When you click on links to various merchants on this site and make a purchase, this can result in this site earning a commission. Affiliate programs and affiliations include, but are not limited to, the eBay Partner Network.
The real story behind the scenes is they can't fill the stands because they lost all good competitors due to corporate greed. All the good racers left several years ago for Orange Sow and now Kern County. Irwindale was run by Jews who do not know racing politics and ultimately had to file bankruptcy. They should be paying us drivers/teams to race there like other tracks do.
That's one of the reasons we have so many street racing accidents (besides morons that really can't drive), is there are no places to go and race with your competition safely on a track. So. Cal. is a very car culture oriented part of the state and we need more tracks down here. Irwindale has been there from when I was a kid up to now. Too bad.
Their main revenue is Saturday night NASCAR racing. The stands hold 6500 and another 500+ running around the pits in a capacity event-yet- they only average 1900 people in the stands.
The city council meeting about the track being sold and re-zone only brought out 53 people to protest and speak against the closure- yet-over 8000 people swore up and down they would attend the meeting in force to show support against closure. (I was there, so was the news media and they left with nothing significant to report on due to lack of interest by the public.)
Now every will bitch and complain. Ive been a regular at that track for 2 decades-yet- I do not bitch because I see the lack of attendance. Only thing worth a crap is the NOD (Night of Destruction's) that sold out capacity 6 times a year. I bought and built car for Enduro (kind of a Mad Max style road race) and won every race I competed in 2015. I protested the track management because I was filling their grand stands yet they do not want to pay much for prize money- I told them they needed to pay all of us for just showing up because we are their rock stars and without us they have no race. I brought my car home on def ears and cut it up.
It goes both ways- when the crowd does show, the track management is cheap and ruins a good thing due to greed. They made well over 100K a night and payed out four race winners $300 each (200 second, 100 third, and 35 just for starting.) I told them 1000 or I do not race anymore. Most rednecks stayed to race with no common sense of economics and business. I choose to leave as many others have with the same sense. Track is gone due to no interest because all the good racers leave.
Oh, Thursday night drags barely pays for operation costs. You guys only run on our practice nights when we have fire ad safety available- that is what made the drag lane available those nights. Drag strips can not function without huge crowds like top fuel for revenue. That is why Fontana struggles and Pomona has always flourished.
08-09-2017, 10:31 PM
