Rodger Coan-Burningham Posted March 26 Report Share Posted March 26 Hello fellow racers. Forward looking to next year this race will receive a lot of scrutiny simply due to the low car counts combined with the cost to put on a race there. The club expects the CEO to among many duties and responsibilities to make good choices on selection of races from a financial standpoint. In other words we can’t do ok at some tracks and then throw it all away in a loss at a track that is not well attended. That doesn’t mean this race is off, it just means Dana will have to analyze and make choices that are right for the club. As we look toward next year does anyone have any suggestions on how we can make this race a better choice for the racers? The club has moved this race around on the schedule and sans the year we had the national championship there, has not been well attended. Is it just when it hits the schedule? Location? The track? Discuss. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jakks Posted March 26 Report Share Posted March 26 It's an awesome track. Other than being so close to Daytona, makes it hard for people to do both. Personally, NCM over Daytona....... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
55mini Posted March 26 Report Share Posted March 26 Rodger I'll toss some thoughts at this, we look forward to a race to start the year off and tried this one once again. Man it was cold! Thoughts on event, timing has lots to do with it as this time of year is tricky with weather, could be rain or snow or could be great and in the 60's. We had to decide on this or Ozarks since no spring Road America. From the track side, it is very good and very technical to go fast as seen by to variance in times. The purple 35 got old quickly as the EM did a great job but really slow to get track clear. Yes I know I'm used to Road America crew. In all we would go back again if timing worked. To me it seemed like a lot of southern teams came north for this race and not as many northern teams. I know I loaded the trailer in the snow to get south. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodger Coan-Burningham Posted March 26 Author Report Share Posted March 26 7 minutes ago, jakks said: It's an awesome track. Other than being so close to Daytona, makes it hard for people to do both. Personally, NCM over Daytona....... Agree, Daytona is a bucket list track that everyone should do but as far as technical driving and just road racing experience NCM would be a good choice vs Daytona. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ronh911 Posted March 26 Report Share Posted March 26 1 hour ago, Rodger Coan-Burningham said: Hello fellow racers. Forward looking to next year this race will receive a lot of scrutiny simply due to the low car counts combined with the cost to put on a race there. The club expects the CEO to among many duties and responsibilities to make good choices on selection of races from a financial standpoint. In other words we can’t do ok at some tracks and then throw it all away in a loss at a track that is not well attended. That doesn’t mean this race is off, it just means Dana will have to analyze and make choices that are right for the club. As we look toward next year does anyone have any suggestions on how we can make this race a better choice for the racers? The club has moved this race around on the schedule and sans the year we had the national championship there, has not been well attended. Is it just when it hits the schedule? Location? The track? Discuss. We would have brought all 3 of our cars this year but we were too busy building a new car due to Champcars rule changes. 1 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wittenauer Motorsports Posted March 26 Report Share Posted March 26 NCM is a great track. Lots of fun when you get into the flow of the circuit. It is 72F and sunny there as I type this at 3pm local Bowling Green time Sunday afternoon. Race weekend it hit 34F about now. And the weekend before, it was in the 60's. That is our mid-west March weather. The 25-35 car count races we are seeing for the non-bucket list tracks seem to be the norm. To get the car counts up, consideration should be given to limiting attendance at the bucket list tracks. 139 entries for Daytona. What if all races were limited to 80 entries? Would there be 5-10 more cars at each of the other March/April events? Our team can do 3-5 ChampCar race weekends/year limited by budget, vacation time, other obligations, and doing a couple vintage race weekends. We hope to do Daytona next year or the year after, but that will mean not doing some other race that season. Also consider format. The 14 hour race at Road Atlanta is great because it is easy for everyone to get home on Sunday and not need to take an extra day off from work. Would it be better to do more 12 and 14 hour Saturday events instead of an 8+7? Gingerman certainly needs a different format now that Church hour is two hours on Sunday morning. Might also look at the track day model - entry fee for the 8 + 7 is $1,500 but can do Saturday only for $1,000. Would that get a few more cars out to the track for Saturday? Need to figure out how to make ChampCar feasible/sustainable with 25-35 cars at an event. What about having a participation aspect, like a team must provide a corner worker for 8 hours as part of the entry? Look at insurance cost differential for having paying spectators? Just some thoughts. Support your local tracks even if you're not from around here! John 7 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
55mini Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 (edited) One more thought which I missed is cost, event cost was Like $1500 and then if you wish to do well it was another $450 for the test day. For us the fuel cost to drive since it is about a nine hour haul was double any local track to us, Road America, Gingerman, Autobahn, and Ozarks. Add that to the equation and it costs a team like ours a lot more cash. Not to change the subject but it looks like Ozarks is in the same shape which is sad to see for a new track. I can also understand seeing all the damaged cars from the first event. The track needs better tire wall placement among other things. Edited March 27 by 55mini 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ben 594 Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 @Rodger Coan-Burningham, I am trying to think of what I can add to this… not much. This was our 3rd time running NCM with Chump. I like the track. I like Barber too but Chump doesn’t run there anymore either. I am part of a small team and we have a limited schedule. We try to run 3 or 4 races a year and I like to mix up where and with whom we run. I pick my events based on where in the year it falls, who it’s with, duration, track, and distance from home. New tracks to me get priority… Ozark last year was excellent. So, my shopping trends might be hard to follow. Currently I’m 50/50 for getting to High Plains with Chump in 2023 odds of me routinely running there are zero. Having gone to NCM in 2017 2019 and 2023 I have no intention of going in 2024. Would I be sad if I couldn’t run NCM in 2025 or 2026; yes. But I am going to run something somewhere even if that event dies. Mid-Ohio in 2024 or 2025 sounds like fun to me. How does NCM struggle to be profitable when CMP doesn’t? CMP is a terrible track. I have zero desire to run with Chump at CMP. There is some amount of personal opinion to all of this, I hate CMP while most people seem to enjoy it. I’ve never been to NOLA, MRS, or Harris Hill: none of these tracks are going to con me into spending my time or money making the effort to race them. Maybe this is how people think about NCM? I don’t agree but who am I. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Grufton Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 I hate to say it, but we may have too many events. Our team runs a small number of events every year. Last year we ran Ozarks, this year NCM. I like both, but the chance of us running both in the same year is pretty close to zero. If enough other teams are doing this too, then that’s a recipe for poor attendance at a lot of tracks. I would also argue we’re seeing the long-term effects of cost creep. Higher costs to field a competitive team will result in fewer teams (and fewer events attended by the teams that remain). 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Atlanta Speedwerks Posted March 27 Report Share Posted March 27 NCM was an absolute blast to drive/race. Weather was cold so for next year a little later in the season would be better. And yes, 2 weeks from Daytona is a bit of a stretch for most teams. And as a comparison to CMP - yeah that track is on the very bottom of our list to attend. Why it is better attended than NCM I don't get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodger Coan-Burningham Posted March 27 Author Report Share Posted March 27 (edited) 27 minutes ago, Atlanta Speedwerks said: And as a comparison to CMP - yeah that track is on the very bottom of our list to attend. Why it is better attended than NCM I don't get. Just spit balling some reasons, but I would say better time of year and close to a lot of our East Coast racers. Another thing is with the new surface it’s actually a pretty fun track. The paddock has a Chumpcar vibe to it also. Edited March 27 by Rodger Coan-Burningham 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wvumtnbkr Posted March 28 Report Share Posted March 28 I used to hate cmp. Now, it's one of my favorites. Lots of butt puckering corners if you can carry the speed without backing off! I'll be there this year. I was at ncm too. Fun track, hard to learn. Way cold. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hotrod Posted March 28 Report Share Posted March 28 We've been to NCM a couple times fun track to drive and not horribly far for us. The weather for the first six races in ChampCar is a crap shoot. A summer date would be better but where are you going to put it? We may of went this year but we are updating our cars. Not because of 2023 rule changes because the series has become so competitive. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
gundy Posted March 29 Report Share Posted March 29 On 3/26/2023 at 8:23 AM, Rodger Coan-Burningham said: Hello fellow racers. Forward looking to next year this race will receive a lot of scrutiny simply due to the low car counts combined with the cost to put on a race there. The club expects the CEO to among many duties and responsibilities to make good choices on selection of races from a financial standpoint. In other words we can’t do ok at some tracks and then throw it all away in a loss at a track that is not well attended. That doesn’t mean this race is off, it just means Dana will have to analyze and make choices that are right for the club. As we look toward next year does anyone have any suggestions on how we can make this race a better choice for the racers? The club has moved this race around on the schedule and sans the year we had the national championship there, has not been well attended. Is it just when it hits the schedule? Location? The track? Discuss. I know the club needs to be profitable but I would think the the loss of 20 to few cars at NCM will be more than offset by 40 to many cars at Daytona. We drove past Daytona to go to NCM because we are trying to do one new to us track a year. I am a Florida boy and froze my ass off which is the same reason I won't do Road Atlanta in Febuary. I refuse to run Daytona as long as there are 3 teams to a pit which is a pitty as there is only Sebring and Daytona left in Florida since the closing of Palm Beach. NCM would also be nicer if they repaired all the Tornado damage from years past. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rodger Coan-Burningham Posted March 29 Author Report Share Posted March 29 47 minutes ago, gundy said: I know the club needs to be profitable but I would think the the loss of 20 to few cars at NCM will be more than offset by 40 to many cars at Daytona. We drove past Daytona to go to NCM because we are trying to do one new to us track a year. I am a Florida boy and froze my ass off which is the same reason I won't do Road Atlanta in Febuary. I refuse to run Daytona as long as there are 3 teams to a pit which is a pitty as there is only Sebring and Daytona left in Florida since the closing of Palm Beach. NCM would also be nicer if they repaired all the Tornado damage from years past. Yes you are correct we don’t need to be profitable since this is a mutual benefit club, but we can’t continue to throw good money after bad either. This can cause an overall shortage and cost every member when signing up for races. Just the balancing act that has to be done to run the club. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JDChristianson Posted March 30 Report Share Posted March 30 On 3/27/2023 at 12:51 PM, Grufton said: I would also argue we’re seeing the long-term effects of cost creep. Higher costs to field a competitive team will result in fewer teams (and fewer events attended by the teams that remain). I think this may be a bigger part of attendance than any of us want to think. Sort of the elephant in the room. I don’t have the numbers but I feel like Champcar has been around long enough to be considered mature. Are we adding more members then leave every year? The pie may be as big as it gets and ultimately we may have too many races. Lucky Puppy does well when they have races out east, and that has to cut into the number of teams that travel further to the Midwest. Why spend the days and the tow money when there are more opportunities close to home? The mid pack bread and butter teams can race with any series and be mid pack and have the same level of fun. Scheduling so close to Daytona and Ozark has to hurt too. Some rambling thoughts there. So what might the series do to improve? Have some sort of real promotion to add teams, especially teams from the Midwest Why are there so few teams from the Chicago area, and St. Louis lots and lots of people in the area. Maybe schedule 4 or 5 fewer races with better spacing so teams can get to them. Time and money are pretty hard when races are only a couple or three weeks apart. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chappy Posted March 31 Report Share Posted March 31 (edited) My two cents, most of the races around the area are too close together for timing. I live in Nashville, so within a 5hr drive I’ve got AMP (Oct), used to have Barber (Dec), Road Atlanta (Feb), and NCM (March). So my race season is basically everyone else’s off season. Then I have 6 months off until AMP again. 6 weeks between Road Atlanta and NCM probably doesn’t help as most private teams may not be able to turn a car around that quick for another race (never mind the taking time off work/etc). When you consider that and the east coast teams have VIR and Daytona on either side of NCM it’s just in a spot that will probably have low car count. The challenge with NCM is you won’t want to do it in mid June to mid Aug due to the heat. The year the championship was there in July it was 100+ outside and absolutely miserable in the paddock or in the car. Don’t really have a great suggestion for alternate timing, but might be one to look at the complete schedule and move things around to where there are at least 8 weeks between events that are closer than 6-7hrs apart? This might mean like NCM in early Sept, moving AMP to mid Nov, bridging the gap that is there with the loss of Barber. Or AMP mid year. I will also throw out the costs at NCM have increased a ton in the last two years. Test day at $500 is hard to swallow. I can only assume Champs rental fee has gone up as well. A $300 test day and $13-1400 entry might help car count. Edited March 31 by Chappy 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chappy Posted March 31 Report Share Posted March 31 (edited) On 3/30/2023 at 2:51 PM, JDChristianson said: I don’t have the numbers but I feel like Champcar has been around long enough to be considered mature. Are we adding more members then leave every year? That’s a great question, it should be looked at if overall average cars per race is going down. If it is, why are people not coming back. The number is likely not showing the true affect either as there are quite a few arrive and drive teams fielding multiple cars, which gets car count up at a race, but it isn’t probably going to sustain the series. We need teams building and fielding their own cars to keep things alive. Edited March 31 by Chappy 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mindspin311 Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 I feel like it's a scheduling thing. You have 3 races in the span of 4 weeks, VIR-S, NCM, Daytona. I'm curious if you spaced these out somehow if entries would increase. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hillar K Posted April 3 Report Share Posted April 3 There were 2 weeks between NCM and Daytona. With the popularity of Daytona, I would guess a number of teams picked Daytona over NCM. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulstreet Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 (edited) We did NCM last year and enjoyed it very much. We talked about doing it again this year but it was too close to Daytona and we wanted to go there . My opinion is the series is never going to have much success going west . I have been to a lot of tracks out west all the way to Laguna and in this low bucks racing most teams will not spend time and money to travel from the east out west when we have a ton of tracks east of the Mississippi river. I will never spend a cent going to Ozarks for many reasons. Maybe the series should concentrate on the East coast and work on car count and maybe multiple events at popular tracks each year for example RA a couple times not a single race. I know no one wants to hear this but Barber sold out each year and maybe the series could spend time and money getting back in there instead of expanding west unsuccessfully. I'm sure the travel cost is more the further the series officials have to travel for an event. Edited April 4 by paulstreet Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dirtybird222 Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 (edited) I would personally love to run there but, it's sandwiched between Road Atlanta and Daytona which are both much closer to our home base. Throw in the fact that the 12 Hours of Sebring was on the same weekend this year, which is an amazing spectator event to attend, and it just takes it out of the cards for us. Our team is also trying to find a new track to run at each year and NCM is within the reasonable driving distance radius. What about bringing back Charlotte? All that being said, the series needs to be healthy and profitable from a fiscal standpoint. How upside down is the series going running there or are the profit margins minimal? Edited April 4 by dirtybird222 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmabarone Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 Why not Rockingham road course? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chappy Posted April 4 Report Share Posted April 4 1 hour ago, dirtybird222 said: What about bringing back Charlotte? YES!!! 1000% 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DEE DEE Posted April 5 Report Share Posted April 5 On 3/31/2023 at 6:44 PM, Chappy said: The challenge with NCM is you won’t want to do it in mid June to mid Aug due to the heat. The year the championship was there in July it was 100+ outside and absolutely miserable in the paddock or in the car. Sebring is in July. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.