About Time (2 Viewers)

[Jon Asher]

Regardless of what your personal viewpoint is regarding what's now being called Lucas Oil Raceway (formerly O'Reilly Raceway Park, and even earlier as Indianapolis Raceway Park), the important point here is that NHRA has lost the biggest money-making event the round track had. And major improvements have been made to that end of the facility in recent years. You can ***** and moan all you want about the various tracks and their amenities, and you can even hate, or love, if you prefer, the NHRA, but the bottom line is that if they don't make money they won't have the funding to make the improvements you're calling for. NHRA has long wanted to tear down what's known as Parks Tower and completely rebuild it so they have a better Race Control setup and larger, more professional media facilities. Yeah, I know. You could care less about the media, but media coverage helps drive the sport, and we need it. So, the loss of the Nationwide race has the potential to produce widespread ramifications, most of them not good for drag racers or drag racing fans.

Jon Asher
Senior Editor
CompetitionPlus.com

 

[None]

Regardless of what your personal viewpoint is regarding what's now being called Lucas Oil Raceway (formerly O'Reilly Raceway Park, and even earlier as Indianapolis Raceway Park), the important point here is that NHRA has lost the biggest money-making event the round track had. And major improvements have been made to that end of the facility in recent years. You can ***** and moan all you want about the various tracks and their amenities, and you can even hate, or love, if you prefer, the NHRA, but the bottom line is that if they don't make money they won't have the funding to make the improvements you're calling for. NHRA has long wanted to tear down what's known as Parks Tower and completely rebuild it so they have a better Race Control setup and larger, more professional media facilities. Yeah, I know. You could care less about the media, but media coverage helps drive the sport, and we need it. So, the loss of the Nationwide race has the potential to produce widespread ramifications, most of them not good for drag racers or drag racing fans.

Jon Asher
Senior Editor
CompetitionPlus.com

Sorry Jon, the media (TV, Radio, and Newspapers) dosen't drive squat for NHRA. Any less coverage would be none at all. They could sit in the parking lot in the mud listening to the track radio and get what they put out now.

Improvements in the track, pits, payouts, restrooms, grandstands, and parking have to come first. Towers and skyboxes should be way down the list.

When times were good the NHRA split up the money split up in bonuses not improvements.

 

[DaveRenk]

You're right, it was an article by DRO so I should've called them out. For them to say something like that is a little embarassing considering the amount of years they've been around the sport. My apologies.

Having grown up about an hour from there and attending/witnessing so many neat things at the U.S. Nationals over the years, as well as having raced there there so often, I tend to get defensive of it. But admittedly, after seeing all of these super tracks pop up over the years and literally embarassing Indy from an aesthetic standpoint, I just wish the sanctioning body would step up and transform it into the state of the art facility it deserves to be.

Sean D

1 hour??? I grew up in your 'hood and it was more like 2 hours when I drove it. Not sure what that says about what.

 

[Sean D, shondoo]

1 hour??? I grew up in your 'hood and it was more like 2 hours when I drove it. Not sure what that says about what.

LMAO!!! C'mon, Dave, cut me some slack, brother! After all, I did say "about"!!!

But for the record, I've gotten there in under an hour before. I'm not going to say that I got there safely in under an hour, but.........

Sean D

 

[jackass]

You can ***** and moan all you want about the various tracks and their amenities, and you can even hate, or love, if you prefer, the NHRA, but the bottom line is that if they don't make money they won't have the funding to make the improvements you're calling for. .

Jon Asher
Senior Editor
CompetitionPlus.com

Kind of the reason i tossed out a left field remark about putting dirt on the oval.... Sprints are better on dirt.. LUCAS Oil has their Latemodel series... and it could be a weekly program for sure...WoO Sprints during the Indy 500 events would pack the place....

but i agree they need ot continue with something that will add revenue... they DO NOT need ot add ARCA ot the program... its a loosing venture.. the big oval here proved that ...

Billy

 

[BF]

Kind of the reason i tossed out a left field remark about putting dirt on the oval.... Sprints are better on dirt.. LUCAS Oil has their Latemodel series... and it could be a weekly program for sure...WoO Sprints during the Indy 500 events would pack the place....

Plenty of dirt ovals in the area now. They get a good crowd as it is for the Night Before the 500 for the USAC midgets. If the NNS doesn't come back eventually, I'll be surprised. Nationwide at IMS is going to be an even worse show than the Cup cars put on there. It's going to be hard to cover the amount of seats that are going to be empty at the brickyard for the NNS race. 30,000 people at IMS will make the place look about empty. Most fans don't seem too happy about the change.

PS: USAC sprints (no wings) put on a great show Thursday before the 500 at Terre Haute.

 

[vegasnitro]

Regardless of what your personal viewpoint is regarding what's now being called Lucas Oil Raceway (formerly O'Reilly Raceway Park, and even earlier as Indianapolis Raceway Park), the important point here is that NHRA has lost the biggest money-making event the round track had. And major improvements have been made to that end of the facility in recent years. You can ***** and moan all you want about the various tracks and their amenities, and you can even hate, or love, if you prefer, the NHRA, but the bottom line is that if they don't make money they won't have the funding to make the improvements you're calling for. NHRA has long wanted to tear down what's known as Parks Tower and completely rebuild it so they have a better Race Control setup and larger, more professional media facilities. Yeah, I know. You could care less about the media, but media coverage helps drive the sport, and we need it. So, the loss of the Nationwide race has the potential to produce widespread ramifications, most of them not good for drag racers or drag racing fans.

Jon Asher
Senior Editor
CompetitionPlus.com

My understanding is that the Nationwide/Truck races weekend was the biggest money-making weekend ORP had (yes, even more than the US Nationals) ... which must put it at or near the top of the list for most profitable events for the NHRA. I don't think it can be overstated how damaging this is to ORP's finances.

I also think NHRA should worry about getting fans in the stands ... the media interest follows what people are interested in ... not vice-versa. Get people's butts in the paying seats, and then be as helpful as you can to the media covering the event. A fancy-pants new tower won't mean squat if the stands are half-full like they were at Route 66 all weekend. And from the fan perspective, ORP sucks (though I will admit to being spoiled by my home track, LVMS).

I think about ORP the way a NASCAR fan must think about Daytona. It is the host of the most important race of the year ... shouldn't the venue be up to the event? If you cryogenically froze someone in 1981 and woke them up for the US Nationals, they would immediately recognize ORP as the same place they saw 30 years earlier. If you did the same 30 year experiment with Daytona, the fan would be overwhelmed by the progress.