Times are tough....no joking, no sponsor, no kidding no.......

well, you know the rest. However I witnessed first hand on how the average NAS/FAN turns the uneducated nose in the air at road courses and then clamors to for all the tinsel hand crafted cheddar when it comes time for one of the "new tracks" and its wall paper racing. In any event here lay the article from Jay and after a link to the ratings table for the last few years. Surprised as I am by the slide the Glen has, to a decimal point thinking, that's my job, honey is the pool warm, CEO in charge it makes sense. However from a realistic, now that's what I call racing, never a dull moment it is what it is forget what you heard, take good look point of view the whole numbers game is on backwards. Form an opinion, we love opinions, never let your opinion, be effected by another or then it's just bullshit.

Sponsor woes hold up plans for The Glen: Watkins Glen International is still without a title sponsor for their NASCAR Sprint Cup Series event with less than two weeks until race team haulers start rolling in to the facility. Heluva Good! Sour Cream Dips had been the presenting sponsor of the track's Cup Series race since 2009 but pulled out of their contract earlier this year. It's a situation that WGI president and West Seneca native, Michael Printup, has now come to accept with his attention turning to making final preparations for the tens of thousands of race fans that will descend on the road racing facility located in the Finger Lakes. Printup was on WGR's Fast Track on Sunday morning and discussed how hard the search to find a replacement was. "You're always chasing and we chased all year with Heluva Good! walking away," Printup said, "we did have somebody really close but we decided not to pull the trigger, we just couldn't activate it enough." The new race name will highlight the part of New York state that "The Glen" calls home. "We're going with the because that's the kilometer count, we're going to hype the tourism in this area and give some branding and naming," Printup said.
While the lack of a sponsor won't affect any of the on-track action it does put a dent in the budget for WGI and their parent company International Speedway Corporation (ISC). "It's big, an entitlement sponsor for NASCAR is anywhere from $500,000 to 2 million dollars per race," Printup said, "as we got closer we'd never get 2 million but we're pretty comfortable in saying we would have landed somewhere between a half a million and a million dollars." This setback for WGI won't affect future Sprint Cup dates at the facility but it does push back a major capital improvement project that was planned for next year. Printup divulged that the plan was to repave the racing surface before the 2013 Sprint Cup race at WGI but that has now been tabled. "We decided as a management team this week that we're not going to repave next year, we're probably going to put it off to 2014 or 2015 we feel we have enough life in the asphalt," Printup said. ISC has made several upgrades at the facility over the last few years including putting in new grandstands and making several safety improvements to the race course. Now the plan for next year will be to fill the time that was originally blocked out for the repaving project with new racing events.(WGR Sportsradio 550-AM, see a video there)(7-30-2012

The ratings table link:
http://www.jayski.com/pages/tvratings2011.htm

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Permalink Reply by RG7FAN on July 30, 2012 at 2:37pm

I have always thought that road courses were some of the best racing in Nascar, now it is awful fuel milage runs and not racing. I had always thought that when Kansas, Fontana, Texas, Kentucky where built that this would come back to not work in Nascars favor (as far as the tracks dates that were given up for these tracks and raceability that these old tracks had in them .. ie Rockingham, ) Yesterday looking at the empty shots of the grand stands at Indy were very telling of the current economey and Nascars way of not having there TV personalities talking about the problems, at some pooint this will come back to Nascar in a bad way two fold. I have no respect at all for Nascar when it comes to taking sponsorship from teams and using that sponsorship for .."The official (you fill in the blank)......of Nascar", If Nascars managemant does not see the problem and some how try to fix this current attendance slide then shame on them, at sometime having there corporate TV shills be like the three monkeys ...see no evil, speak no evil, say no evil...then the hell with them and there series. By the way this is my favorite liverey of RG's, long live open wheel...real racing

Permalink Reply by TOG on July 30, 2012 at 3:03pm

Permalink Reply by George Ferrer on July 31, 2012 at 10:21am

Those were the days!!

Permalink Reply by EWF on August 1, 2012 at 1:06am

It doesn't look to be exactly the same car, but this one is on display at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles, CA.

Permalink Reply by RG7FAN on August 1, 2012 at 2:54am

I thought RG kept this chassis, a little faded but still looks great, I always liked the roll hoop of the Swift compared to he Eagle, the Eagle was a dog ass slow chassis, but damn that Eagle graphic was killer, thats gotta suck to push that thing out of the way at the shop, glad RG still has it

Permalink Reply by EWF on August 1, 2012 at 3:09am

Here are a few more pics; one of which has the Eagle graphic you mentioned.

Permalink Reply by RG7FAN on August 1, 2012 at 11:48pm

Thanks EWF, made my day

Permalink Reply by Rob Hoban on July 30, 2012 at 4:00pm

WG's inability to get title sponsor for the race is an indicator that the economy is bad and interest in NASCAR continues to slide. Sponsors are getting a subtitle instead of a full title anymore like the Pocono 400 presented by #NASCAR or presented by Sunoco as it has in the past. Gone are the days of the Schaefer 500. Why? Because a track wants $2MM for a title sponsor. If you can't get a title sponsor for a race, how can you expect to get a sponsor for the cars that run in the back of the pack? NASCAR has become the epitome of the “Haves” and “Have Nots”. Take yesterday’s race for example and look at the cars in the top 20. Every car excluding the 78 is part of a "super" team (21 is a pseudo Roush car). Heck, the EGR teams can’t even compete anymore. Why would a company want to sponsor a car that gets NO TV exposure unless they hit a wall or choose not to pit to take the lead at the risk of getting run over at a restart? If there is no money for a title sponsor, the underfunded, non-super teams will not survive. Nemechek had to take a hit this weekend by not qualifying for the $100k+ payout for a SNP effort.

On a side note, how about Pocono’s August race numbers? EVERYONE complains about Pocono being the worst and most boring race, but he number prove otherwise.

Permalink Reply by WJM on July 30, 2012 at 4:45pm

A tweener post that goes along with this thread.

My oldest son has been on me to go the the NASCAR weekend at Kansas in October (2 adults, 3 kids).

Hotel (3 nights, 2 rooms): $774
Tickets, Nationwide @ $83 (Sec 201, Row 58): $415
Tickets, Cup: @ $194 (Sec 229, Row 51): $970
Parking Pass (3 days): $180
Fan Walk (Fri & Sat) @ $30: $150
Fan Walk (Sun) @ $65: $325
Scanner Rental, Saturday: @20: $80
Scanner Rental, Sunday: @ $35: $140

Total: $3,034

Excludes: meals, fuel (1,300 mi. RT), souvenirs, taxes, gratuities, incidental bullshit, my sanity, etc. All total I'm thinking at least $5K. Why are there so many empty seats? Duh.

I also received a reserved quote from the fine folks at GP Tours on a package for the 2013 Indy 500: $6,685.

Includes air fare, hotel (2 adjoining rooms), transfers, transportation to and from IMS, 5 race tickets (paddock penthouse), garage passes, access to corp hospitality areas, driver meet & greets, some banquet thing w/ Derek Daly, etc.

Guess where I won't be in October and where I'll probably be in May.

Permalink Reply by Michael Martinez on July 30, 2012 at 6:32pm

OOOUUUCCH !!!
A few years back the guy on the other end of the phone from the Glen chucked and said "No...99 bucks gets you the whole weekend"
Me and my buddy 2 tickets 200 bucks rounded
camping at the good man down the road 60 bucks
gasoline and tolls maybe 70 bucks
food and drinks...........we would eat and drink at home anyway
the entire weekend for two 350 bucks
It racing only "twisted"............and to boot the Rolex cars which are fun to watch as traffic disappears.

(Who knows maybe a cheap flight into Rochester and the weekend at the Glen would be cheaper)

Permalink Reply by putter on July 30, 2012 at 6:37pm

$194.00 (cup) and $83.00 (Nationwide) a piece for a ticket???? That is crazy. I hope there's a track closer to you. My Michigan tickets are $25.00 each in Turn 3 row 69 and kids under 12 are free and half off for kids between 13-17. Nationwide are surprising more 40.00, but same as above for kids.

Permalink Reply by Jim on July 30, 2012 at 9:29pm

Rarely post but I have to chime in on this one. Man that is expensive! At Darlington, I have tickets at the start/finish line almost at the top row for about $90 for adults, children $45 for the Cup race. We get GA tickets for the Nationwide for $25. Parking is free. Pretty cool weekend.

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