The late Dave Cassidy spent years as an assistant to Indianapolis Motor Speedway savior Tony Hulman and also as one of the principals of the second generation 16th Street Speedway in downtown Indianapolis. Cassidy once related a humorous story involving racing icon Mario Andretti. It seems at some function Andretti was asked what some of the major problems in auto racing were. Pausing for a moment Andretti responded, with perhaps tongue in cheek, that too many Andretti’s were trying to make a living at the sport.

As odd as it may seem Mario’s observation has merit today.

We all know racing can be addictive no matter how one is involved. Fans sometimes hunger to follow their favorite tour every weekend and embrace a nomadic lifestyle. We know at every level racers dream of making their avocation a viable vocation. Even weekend warriors at the lowest level of the sport sacrifice mightily to remain involved. Mechanics, officials, announcers, you name it, are not immune to this disease.

If there is one constant in life, it is that change is inevitable. At one point in time the sprint car world seemed relatively neat and tidy. In the traditional sprint car world, the United States Auto Club occupied the top rung on the ladder. Many still migrate from around the nation to the greater Indianapolis area in hopes of getting a chance to compete on the range of national series under the USAC banner. Nothing much has changed here.

 In the wing sprint car world, there were a range of strong organizations, but for many drivers the ultimate goal was to race with the World of Outlaws. Now the All Stars are gone, and we are all sitting back and watching a high stakes chess match between the Outlaws and High Limit. Each day brings a snippet of information about the ultimate destination of key drivers and teams. Here we are talking about people who have clearly decided that racing constitutes their career. Yet, we come back to Mario Andretti and ask the question, is this attainable, sustainable, or even desirable?

There was a time when Eldora Speedway announcer Terry Baltes would introduce a driver like Doug Wolfgang as “a full-time racer.” It was unfathomable to some. Bob Kinser was still a stone mason. Tommy Hinnershitz was a farmer, Rollie Beale worked on the railroad. It was a time when cars were sponsored by Ray’s Garage, Town Talk Tavern, and maybe a firm like Fike’s Plumbing or Wagner Chevrolet. For many, sprint car racing was a way to get to Indianapolis, or a chance to be a local hero. It was rarely a career. While some made a good living racing a midget immediately after World War II, that prospect was dead a decade and a half later.

At that point in time among the thousands of racers in America, only a handful even thought about racing for a living. Today, it seems everyone believes this is within their reach. That alone is a dubious proposition. Boiled down to the basics, the number of teams and drivers who can embark on an eleven month long cross country racing experience may constitute a finite universe. That universe is determined by a range of forces that go beyond one driver and the resources of a single team. The key variables are clear. What is required to support a full-time racer are car owners, major sponsors, host racetracks, and fans. Streaming revenue is also the ever-present wildcard in the era we live it, yet many of us are still unsure how the dollars flow to the key beneficiaries.

To begin an exercise to understand how this all falls together let’s start with those that pay the bills. Most owners do not make a dime. Perhaps there are some tax advantages involved in participation, or the exposure for a company or project they lead is deemed a reasonable pay-off. The greatest threat to short track open wheel racing today is the dwindling number of owners prepared to hire professional drivers. This sport cannot survive on the backs of a few willing parents. We are left with one simple question. Are there enough willing owners to support two traveling high-dollar wing sprint car series?

This often comes down to sponsorship. Without an influx of dollars wheels do not turn. Any tour that takes a team hundreds of miles from their home base is prohibitively expensive for many. Hotels, food, fuel, and maintaining the haulers, is not a nickel and dime proposition. It is simple. Revenue is a ratio of earnings minus costs. As one extremely prominent racing figure told me, “I know Logan Schuchart won a million dollars at Eldora but all I know is the race cost me ten grand.” Even at the local level few think about return on investment, and frankly that is rarely the motivation. Nonetheless, in general the moment you signed in you lost money. Here is another simple fact. Even the very wealthy grow weary of watching their bank account shrink. Can that loss be covered by sponsor dollars? Do these investors have the sense that they have invested wisely?

Then there are racetracks. There was a time when every great race fan in America had a copy of the late Allan Brown’s National Speedway Directory in their car. If this was published today it would be stunning for many to see just how slim this book would be in comparison to one published twenty-five years ago.  There is a reason for that, and it isn’t all down to angry neighbors and urban sprawl. The average fan’s assessment of the size of a crowd at the racetrack is usually poor. For fun go look at an old picture of a 1950’s IMCA sprint race at the Minnesota State Fair, or the crowd at places like Terre Haute in the 1960s. Those days are gone. Additionally, even if the grandstands are full, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the promoters made money. High dollar events mean the threshold to break even is far higher than an average Saturday night. Evey track operator has to ponder risk versus reward. If too few are interested in that risk, a sanctioning body cannot survive. Sure, we see the throng at the Knoxville Nationals and major events at Eldora. Those are exceptions, not the rule.

This is where the current jockeying for position matters. If Kyle Larson is in the house interest is high. What happens when he is not there? Sure, he is not the only star in sprint car racing. However, what happens now when the top stars split into different directions? We have plenty of historical data on what happens. No matter how much it pains fans in Indiana to accept this, all across the state the grandstands include people who are there to see drivers in what are referred to as support classes. Some who are willing to pay the standard fee will not spend a dime more on a special show.

So herein lies the rub. In an economy where food prices and other basic necessities are costly, people make hard choices about how to best spend their entertainment dollar. In order to create a context where an appreciable number of drivers and teams can stay on the road and make a viable living, by definition the purse up for grabs must be high. This creates more pressure on the racetrack which generally has no other recourse than to pass some of that cost to the consumer. Yes, it is possible for a racetrack to find sponsor help, but your average track manager also has another job. It is not uncommon for some sanctioning bodies to simply rent a facility, but as a long-term proposition that is doomed to fail. All of this puts race fans in the same dilemma. If a couple with two kids drops one hundred dollars just to enter the track, they are headed for an expensive night out. We know that this is a price fans are willing to pay for good racing, but how many times a year is this possible? Then comes the next problem. With that investment some expect to see Kyle Larson, David Gravel, Rico Abreu, Brad Sweet, Donny Schatz, etc., etc. What happens now when they aren’t in the same place?

While working IndyCar and NASCAR races at some point I realized that the fans in the stands were a secondary consideration. I think of this now when a sprint car driver is asked to stay in their seat after pulling into victory lane for the benefit of the livestream. Is this truly a revenue source that is going to help this sport grow and thrive? Maybe it is. It could also be a house of cards.

Making a living as a professional racer is hard. What makes the climb even steeper is the reality that many variables that contribute to success are beyond a person’s control. In truth the number of people who can make a go of this comes down to the most basic issue of all - money. Is there enough to go around for everyone? Are there enough owners, sponsors, host tracks, and fans to make all of this work? Time will tell.