How to make racing more involved for the fan

[Bardahl77]

There's all kinds of sensors and such in modern race cars, use the basic G-loads to send to a full hydraulic simulator with VR helmets. For $50-$100 fans can get in, strap in, and experience the entire race like like Hamilton or Dixon or Truex. Medical waiver required.

Choice two might be more realistic - feed all cars in a race to a sim, drivers at home can compete in the the same races real time. Obviously, you couldn't affect the "real" cars you're racing against, but it would be a blast anyway.

[TimH]

A sim is pretty much limited to a maximum of one gee for any reasonable length of time.

[Pi_guy]

I know one race driver with years of driving everything gets sick in a simulator.

Maybe this is living in the past but in the 70's and 80's the spectator and party atmosphere at the track was really hard to beat the whole scene made for a really great time. As much time as I have spent in front of computers being a part of the circus in one form or another was priceless.

[E1pix]

Though a cool supplement, I think the way to interest newbies is at the track. As stated above, in my experience the way to entice the younger crowds is getting them to the tracks and camping out is a big part of that.

After 22 years away from Road Atlanta (after 12 Runoffs from ‘72 to ‘85, and a WSC in ‘94), we returned in 2016 for Petit Le Mans — not quite knowing what to expect of the camping scene. Fact is it was *great*, riding that fine line bridging fun and too much of it (the Bog at the Glen springs to mind, though it was a site!).

Road America’s camping is not only four times as much as Road Atlanta‘s, but it’s gone way too far in curtailing the fun that makes for fans for life. My first race was 57 years ago and I’m barely 60, and that passion was cultured with Live witnessings. Rumors had the spectator count at 100,000 we were told, rare as heck these days. Little wonder.

Make it fun again and they will come. We’re at a campground now and our neighbor never missed the Pikes Peak hillclimb in 40 years, but was here instead of there. I asked why and he said “The camping’s just not fun anymore.” Bingo.

[mmi16]

The camping environment that was 'fun' in our 20's and 30's doesn't have the same allure with us in our 50's & 60's.

[chrisw52]

There's all kinds of sensors and such in modern race cars, use the basic G-loads to send to a full hydraulic simulator with VR helmets. For $50-$100 fans can get in, strap in, and experience the entire race like like Hamilton or Dixon or Truex. Medical waiver required.

Choice two might be more realistic - feed all cars in a race to a sim, drivers at home can compete in the the same races real time. Obviously, you couldn't affect the "real" cars you're racing against, but it would be a blast anyway.

Kinda hard to re-introduce the pit girls with a race sim...

[E1pix]

The camping environment that was 'fun' in our 20's and 30's doesn't have the same allure with us in our 50's & 60's.

I was speaking of attracting new people to the sport.

Petit had campers from diapers to dentures.

[Bardahl77]

Mosport 1974 - camping in the infield, hard to breathe because of all the campfire smoke. Drunken parties, guys yelling "SHOW US YOUR ***S" at women going to the restrooms, at one point a full Molson can came flying out of the darkness and shattered the rear window of a really nice Citroen.

During the exodus after the race, a Travelall with drunks hanging off of it decided waiting in the queue to get out was too slow, went semi-offroading alongside the road, sideswiping several cars on their safari to find the legendary track exit.

The races were great, Andretti beat Redman by a few tenths in the F5000 race. However, these days I'd rather people got involved in racing through getting excited about the competition, rather than an excuse for a weekend debauchery, vandalism and drunken chicken fights (entertaining though they are to watch).

[Bardahl77]

I was speaking of attracting new people to the sport.

Petit had campers from diapers to dentures.

Probably also diapers to diapers. Depends® on how you look at it.

[E1pix]

Meanwhile, the vast majority behaved and later came back with their kids.

As mentioned, the Glen was the same way and that was too much. Petit was nothing like that.

[t walgamuth]

Didn't they set cars on fire in the bog one year?

Kindof makes the current political demonstrations look less intense by comparison.

[Lynn]

Multiple cars were set on fire many years. One time a Greyhound bus was burned.

https://bangshift.com/bangshiftapex/...us-grand-prix/

The article neglects to mention the alleged sexual assaults.

And then there was the infamous Snakepit in the infield at Indy.

[Rick Kirchner]

Kinda strange isn't it? The kind of wild-assed debauchery that occurred in the infields of virtually every race track seems to be what got people hooked on watching the sport and when they make enough money, they buy seats in the grandstands, bring their kids, and then complain about the seeing the debauchery in the infield, get it cleaned up, and then complain that nobody comes to the races anymore.

When i grew up in Indy, there was kind of a unspoken rule that the families and "nice people" stayed out of the snake pit and inside the 3rd turn. When you got in your mid-teens you kind of wandered in there (and no cell phones for parents to keep track of you) and then you came back in your car in college where you could have some fun without the parents and the circle of life stated all over again.

Hopefully without a pregnancy started on the roof of a van.

The folks in Vegas figured this out - screw the NIMBY parents. When we moved out here (Vegas is just a 3 hr drive and was one of our major shopping destinations) Vegas decided the way to make money was to invite families. All the attractions started to go that way and what they found out was families really don't spend money the way that hard core Vegas partiers and gamblers do. So all the freebies and cheap stuff started going away to grab more money from the families. Then the families AND the partiers stayed away. Now they've decided that the families can stay home until they are retirees with a lot of social security to spend and grown kids who want to party.

Keep a lid on crime and violence and let the party begin.

[E1pix]

Exactly. It actually *is* possible to having fun camping at races without burning Greyhounds.

There’s many glaring errors in that story — one is the Bog continued well past ‘74, we attended in 1976 through ‘78 (I was 16 to 18) and on it went until the last race in ‘80. The active “Boglodytes” causing the actual havoc was maybe 50 participants, and I don’t recall the area being outside of the track, either. Why were some acting out in the ‘70s? Gee whiz, I can’t imagine...

The National Guard was brought in on Saturday night in ‘78, deployed rather poorly, merely tear gassing and clubbing distant onlookers from the outside in. I know this as we got gassed and clubbed for merely watching from a good five iron’s distance away, and they never even approached the ones doing the harm. I was a legitimate reporter at the time and undeserving of such a response — instead of them arresting the guilty. Some things never change, I guess...

An hour later, the scene was right back where it started. The widespread feeling at the time was the Glen did little to stop the chaos for it brought attention and money to the event. Money, as usual. The “Woodstock atmosphere” wasn’t the problem and everyone knew it — it was the few they never went after at all.

Regardless, none of my suggestions in bringing fans back are in support of chaos. They are in support of saving racing as a spectator sport. Indy does it right, as does Road Atlanta, as does Mid-Ohio — without any issues like the Glen. At Indy in 2017, our campsite gathered maybe forty people — all longtime racegoers, crew, corner workers, etc. It was great and we will be back. One raced Can-Am in the ‘80s, one ran C/SR at the Runoffs in the ‘70s (and famously brought an organ from Virginia, Thanks John!), a longtime friend made the trek with two sons ONLY because they could camp, we drove from Durango, Colorado only because we could attend for the full week, and another friend joined us from Ohio for the same reason. People like “us” bring friends and tell others, and on it goes. We’re not there “for the party,” we’re there for an impassioned commonality of racing — and talk about nothing else.

We are a dying breed in a time focusing on what’s wrong with a few instead of what’s right for the majority. Meanwhile, those who claim to be about law and order think it’s now their right to walk around and sicken others.

I call BS on our freedoms to live and live well compromised by others who simply can’t behave. Do not confuse “us” with “them,” in the end it’s all Us.

[GreginCanada]

Possibly some of it is the racing itself. I have been going to races on and off for over 40 years. But in the back of my mind it was interesting because I always saw myself as someday actually being a race driver. And in the late 1970's up to the 1990's there were
quite a few cars and classes where one didn't have to be a millionaire to enter. But by the mid 1990's "real racing " had become massively expensive and I just lost interest and shifted to vintage racing events. That venue offered something that I could relate to.
Older guys with old F Fords , sports cars , and the odd Sports racer. And single axle open trailers, 10 year old + pickups. In short racing that a modest means guy could relate to.
So much of modern racing is so wildly beyond the means of average and even somewhat wealthy people that I think it has lost much of the connection with the people that made racing a popular spectator sport 40 + years ago.
If you are a multi millionaire and can afford a big rig support vehicle and 5 or 6 crew guys all the power to you. But to expect large crowd turn outs to watch you spend $10,000 / hour indulging yourself might be a bit too much to ask for.

[swiftdrivr]

Arnoux vs Villeneuve every few races. Low downforce cars on hard tires, that move around and drift at visible angles. Get rid of wings that make passing difficult .Make it interesting and people will watch. I'd much rather watch a good FF race than watch Mercedes lead a high-speed parade. More money seems to equal less racing.

Unfortunately, we are looking at mature technology, and new "advances" are F-valves, winglets and widgets, not Mickey Thompson's dual-motor efforts, turbines, or Smokey's side-car. Spec series are the norm, and yet, FF races have more variety of cars, but tighter competition.

[E1pix]

I agree 111% with everything in the above two posts.

I also think if we look hard enough, technology is the very root of racing’s popularity demise on many fronts.

This was meant to be a sport of Man and Machine, not Man vs. Machine.

... Possibly some of it is the racing itself. I have been going to races on and off for over 40 years. But in the back of my mind it was interesting because I always saw myself as someday actually being a race driver. And in the late 1970's up to the 1990's there were quite a few cars and classes where one didn't have to be a millionaire to enter.

... single axle open trailers, 10 year old + pickups. In short racing that a modest means guy could relate to... to expect large crowd turn outs to watch you spend $10,000 / hour indulging yourself might be a bit too much to ask for.

Exceptional points, Greg — and hope you don’t mind my creative edit showing the strongest ones.

The above touches a few nerves. I hadn’t quite put it together until your post, but agree that “common men” don’t like being beaten over the head by another’s overt wealth. I personally admire anyone rising up to such stature, provided all was done legally and particularly not taken from others’ backs.

But we cannot ignore the cultural ramifications of the “Underdog Theory” — and why common people can relate to anyone being competitive with little means as opposed to financed success. And especially success portrayed with entitled arrogance.

Well played.

[Robins Ken]

I usually camp on the outside of T8.

At major events such as IMSA, the VARAC Vintage Festival many groups of kids and parents bike, walk, roller blade the track at sunset. Guest drivers also do it. Guys unfamiliar with the track. 2.459 miles of sheer brilliance designed with pen, paper, and vision in 1961.

It's wonderful to see the kids soak it all up, go back to their campsite and throw another log on the fire. Lifetime memories for them. And yes, they will probably come back asap with girlfriends and without parents

KR