I know that I don't pull out the notebook as often as I used to and I think that a lot of it has to do with how polarized our society is these days. This is where I will make a statement about how I feel about a topic in racing and then back it up with the reasoning behind why I feel that way, or I might question why something is being done and again try to support that. In the past when somebody did that, even the people that might disagree with you would read it and consider your point of view even if it wasn't enough to sway their opinion, but there was a level of respect in that process.
Unfortunately over the past ten years or so, that "respect" for an opposing point of view has gone completely out the window. There is no middle ground any more and people are confined to their own echo chambers where they only hear and believe the people that shout, write or report what is going on that supports their point of view. It doesn't matter if it is accurate or not as long as it supports your optimism or, worse yet, your fears.
It's a sad state of affairs and I don't see a light at the end of tunnel as far as improving, but I cannot let it stop me completely, so here goes.......
Hypocrisy is one of the things that I hate the most and that is what brought me to open the Notebook for the primary points in today's entry. By definition hypocrisy is the practice of having moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform. I myself might be tagged as a hypocrite as I have often written over the years about the concerns that I had with the growth of live streaming races, but now I will fully admit that I enjoy having a subscription to three different streaming platforms. I love being able to watch the offseason races from New Mexico and Florida as well as the Chili Bowl, but I do it mostly through the Replay or the Highlights package because I hate the amount of down time while trying to watch it live. Amazing how that down time is not as pronounced when you are actually at the track likely due to the sights, sounds, smells, etc. that you get from actually being there.
But am I truly a hypocrite when my primary warning about the growth of live streaming is that those of us who are subscribers would now choose to stay home from races that they otherwise would have went to if streaming was not so readily available? I know from my own behavior that I am actually proving the points that I made in the past. If you live stream racing did you stay home and watch an event on TV rather than driving two hours to get to that race because it was a weeknight, or because there was a fifty-fifty chance of rain? I did. Did you stay at home to watch a big national event several states away rather than going to your local track that you used to go to regularly? I did.
Recently the top Late Model driver in the country went on X with a well thought out and well written presentation of why Dirt Late Model racing needs to get back to more of an offseason proposing that December should be for the Dome and even stating that Florida Speed Weeks should be moved to late February and early March. It's a valid argument and one that is echoed by many others, but here is where the hypocrisy comes in. For the second year in a row this driver hustled through the Holidays to get his stuff ready and then his crew had to watch the ball drop from the Interstate on their way to New Mexico to compete in the Wild West Shootout where once again they dominated winning four of the five events and more than $70,000.
Was he "forced" to go there? No, this is not the first "points race" in a series that he intends to follow the entire season, it is a made for streaming event on FloRacing that from the wide shots of the stands shows that it could not stand alone on the revenue brought in from both the ticket booth and the pit shack. Bobby, if you don't want to bust your ass through the Holidays and celebrate the dawn of 2026 on the road, just stay home. I'm sure that the other drivers who do choose to be at the WWS would be happy to have a better chance at winning the top prize without you there.
I do have some empathy for him in regard to this past weekend though as the World of Outlaws once again opened their 2025 season with the Sunshine Nationals at Volusia County Speedway. Cold and wet conditions hampered the weekend, as I am pretty sure that it did in 2024 as well, with one night being lost to the weather while Mike Van Genderen and his team were able to put a track together for Friday's show and then provide a really good surface for Saturday. DIRTCar owns the World of Outlaws, Volusia County Speedway and DirtVision, the streaming service that without the revenue generated from it would have again made this event a loser based upon the crowd shots that I was able to see from time to time. So in order to give DV some January content, the company uses a track that they own to run a show and by making it a World of Outlaws points weekend it compels any driver who is looking to follow the series for the season to make the trip even though they could see that it is going to be cold and wet.
My subscription auto renewed on January 4th anyway, so DV would have had my money whether or not they ran this January event, another reminder that if you don't want that $300+ ding on your credit card that you have to be proactive, just like any other annual subscription.
Obviously these January events must be money makers for the streaming providers or they wouldn't continue to do them. Right?
I mean, right? What would be the point of a loss leader in this industry?
I don't like the suggestion of moving SpeedWeeks to a different date, because to my generation at least SpeedWeeks were the two or three weeks leading up to the Daytona 500. If some drivers really don't like being "forced" to compete this early in the year in order to be there for the opening points paying events in the series that they intend to follow, then let's go back to the good old days of just running races for the Floridians and the snowbird race fans to enjoy. When I first went to SpeedWeeks back in the early 1980's part of the fun was that you really had no idea who might pull in to compete since it wasn't a points event for a series, unless it was a little mini-series of its own like the IMCA Modified Winter Series that I had the chance to announce for in 1986. But even then there was no "roster" of drivers that you would expect to be there knowing that they had to be in order to have a chance at winning the season long championship.
If Volusia had the same races scheduled over the next couple of weeks, but were not awarding World of Outlaws points, just how many drivers would they lose? Sure the guy that won seventy grand in New Mexico last month might stay home, but how many regional drivers might you pick up if it was a possibility that the touring professionals might not be there? You know, those guys who just wanted to make a racing vacation out of it and have a chance at making the show each night.
In fact I can argue that starting these national series off in Florida and Georgia actually hurts the roster for each tour because with the top drivers from both series competing against each other at many of the Florida/Georgia events it leaves little if any opportunity for drivers who have declared for a Rookie-of-the-Year pursuit to even get qualified for a feature race, and after getting off to a slow star, they scrap their plans. Or worse yet if a driver who intended to run one tour struggles in those events, but then has success at the other, that driver might then jump ship to the other series.
Either way I am very biased on this subject because one of my primary goals in retirement was to spend two to four weeks in Florida each January and February with the opportunity to go to some races if the weather on a given day suited me. Don't take that away from me now that I am just a year or two from reaching that goal!
Another point of hypocrisy that I want to call out is how a promoter might take offense that another track has scheduled a race on the same night as their special event. I have some personal experience with this one as when Terry Hoenig and I scheduled the "Millennium Grand Finale" for the final Saturday of October in 1999 we were more than two weeks beyond any other race here in the upper Midwest. Remember how a lot of people thought that Verne Schuman was crazy for racing on the first two Sunday's in October? Check out this calendar now and let me know who the visionary was when it comes to racing into the autumn season.
Of course we had to change the name the next year to Shiverfest and it has traditionally been scheduled on the last Saturday of October at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. It took a few years, but I am pretty sure that after we had 214 cars in four divisions on a sunny seventy degree day with a full grandstand that some other promoter came along the next year and scheduled a race for the same weekend. Were happy about it? No, but I don't recall showing that to the public and after all, the date had not been decreed to us from on high so instead we relied upon the strength and reputation of our own event to go forward. And while I am no longer directly involved with it, Shiverfest continues to thrive to this day even with other races going on the same weekend. Just remember that when you scheduled that event that you are now so defensive about, the first time that you had it you were scheduling against somebody else in the region as well. This is Iowa after all, find me a better state to be race fan when it comes to the number of options that we have from mid-March until early November.
Enjoy it, both as a fan and as a promoter.
Still on the subject of hypocrisy I would love to hear how Jay Bilas feels about NIL and its effect on college sports. Once the biggest proponent of "paying the players", I wonder what his thoughts are now that Pandora's Box has been opened. But hey, that's not
a racing topic so let's move on....
In case you missed it, the old Cash Money Late Model Series is now known as the 4 State Late Model Series, the MLRA has closed its doors with the MARS series ready to pick up the slack, at least here in eastern Iowa, while the Revival Late Model Series in its second year of existence will fill some of the dates in Missouri. The Sprint Invaders will again try to make a first appearance at the Stuart Speedway in April while a road trip to Corning in August will be a first, plus returns to fair races at Tipton, Donnellson and Oskaloosa will be highlights. And the United States Modified Touring Series will return to the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri, in August.
Weather permitting our first race for 2025 will be a return to Springfield. Check out the Special Events Calendar at Positively Racing for these and many more noteworthy events and I hope to see you again soon here on the Back Stretch!
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