Urban Sprawl Can Make Scheduling Races Difficult

It’s a warm, summer evening. The pit area is filled with sprint cars and the grandstand is overflowing.  After a hard work week, everyone is enjoying a night at the races, a tradition that is a century old. But if a touring series is on the track’s marquee, many in those seats won’t realize how difficult it has become to pull events like these together.
While all areas have difficulties, California is among the biggest market in the world for motorsports events, yet each year is becoming more challenging for organizations like USAC. 
“There’s no question. I guess that sometimes it’s hard to understand how dramatic of a difference there is,” says USAC’s Tommy Hunt. As the Vice President of Western Operations, he is responsible for scheduling seven different divisions in a region that covers much of the Western U.S. 
Race tracks are members of communities, and the most successful have found that it is within this relationship, being good neighbors and participating in the local community, that they have to exist 365 days a year. As many cities and towns have grown, the towns are now closer to race tracks than they’ve ever been.
By definition, touring series are iterant, living on the road. Like a rock and roll band, they have to sell their product to venues that want to host their show. Touring series require not only more expensive purses, but also sanctioning fees with which they pay their bills. In exchange, they bring a bigger program and racing stars that justify the track charging higher admission prices. In order to book races, the touring series has to convince track promoters they will bring more fans through the front door than a track’s regular show. 
As Hunt noted, while race tracks around the country face challenges, those near large urban areas of the West Coast have become particularly difficult. And as populations have grown, so have the ordinances and rules established by local communities. In particular, noise and curfew ordinances have affected many facilities. The two go hand-in-hand and the end result is that tracks have to complete their programs earlier, compressing the racing events into a shorter time period. 
With today’s economics, tracks are turning to revenues from the racers who come to compete. 
“For these race tracks to continue to survive, most of them have scheduled multiple divisions, in some cases as many as six classes on an individual evening in order to insure their program by virtue of pit proceedings,” Hunt points out. 
In this environment, each program that’s scheduled becomes a juggling act for both the track promoter and the officials of the visiting series. While a group like USAC wants to put on its full program so that fans won’t feel like they’re being short-changed, the track promoter has to figure out how to shoehorn its headliner into the schedule and still run at least some of the support divisions without violating curfew ordinances.
“That makes the format of the program have to be condensed, makes even the promotion and the presentation of the program somewhat challenged, and yet that’s the situation that we are presented with. If you’re not prepared to do that, it’s pretty likely that you are going to get less shows booked for your events,” Hunt says. 
Compromise is becoming the name of the game. In some cases, preliminary competition, like time trials and heat races, may fall victim as the adjustments are made and the program is right-sized. In other cases, USAC is finding it advantageous to co-sanction events with organizations that run similar series.
An approach used successfully by Hunt is to schedule multiple divisions of USAC, presenting an all-open wheel program. 
“Obviously there’s a cost situation and there’s some risk because it is a traveling program and it’s more costly than their weekly program, but on the other hand it presents them with a bigger pit gate and usually concession sales go up as well. Open-wheel fans seem to be a bigger consumer of, ahh, concessions,” Hunt concludes wryly.

GIRL POWER: Shauna Hogg (5) and Laura Hayes fight for position during USAC Western Sprint Series action at Altamont Raceway Park. (Tom Parker Photo)

There are several elements that a track promoter looks at when considering whether or not to book a series. The big question is whether the series will produce the grandstand attendance and cars in the pits to cover their additional cost.
“Touring series right at the moment are influenced somewhat by the cost of fuel,” Hunt adds. “There is definitely going to be an effect on the car counts. Gas, diesel — it makes no difference. And actually the cost of almost everything that is utilized on these race cars is going to be affected. Methanol is going up considerably as well.
“But with that said, it appears that most of the race tracks that I regularly do business with have been pretty positive about continuing to book shows,” Hunt continued. “As a matter of fact, the potential of shows in some of the divisions that were very short on programs last year now looks like it’s going to go up.”
In Hunt’s domain, the division with the most growth in 2008 appears to be the Western Sprint Car Series. The series competes 17 times in four states, and 11 of those events are at Altamont Motorsports Park in Tracy and All American Speedway in Roseville. 
A facility that the Western Sprint Cars will visit for the first time is the new tri-oval in Bakersfield. The paved half-mile hosts a triple-header that includes the Western Sprint Cars, Midgets and Ford Focus divisions in November. 
Among the healthiest midget programs in the country, the Western States Midgets has 23 events, beginning with the Copper On Dirt (USAC-CRA Sprint Cars, Midgets and Silver Crown at Manzanita Speedway Feb. 14 – 15).
Hunt recently proposed a major change to the USAC structure, recommending that USAC’s midgets compete a 16-race pavement schedule, with half in the West and half in the Midwest, leading to the crowning of a Pavement Midget Champion. 
By extension of this concept, the group could also name a Dirt Midget Champion, as well as an overall National Midget Champion. This would nearly double the number of pavement races currently on USAC’s National Midget schedule.
Although this proposal was not adopted, Hunt anticipates that the Western States tracks would quickly sign up for the events.
While Tommy Hunt’s efforts returned more than 120 racing dates for his divisions in 2008, fans will once again be able to enjoy warm summer nights filled with speed and excitement at California’s racing ovals. But putting together these programs is clearly becoming more complicated for everyone involved.