SHORT TRACK CURRENT & OUTLOOK
‘Although short-tracks have over 1-million fans annually and over 1600 teams competing they have consistently declined in attendance and team counts over the past 10-years. This along with higher operating costs has led to a consistent trend of lower revenue among tracks. Despite NASCAR's popularity at the national level, short-track racing in many parts of the state is struggling to survive financially.’
‘A serious challenge for short-tracks is the ‘greying’ of the fan base and decline in youth attendance.’
The above quotes taken from; ‘North Carolina Short Track – White Paper’
The term ‘Short Track’ is the part of the title of the white paper, yet ‘Dirt Tracks’ are included in all the papers findings.
The 1-million fan base is positive, in a country with 325,000,000 people, no question about that.
‘Consistently declining... attendance’, I think that means, less people going to the tracks.
‘Decline in youth attendance’, again, I think that means, young people have no interest in ‘short track racing’ or ‘dirt track racing’, (North Carolina has lots of both types of tracks).
‘Struggling to survive financially,’ once again, I think this means, tracks may close, simply because no one, or not enough people are going to the tracks to cover the costs.
‘Greying’, now, I have no understanding of what this means. I had to look it up; in Americaland, this means getting old. In some parts of Americaland looking old is a sin, however in this context it simply means that the customer base is getting old, and as happens to old things, they died.
‘Declining team counts’, this one is easy, less people can be bothered to create a team. However, what it really means is that less racers are entering races.
Now, I could be wrong on all the above points, simply because this is an American sport, and I am from the UK. However, since the above ‘White Paper, was written by an American State, Short Track and Dirt Track Organisation, based in Americaland, we must take it as true; why would they lie?
And this is just one report, from one state.
Some states could be doing better than North Carolina; however, some states could be doing a lot worse.
‘There has never been a proper dirt oval sim’, as stated by Matt.
Matt, you are 100% correct, nothing to debate there.
However, Matt, just ask yourself why ‘There has never been a proper dirt oval sim’.
Ever.
Game developers do something called, ‘Market Research’. You may have heard of it, interesting concept. They like to use ‘insider’ reports like the white paper quoted from above.
Just maybe, the game developers and publishers have concluded that maybe, just maybe, it is not worth sinking lots of money and time into a market that will never grow?
As in, ‘we are not going to make a profit’.
Just a thought.
‘These are small tracks, of course "very small crowds" show up.’ Thank you, Matt, for correcting me on that point; small tracks, small crowds at a short track racing event, how I did not work that out, I will never know.
However, Bing/Google web search is great for finding images. 2 mins is all it takes to find hundreds of images showing empty stands, stands with 2 or 3 people sat down etc.
Perhaps it is that ‘Consistently declining... attendance’ issue.
Or maybe ‘Declining team counts’, ‘over the past 10 years’.
And yes, you can also find images of full stands, at the big races.
So, to recap; the sport has less people watching, less people racing, less money, and a lot of greying going on.
Thus, less potential customers.
So, Matt, now do you understand why I, and many others, are a little confused as to why iracing is spending a lot of money and time developing, ‘short track dirt racing’.
Do they need to expand to "people outside of the USA"? Honestly Matt, what do you think?
Last time I checked, iracing was a business. I am sure iracing has done the figures, and they think ‘Dirt’ will be covered by sales. Honestly Matt, how many people outside of the USA are going to rush and sign up to iracing because it now has ‘dirt’, not many. Would it not make more sense from a business point of view to finish the tracks and cars you have licenced/paid for, instead of having them sat on some cyber-shelve somewhere? And then do ‘dirt’. Or perhaps ‘downhill soapbox racing?’
‘Dirt fans are very hardcore racing fans in general - the type who would want to go home and play race cars on the PC.’ I am sure they are very ‘hardcore’…
However, this point you have made does not stand up. Let me explain for you; if this generalization was correct, you could state that, NASCAR fans are very etc., etc. And play race cars on the PC.
Well, NASCAR has many, many millions of fans worldwide, and they do not all ‘play race cars on the PC’.
Because if they did, iracing would have millions of players.
Yet they do not.
Do they.
32,000 active players active. Active is the key word here.
Wrecks, swearing and protesting are part of racing and dirt will be no different. You missed out the ‘i’… As in, ‘are part of iracing’.
‘Wrecks’, motor racing is a non-contact sport…
‘Swearing’, is not allowed in iracing…
‘Protesting’, is just protesting.
Which brings me onto the Porsche statement.
The point was that players could not drive in a straight line, thus they had just ‘jumped’ in the car, joined a race, and crashed. Within 100 yards…
Fun race, nothing wrong with that.
People having fun with the new toy.
So, we have the people that play with the Porsche, and the people that have bothered to learn how to drive it, and race it.
So, you end up with a core group of people that race the Porsche, yes?
Great.
The same thing will happen with ‘Dirt’.
Yet the core group of people will be much smaller.
Because it is a niche group, within a niche group, within a niche group.
Simple really.
Here in the UK, very small island near a place called Europe, we have something called ‘Grass-track Racing’.
Because we are British and posh, we use grass and not dirt. My friend, Stan and his son raced and promoted the track and event. Yes, I had a go, and yes it was great fun. A good few hundred-people turned up to watch, Stan’s son was good, and enjoyed himself greatly.
However, at no point did anyone ever suggest, ‘you know, we should make this into a game’…
Or, ‘you know what, I am going home to play racing cars on my PC’…
Not once.
Maybe I should contact iracing…
Anyway, Matt, lovely to chat and debate with someone from the colonies, always a pleasure.
Now where did I leave my top-hat…
