Lest there still be any doubt

[SundayNiagara]

Look at the size of the crowd and pay attention to what's said about the Super Stock and Top Fuel prize money:

I know of at least one narrow-minded individual who will dispute this but however, he WASN'T THERE!

Enjoy

 

[Paul]

and what's your point????


Look at all major motorsports and you will see the same thing, declining interest. People have a lot more entertainment options than what they had "back in the day" and it's showing.

 

[Dave]

Oh yeah.. sell out crowd... no empty seats ever... Look at those people disguised as feet!

 

[Tybamf]

How many more seats are at a drag strip today. Take all of the people there and teleport them to Chicago a few weeks back and you wouldn't even have the crowd that you did.

 

[MHayes]

How many more seats are at a drag strip today. Take all of the people there and teleport them to Chicago a few weeks back and you wouldn't even have the crowd that you did.

Exactly!

 

[SundayNiagara]

Ya hadda BE THERE!

 

[SundayNiagara]

Oh yeah.. sell out crowd... no empty seats ever... Look at those people disguised as feet!

Nitpicking.

 

[Dave]

How many more seats are at a drag strip today. Take all of the people there and teleport them to Chicago a few weeks back and you wouldn't even have the crowd that you did.

Correct. Most of those bleachers were barely over 10 rows tall. Chicago is roughly 60 rows tall.

 

[onfire]

Ya hadda BE THERE!

I was.....it was my second INDY. IRP didn't do anything with the grandstands for at least a decade after this. Not too many rows but they did go all the way to the finish line unlike today.

 

[cantdrive55]

Cool video, but I'm not sure what the point of this thread is.

Route 66 Raceway was built with high expectations in attendance, of which have never really been met. So, in reality it looks worse than it actually is. Not to mention attendance is down everywhere, not just auto racing, or NHRA in particular.

 

[vegasnitro]

Good point Keith, box office for movies was down 44% over the 4th of July weekend compared to just last year!!! Thankfully, NHRA has not had to endure such a dramatic drop in attendance.

 

[rckymtn3]

Good point Keith, box office for movies was down 44% over the 4th of July weekend compared to just last year!!! Thankfully, NHRA has not had to endure such a dramatic drop in attendance.

Though Hollywood Film industry isn't a great comparison in my mind, the similarities aren't lost on me. They have the same handful of people, making the same movies, and it's honestly, kind of tough to discern in my memory, a movie from this year, from a movie made last year, or the year before, as they all follow the same formulaic devices, and often, the same cast of "stars".
Heck, if they're not making yet ANOTHER comic book character film, they are making a remake of a recently made film, sometimes, remaking a movie out only a few years, or worse, a remake of a REMAKE. Hollywood is SO bad about remaking films now, there's actually a number of different adjectives to help the public understand what type of retread it is they're offering.

Remake versus Re-launch versus Reboot versus Reimagining ....serious, these are four terms movie critics use to describe the type of remake a movie is.

It just screams lack of creativity in an industry that was founded on creativity.

The same can be said for drag racing. In the film above, the days of small groups of unique individuals, made for a colorful group of interesting "stars". The year before, or the year after, there was just as many unique people you hadn't heard of in the mix. It kept things exciting, interesting. Yes, there was the famous stars/teams, but there was always a group of folks coming out of somewhere in left field to shake things up. New engine/chassis combinations, new skinned-cats to make it clear these were unique thinkers, unique personalities.

Paint the current fields all black, or white, or whatever, and you would see little to no difference. It would be the same 8 black cars, racing the same 8 black cars they did the week previous. Copy one racer's shutdown interview, and paste it on another's. It the same corporate gobbily-goo coming out of their mouths. It's a homogenized field. Tough to whip up excitement in people that aren't "into" the sport when they've seen this weekend's race, two years ago.

It just screams lack of uniqueness, in a form of motorsport founded on uniqueness.
.
post edited almost 10 times, because I keep finding a typo, or forgetting to add something. copy paste, copy paste. -smirk-

 

[vegasnitro]

My objective was not to compare drag racing to the movie industry directly, though you have made some very salient points Kevin, but to merely illustrate Keith's larger point that things are tough all over when it comes to the ticket buying public. We sometimes take a myopic view of drag racing around this forum, and some empty seats is always good for some hand-wringing. However, it is important to remember that EVERYONE has empty seats now, not just NHRA. The movies of last weekend were one example, another was the IndyCar race at Pocono. They would have KILLED to have Norwalk's gate and TV presence. Less than 10,000 people TOTAL went thru the gates for that event all weekend and the ratings on NBCSN were probably in their usual .2 to .3 range, or less than half the usual ratings for NHRA on ESPN. When I was a kid, we used to go to Cincinnati Reds games all Summer, they averaged 35,000 fans easy in a dump of a stadium. Now they are lucky to get 20,000 in an absolutely beautiful, state of the art stadium.

There is a paradigm shift occurring in our society, whether it truly is the economy has priced out a lot of consumers or we are on the cusp of consuming our entertainment in a different way, something is changing. NHRA just has to survive until we figure out what it is.

 

[rckymtn3]

There is a paradigm shift occurring in our society, whether it truly is the economy has priced out a lot of consumers or we are on the cusp of consuming our entertainment in a different way, something is changing. NHRA just has to survive until we figure out what it is.

I think I see it. The way I explain it to people is that the difference nowadays is that the public seems to want everything. It used to be, you had one or two hobbies/interests, and you saved money and planned days-off from work accordingly. There was friends of mine that loved music. They spent all their money on music recordings, live music concerts, local clubs with live music, and their big splurge for the year was a couple of major concerts somewhere they've never been, or a favorite far-off venue. Other friends loved skiing. Same goes there. They spent their money on good equipment, and trips to the different resorts in different states. Others liked to camp, or build radio controlled planes, or whatever their passion was. There's no rule that says you have to have less than five major passions, but having more than five becomes a logistics issue, either with your income, or time away from work, or both.

That's the difference. You don't see someone say "I love racing" and spend their money on racing. They also say they love music, and skiing, and camping, and shopping, and eating out, and personal electronics etc etc. They're spread thin, and have an orgy of possible interests thrust at them daily (yup, I said orgy and thrust in the same sentence) and they never quite choose one over another. There seems to be no choices being made. They want everything, and the result is a watered-down experience of all their passions. They're okay with that. What they don't get in real-life satisfaction, is supplemented by their digital life. They live vicariously through others "doing" and come away with a near-satisfaction of actually doing it themselves. So there's a whole lot of looking going on, and "liking", but less actual doing (or in this case, filling the seats).

I might be out on a limb here, re-reading it, it seems to only make sense to me because I know what I'm trying to say. Who knows. It's not an early morning for me, but a very late night.