NSSN Correspondent

Looking at the full grandstands and the overflowing pit area for the recent Snowball Derby at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., it’s difficult not to believe the asphalt late-model division is not on solid ground.
Remembering that three of the powerhouse series of the past — All-Pro, ARTGO and the original ASA — no longer exist, and that NASCAR bowed out of the high-powered, fiberglass-bodied arena after the 2006 season, it’s amazing that the class is still on the radar screen. 
Whether the late-model glass is half full or half empty depends on your point of view. It has heritage on its side, but the need to find a new order is potentially holding it back. Its fate will ultimately be in the hands of the usual jurors — competitors, tracks, sponsors and especially the fans.
The asphalt late-model division is still the premier training ground for major league stock-car talent. An informal analysis of the top 30 drivers in the 2007 NASCAR Nextel Cup standings shows that 19 did their basic training in asphalt late models of one type or another, compared to six USAC open-wheel graduates, three off-roaders, one asphalt modified driver and one road racing convert. 
The cars have fan appeal. Today’s fiberglass replica Monte Carlo and Fusion creations look fast sitting still. Even with engine, weight and aerodynamic limitations, these cars are generally quicker than steel-bodied NASCAR Grand National and ARCA RE/MAX Series cars.
But just as the popularity of the Craftsman Truck Series has not ignited a demand for pickup classes at the local level, there’s no boom in asphalt late-model land. Meanwhile, the dirt-late-model division is clearly on the rise.
The cars we call late models today began to emerge in the 1970s when short-track racers embraced the pony cars from Detroit — GM’s Camaro and Firebird, primarily, and developed a lighter, wider, more agile car better suited to the requirements of short-track racing. Michigan’s Ed Howe was a pioneer of that era as both a builder and a driver. Many others followed his lead.

“I think the industry is cyclical and I seriously think we’re headed back up that curve again.” — ASA President Dennis Huth

Drawing from the rich weekly late-model culture, Rex Robbins made ASA the premier touring series in the Midwest, while Bob Harmon did likewise with his All-Pro circuit in the Southeast.
While ASA specialized in long-distance races, John McKarns’s ARTGO circuit carved out a niche with shorter races in the upper Midwest. NASCAR was solidly in the late-model business as well, running its All American Challenge as a regional alternative to All Pro until buying Harmon’s series in 1991 and operating successful Northwest and Southwest tours. ARTGO became a NASCAR series in 1999.
The turn of the century saw the structure of late-model racing rocked on its foundations. The All-American 400 and Winchester 400 both disappeared. NASCAR combined its four series under the AutoZone Elite Division banner in 2003, but chose to streamline its short-track touring series program by retaining only the Grand National Division for steel-bodied cars in 2007.
Meanwhile, the original ASA, whose rules had strayed from the mainstream since the early 1990s, expired in 2004 after its new ownership carried it far from its roots.
So, asphalt late-model racing at the end of 2006 looked a bit like Europe at the end of 1918. All the old empires had fallen, and a new order struggled to emerge.
There was no shortage of late model tours on the map in 2007, some of which had been gaining strength outside the limelight for several years. Among them were New England’s PASS (Pro All Star Series) — which grew a southern offshoot in 2006, the Georgia Asphalt Series — Florida SunBelt Series, Wisconsin Challenge Series, Champion Racing Ass’n in Indiana and two series under the revived ASA banner in the Midwest and Northwest. A Southeastern ASA series will debut in 2008. The ASA Late Model Series under the direction of Ron Varney also tours the eastern half of the country.
Two men well qualified to see the big picture in the division today are racing entrepreneur Dennis Huth and driver Nathan Haseleu. Huth, a former executive with NASCAR, has acquired the trademarks to most of the former ASA properties and licenses their use, while Haseleu was the 2007 champion of both the ASA Midwest Series and the Wisconsin Challenge Series.
Huth is realistic about the problems the late-model division faces but upbeat about the direction he sees on the horizon.
“I don’t think it’s fractured,” Huth said. “I think the industry is cyclical and I seriously think we’re headed back up that curve again,” he said, noting that 73 late models competed in the recent Oktoberfest at LaCrosse Speedway in Wisconsin. “To me, that really tells a tale.”
With the proliferation of series has come a proliferation of engines rules, which the series under Huth’s ASA banner try to accommodate.
“We take into account the (old) tour motors, the 9.5-to-1 motors, and the crate motors based on a weight-to-performance allowance,” he explained. “Every combination that we have has won at least one race.”
Haseleu has a unique perspective on the state of the sport. He’s seen the big time from a season on the Craftsman Truck Series but now races late models in his native Wisconsin.
“It’s gone through a stage where drivers didn’t stick around in the late-model division if they won a few championships,” Haseleu explained. “Back in the day, those guys stayed around forever — Dick Trickle, Steve Carlson, Joe Shear. The fans got to know them.”
In Wisconsin, and many other regions, there’s another competitor for fan support, and it comes from the dirt late models.
Speedway Illustrated editor and Fox Sports commentator Dr. Dick Berggren stressed that if the asphalt side of late-model racing is to gain stability, it must recapture the fans that are currently supporting the dirt-track product.
“What’s clearly booming in this country are the dirt late models rather than the asphalt late models,” Berggren said. “It’s the track operators and the series operators who have to be able to put something together that’s as exciting as you can see when you go to Eldora or the other tracks where those series are putting on a hell of a show.
“You’ve got good guys and bad guys. You’ve got veterans and kids. You’ve even got Scott Bloomquist. I look at the asphalt late models and I say, ‘What do they have to offer similar to that?’”

COMEBACK: Rick Turner (26) and NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver David Stremme race for position during this year’s Winchester 400 at Winchester (Ind.) Speedway. The race was revived in 2006 after a two-year hiatus. (Randy Crist Photo)

The Snowball Derby, in its 40th year, filled the stands and the pits. The Winchester 400 was revived in 2006 after a two-year hiatus and reported growth this year, and the All-American 400 has been nurtured back to life by Joe Mattioli III at Nashville’s Music City Motorplex.
“We’ve made tremendous progress,” Mattioli said. “It’s just the tip of the iceberg of what this can be.”
Both the Winchester and Nashville revivals have involved the Champion Racing Ass’n, as promoter or sanctioning body. CRA’s R.J. Scott provided a race fan’s answer to Berggren’s question of what the asphalt late models have to offer. It’s the oldest attraction in the book — speed.
“The key for our type of late-model racing is high horsepower, in excess of 600 horsepower,” he declared. “We believe that race cars have to have horsepower to find out who the real race car driver is. Jack Roush has picked late-model racers to race for him because the late model taught them throttle control. That’s where you find out who the real racer is.”
A man who has been handling that horsepower for more than 30 years is Alabama’s Dave Mader, who won four NASCAR All-American Challenge Series titles and ran successfully in the Busch Series.
“The late models will always be around, like sprint cars, because they’re fast and they’re fun to watch,” he observed. “That’s racing — speed.”