I like Sprint Car racing...

I like Sprint Car racing! I like Sprint Car racing! I like Sprint Car racing!

Those are probably some of the most unpopular words that any writer/photographer/webmaster that lives here in the upper Midwest could ever say. I am convinced that if I would have renounced my love of Sprint Car racing and jumped on the bandwagon with everyone else around here back in '99 when I started the gotomn.com website that it would have been 10x more popular. Not that it's too shabby as it is because the stats are pretty good for what it is, a static photo and links page. Here's some recent statistical data:

Unique visitors (number of unique visitors during the month):

January 14,273
February 12,146

Page views (total number of pages visited during the month = hits):

January 23,248
February 18,959

It's not unusual for the hits to drop off a bit after the GRP trivia contest is wrapped up but as the season draws closer they will pick up substantially. As you can see, we're still sustaining a decent number of regular visitors each month and that's what I look for. A lot of websites would salivate over that many visitors including many of the series and track websites.

As long as my site is relevant and people are still looking at it that's good. It's still fun for me, the work and expense are justified by your visits and the costs to keep it online are minimal at around $100 per year. In addition to gotomn.com I have two additional domains available with this account and over 100 gigs of website space. Even at the rate I'm slamming photos on the site each season if I were to leave them on there I'd be about 95 years old before I have to even think about running out of web space. The bandwidth is never going to be an issue because it's a static photo and links page, by that I mean there isn't any multimedia. Actually, this blog isn't a part of my hosting account (although I could bring it in house) so anything I put on here doesn't count towards my space. In other words, as long as I'm able it will be business as usual. Mostly I'm providing the site to display some of the history of racing in this area, some convenient links and of course my photos which I hope a few people will purchase because that helps a little with my expenses. I'm not asking for a stimulus package, the photos add some value to the walls of your home or shop when framed. LOL

Anyways, I love Sprint Car racing. I enjoy the other forms of dirt track racing and have made many great friends in all forms of the sport but Sprints were my first love and one always remembers their first with a special fondness. This season is going to be a great year for Sprint Car racing with the UMSS series. There are cars being built, drivers coming out of retirement, and a great deal of excitement is in the air regarding this series. In view of all the negative things we see in the news this is probably one of the biggest day brighteners of the year for me and many others. The thing that I really have to commend the 360 Sprint Car people for is that they finally took a look around them and realized what the "lay of the racing land" is around here. They made one of the wisest decisions I think anyone in the top divisions has made in a long time, they decided to limit the engines and to come in with a purse comparable to the Modifieds. That might not sound like much and some people were resistant at first but when one considers the excitement that Sprint Cars provide and that now tracks can book a UMSS show at a lower cost than a Late Model or Modified special I believe that their purse structure is going to put them at a competitive advantage. Yes, there is still a niche for the big boys like the Outlaws and IRA when they come around but week in and week out we needed something like this. It promotes interest among the fans and gives drivers a reason to want to get involved with a Sprint Car.

I look at these deals like the Rumble Series where local Late Models that we see every week were coming into the same tracks they run weekly and demanding a $10,000 to win purse and I could see that was not good economics for the promoters. I heard from several reliable sources that they lost money when they brought those races into tracks around western Wisconsin and tried to raise the ticket prices. Stop and think about it, fans see most of those drivers at places like Red Cedar, Cedar Lake, Deer Creek, and Rice Lake every Saturday night for $10 to $12. They're going to think twice about a $20 ticket and in some cases a weekday race to see the same guys they can see every weekend. Sure, it's probably a big deal when those drivers race somewhere like western Minnesota, the Dakotas or Montana but this is their home territory and we have been watching them race since they started in Street Stocks. The logistics of trying to build on that kind of a foundation just weren't making any sense and it became manifest at the gate. It takes someone like a Scott Bloomquist or Billy Moyer to get people around here excited enough to put down the extra money. And those kinds of high admission shows aren't something people can afford to do as often anymore. Wise promoters have been listening at the promoters workshops and are finding ways to build on their weekly shows and local audience. The UMSS will help them to do that.

The purse for the UMSS is very competitive and promoters have been advised not to raise the ticket price for the fans no more than a buck or two over a weekly show if they feel that they have to raise it. The organizers of the UMSS would prefer that tracks do not raise the ticket price so the weekly fans will still come to the races. After talking to one of the organizers during the past couple of days I think people are going to be surprised at how many cars they will draw. If this series does well in the first year and generates fan interest my prediction is that it's going to be hard to hold them back. Young fans who are into extreme sports and will see that Sprint Car racing offers a unique brand of excitement and action. With time people's preferences tend to swing back and forth like a pendulum and we have been on the Stock Car side of that swinging pendulum for about 25 years. I think that the time is right for Sprint Car racing to stage a strong comeback around the east Metro and western Wisconsin.

The UMSS will contest ten of their nights of racing at the new Kopellah Speedway. The reason I'm saying "new" Kopellah is that owner Marguerite Lindblom has enlisted the services of Chris Stepan of FYE Promotions to run the business and promotions end of the Kopellah Speedway. Sprint Car people might not be familiar with Chris but I can guarantee that they will come to appreciate him in short order. Chris is admittedly a fan of the Late Models and Modifieds but this is an excellent opportunity for the local Sprint people to get to know Chris and work with him to make the Kopellah UMSS races a success. I guarantee that if they give Chris their full cooperation and put on a good show for the fans that it can only lead to good things for the UMSS. As Chris said in his Kopellah press release he plans on "making Kopellah the place to be on a Friday night" and you better believe that's what's going to happen. If the UMSS puts on a good show and has good car counts it could result in opportunities to participate in other FYE events. I'm probably getting a little bit ahead of myself but I know a good promoter when I see one and Mr. Stepan is a rising star in that field.

As you can see I'm very excited about the UMSS and the new things that are taking place on the local racing scene. I'll be writing more about this in the coming weeks and months.