The money has to come from somewhere.
A) Your class is so popular it attracts significant spectator numbers. Nitro is the only thing that does this consistently.
B) High entry fees with big car counts. Bracket racing does this.
Dirt tracks have the advantage of hundreds of teams that can turn up. If you gave a clever promoter 100 fuel cars I’m sure they could develop a million dollar-paying event.
Not being a dirt track fanatic, I have no idea how their rule structure works. IF all the wing cars use the same set of rules or the rules are so similar that a racer can make simple changes to his car to make it fit the various tracks rules, then dirt racing has an absolutely huge advantage over drag racing.
Can you imagine trying to get all the TAFC guys to throw nitro in the tank and race at a nitro F/C show? How could you make a F/C out of a dragster or Pro Stock or Pro Mod? You can't logically. Personally I'm still confused with the details between the new A/FX vs. the FS Showdown cars. Without knowing what the class lettering on a drag car means, most drag race spectators can't tell you the difference between an A/SS car, some Super Gas cars, a A/FX, FS, Top Sportsman, Pro Stock and you can really mess them up with the Pro Mods. The tremendous variety of drag racing classes just in NHRA makes it very confusing on the fans. If most spectators don't know someone racing or are affiliated with a class, they are confused beyond all reason.
Back in the mid 90's, my son and I had the privilege to spend the weekend at the Atlanta race where our seats were in one of the tower suites. We sat between Eddie Hill's mother and her friend on one side and Barry Meguiar and his wife on the other side. They were a lot of fun even though none of them were extremely versed in drag racing. (Barry knew more than Eddie's mother.) The two knew enough about T/F but were totally lost on TAFC, TAD, SS, S, Pro Stock. Then Comp was a complete nightmare to try to explain without frustrating them... and us.
Their confusion is a very serious issue in attempting to sell drag racing to the general ticket buying masses. How many jokes have there been about women not knowing football rules? (You know which women know the difference between a forward pass and flirting? ...It's the ugly women that doesn't know what either one is.) There's only one set of rules in football. Drag racing has it's full tree, pro tree, handicap start, True Start, won't start, timed out start, breakout, double breakout and dead-on with a zero. And the general public has a headache. Add in the 17 different eliminators at NHRA races, plus the small tire classes, the nostalgia gasser classes, the nitro nostalgia classes. Outlaw whatever, Import races and now... EV classes.
What might make drag racing so much fun for us drag racing nuts doesn't always do much for others. It can drive the average person away as quickly as trying to make me an expertly informed fan of: modern dance, ballroom dance, ballet, square dancing, line dancing, polka dancing and of course... the chicken dance. I'm not interested in buying a ticket to any dance and guess what... dancing typically doesn't pay the winner much more than a trophy.
Drag racings multitude of classes and rules makes it very hard for the majority of people to enjoy the typical very long day at the drags.