sure everyone is able to get to work on Monday. It does still give you the thrill of lining up behind a gate and heading into the first turn. Racing’s racing....doesn’t matter who’s on the line, there’s nothing like it
This is a vid of me at my local track TV Land MX. Track is nice and mellow and has pretty good dirt. This is from a couple yrs ago, but other then a few things the track is pretty similar (the little whoops are gone mostly due to people complaining they were to difficult from what I heard)
This year they are hosting one of the Battle for Ohio races, so I'm really hoping they are going to get a great turnout.
We have great vintage racing here in Texas with the TVRC as an example. It is very fun and there are classes for bikes from the beginning of time (like my 1975 KX250) all the way to 2008 two-strokes with both A and B classes. When I was young and taking moto seriously I never would have thought I’d enjoy racing old bikes but I can tell you that they are a freaking blast. You will experience much less carnage because even on a modern track, you don’t feel the need to huck the big gaps when you aren’t confident your bike can take the beating. If you like jumping everything on every track, don’t worry, we got you covered with the classes for 90s and 2000s two strokes but everyone still has work on Monday and understands no factory rides will be given out.
I’m sure some of the local moto bros look at people like me as a goon riding a pos and that’s fine, I get it, but I’m having a hell of a lot of fun on the weekends.
Pit Row
Look, I don't know why you are so aggressively attacking what I'm saying, I've said nothing snarky or condescending to you whatsoever. But you actually aren't responding to what I'm saying at all, just read the post you were responding to. Those big paragraphs you just wrote are completely irrelevant. You can't tell people why their reasons are wrong, you will get literally zero folks back to the gate that way. I could list 100 points and not even scratch the surface, the two I put up were just for brevity's sake. The fact that you are trying to rebut them at all means you don't see what I'm saying. You need to make peoples reasons for going outweigh their reasons for not. Telling them why they are wrong doesn't accomplish anything. If they don't want to race because all of the 4 strokes, they just won't no matter what your opinion is. If they don't want to spend all day at the track, they won't. If they don't like the tracks, they won't go. If they don't like the people, they won't go. If they don't like the travel time, they won't go. It goes on forever, and everyone has there own reasons, no matter how trivial to you. You can never make every person on the planet happy, but if you don't give a majority of riders conditions that satisfy them, then attendance will continue to drop. Give more the a majority what they want, attendance will rise. It's not complicated.
At the end of the day, people want to have fun riding their bikes. If races don't supply that to enough people, they will go away.
If its not a money issue, what do you have against $10K four strokes?
We have a friend that races the Calvmx and she's been doing it for years. She absolutely loves them. I'm sure I'll being seeing you at a few of these in the future
Before anyone says 'well, you don't have to do that just show up', yeah, I know I can do that. But I honestly don't want to be around it. I've got land and equipment to make my own track, in any configuration I want, and my friends and I can partake however we want. Why would I go be around a bunch of people I don't want to be around when I could do that?
It's just my particular situation, but as I've said elsewhere, there are hundreds and probably even thousands of different situations for different people that are steering them in other directions.
https://instagram.com/p/Bf8xj9Kh-Q2/
One benefit of racing offroad stuff is there isn't much of that at all...occasionally a moto bro will show up thinking off road is easy and for people too slow to race moto...but they don't usually last too long and pull out of the race half way because they are tired of getting passed all afternoon...usually with some stupid excuse "bike wasn't running right" or something stupid like "F that dust man...this is why I race moto".
Everyone in offroad knows there isn't a future in it (money wise...only a small small handful of guys get a paycheck to race off road-such that they don't have to have another job)...and that changes the attitude with which we participate...we're there for fun...so we help each other...look out for each other...and it don't matter if you show up on a 15 year old two stroke or the Rockstar Edition Husky 450...
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