Is A Blast From The Past What NASCAR Needs In The Future
|
06/15/2016 Frank Buhrman |
Last Friday night, I headed up the road to Williams Grove Speedway to see the USAC Silver Crown cars compete on that historic oval for the first time in several decades, renewing a tradition dating back to what they once called the “big cars” and the days when you could see Indy 500 competitors race in this division on this track.
That was a long time ago, but Friday night’s field included Bryan Clauson, who ran at Indy this year – and actually led a lap – so history repeated itself.
For anyone not familiar with Silver Crown cars, these are the descendants of the cars that actually raced at Indy more than half a century ago. About the same time NASCAR was ditching dirt tracks and 200-lappers on half-miles as part of the Grand National circuit (Sprint Cup these days), USAC was kind of trying to do the same thing, and Silver Crown was initially kind of like the old Grand National East division of NASCAR . . . except that it lasted longer – nearly 40 years so far.
With USAC out of the modern Indy Car business, Silver Crown has become its headline class, and a unique one at that. The cars look like sprint cars but larger, and the races are longer. The series runs on both asphalt and dirt. It barely survived a disastrous attempt by NASCAR at streamlining the cars so they could race on larger tracks (catch a whiff of self-interest there?) and seems to be continuing its recovery: 22 cars signed in at “the Grove.”
Now here’s my takeaway from all this: Silver Crown racing is just different enough from other forms of open wheel competition to be distinctive, and people come out to see it for that reason and because the drivers are familiar names to open wheel fans (although this year’s field was packed with second-generation guys whose fathers I remember as well). Yes, it’s much smaller – the total purse at Williams Grove was less than a quarter of what last place paid in the 2015 Daytona 500 (we don’t know what it paid this year, because that’s now classified information), but who really cares about that? (Well, maybe the drivers do, but that’s another story.)
I’m not saying NASCAR needs to tear down the entire structure that is Sprint Cup racing – that’s not really possible – but I’m not saying bigger is always better, either. Williams Grove tickets were $25, the program was $3, and concession prices were affordable. When it was all over, I got out of the parking lot pretty quickly and was home before midnight.
My rantings in this space usually involve finding ways to cut costs in NASCAR so fans can afford to attend more races and maybe see their hometown heroes race against the “big guys.” Silver Crown does that. Maybe before the NASCAR ship sinks any lower in the water, somebody should look for ideas to borrow from this old but still vibrant racing series.
(A couple of notes: Richmond Int’l Raceway ran Silver Crowns quite a few times, first as a stand-alone show back when Paul Sawyer owned the place and then as a preliminary to Indy Cars in the International Speedway Corp. era. The races were usually awesome. Because the cars aren’t aerodynamically advanced, handling them is a real skill, and I think that’s why guys like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne – all of whom formerly raced “wingless” open wheel cars – made the transition to NASCAR so successfully. Also, an advantage of smaller venues and smaller crowds is you can do things like USAC and Williams Grove did when they had drivers sign autographs during intermission between qualifying and the feature race. That’s just not possible with Cup-sized crowds, but it helps bring the fans and drivers closer together.)
That was a long time ago, but Friday night’s field included Bryan Clauson, who ran at Indy this year – and actually led a lap – so history repeated itself.
For anyone not familiar with Silver Crown cars, these are the descendants of the cars that actually raced at Indy more than half a century ago. About the same time NASCAR was ditching dirt tracks and 200-lappers on half-miles as part of the Grand National circuit (Sprint Cup these days), USAC was kind of trying to do the same thing, and Silver Crown was initially kind of like the old Grand National East division of NASCAR . . . except that it lasted longer – nearly 40 years so far.
With USAC out of the modern Indy Car business, Silver Crown has become its headline class, and a unique one at that. The cars look like sprint cars but larger, and the races are longer. The series runs on both asphalt and dirt. It barely survived a disastrous attempt by NASCAR at streamlining the cars so they could race on larger tracks (catch a whiff of self-interest there?) and seems to be continuing its recovery: 22 cars signed in at “the Grove.”
Now here’s my takeaway from all this: Silver Crown racing is just different enough from other forms of open wheel competition to be distinctive, and people come out to see it for that reason and because the drivers are familiar names to open wheel fans (although this year’s field was packed with second-generation guys whose fathers I remember as well). Yes, it’s much smaller – the total purse at Williams Grove was less than a quarter of what last place paid in the 2015 Daytona 500 (we don’t know what it paid this year, because that’s now classified information), but who really cares about that? (Well, maybe the drivers do, but that’s another story.)
I’m not saying NASCAR needs to tear down the entire structure that is Sprint Cup racing – that’s not really possible – but I’m not saying bigger is always better, either. Williams Grove tickets were $25, the program was $3, and concession prices were affordable. When it was all over, I got out of the parking lot pretty quickly and was home before midnight.
My rantings in this space usually involve finding ways to cut costs in NASCAR so fans can afford to attend more races and maybe see their hometown heroes race against the “big guys.” Silver Crown does that. Maybe before the NASCAR ship sinks any lower in the water, somebody should look for ideas to borrow from this old but still vibrant racing series.
(A couple of notes: Richmond Int’l Raceway ran Silver Crowns quite a few times, first as a stand-alone show back when Paul Sawyer owned the place and then as a preliminary to Indy Cars in the International Speedway Corp. era. The races were usually awesome. Because the cars aren’t aerodynamically advanced, handling them is a real skill, and I think that’s why guys like Jeff Gordon, Tony Stewart and Kasey Kahne – all of whom formerly raced “wingless” open wheel cars – made the transition to NASCAR so successfully. Also, an advantage of smaller venues and smaller crowds is you can do things like USAC and Williams Grove did when they had drivers sign autographs during intermission between qualifying and the feature race. That’s just not possible with Cup-sized crowds, but it helps bring the fans and drivers closer together.)
(photos are of the poster for Friday’s race, winner Chris Windom in victory lane with owner Fred Gormley and the last-lap battle for the win.)