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Is 360 sprint car racing really dying?
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Just when we thought we were done with major sprint car series being bought and sold, rumors began flying that World Racing Group was interested in purchasing the American Sprint Car Series. When the deal was done, it seemed to be a fresh start following the lingering uncertainty surrounding the series.
In the last two years, the tour lost its title sponsorship from Lucas Oil and the MAVTV television deal that came with it, switched from FloRacing to the smaller RacinDirt for their streaming coverage, shut down several of their regional tours including the Lone Star Region and Southwest Region, and released promoter Terry Mattox after three seasons.
The murkiness extends beyond just the ASCS though, as many have questioned the future viability of the 360 sprint car division as a whole. A common thought is that 360 races pay considerably less than comparable 410 shows, but a 360 team only costs slightly less to operate than a 410 team. Therefore, the best route for a new or limited-budget sprint car team could be bypassing the 360 division entirely and jumping straight into 410 racing.
If it’s true that 360 racing makes less financial sense today than it did five years ago, one would expect car counts in the division to be lower than they were before the pandemic. However, the numbers tell a slightly different story.
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The graph shows the average car count over the last five seasons for five different 360 sprint car organizations in five different regions of the United States: the ASCS National Tour, the United Sprint Car Series, the Empire Super Sprints, the Sprint Car Challenge Tour, and the 360 division at Knoxville Raceway.
It should be noted that this data set includes the COVID-altered 2020 season, which can be considered an outlier for some tours based on the state and local restrictions in the areas in which they raced. Large public gatherings were generally frowned upon in states like California and New York, which was why the SCCT and ESS were only able to hold one and two races respectively in 2020.
Disclaimers aside, a division in which 60% of surveyed tours are roughly equaling or exceeding their nightly participation totals from five years ago doesn’t seem like it's dying, does it?
While each line in the graph is unique, most of them follow the same pattern. The races that were held in 2020 saw increased car counts over 2019 for the tours that were able to piece together a partial schedule, due to the fact that there weren’t many races happening and teams were willing to attend as many of the races that did take place as possible. Attendance came back down to Earth in 2021, but despite inflation and supply chain shortages, it has risen slightly since then.
One place in which 360 racing is especially healthy is Knoxville Raceway. 2023 saw the division’s highest average car count in over five years, and entering 2024, teams will be rewarded with a $1,775 nightly purse increase over last year. With debates centering around the cost of 360s versus 410s, so many teams choosing to bolt in a 360 engine at a track that runs both divisions each week suggests that 360 racing could be more financially viable than it appears.
Much of the credit for the overall stability of 360 racing goes to the promoters for making smarter scheduling decisions. The 2021 ASCS season included a race at Volunteer Speedway in Tennessee that drew just 11 cars, as well as stops in South Dakota and Montana with car counts in the low 20’s. Entering 2022, the series removed several dates far from the tour’s Oklahoma base in favor of more stops in the southern plains region, reducing travel for most teams. While some lamented the removal of the national aspect of the ASCS National Tour, the change was successful, as car counts rose in 2022.
That philosophy should continue under the tour’s new management, as WRG CEO Brian Carter has publicly stated his intentions to support 360 racing in regions where it is already established as part of a greater mission to grow regional sprint car racing of all types.
It’s true that the ASCS was in a rough spot after the 2023 season, and WRG was able to make the acquisition at a relatively low cost as a result. But make no mistake, the final years of ASCS 1.0 were not a true reflection of the overall health of 360 sprint car racing.
A responsible consumer never buys a lousy product no matter how cheap it is. It doesn’t matter if the product is a pack of pencils or a sprint car series. WRG has been in the motorsports business for decades with plenty of success along the way, they don’t seem like a company that would buy into a category of sprint car racing that’s dying.
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In Part 6 of the 410 sprint car build with Zach Hampton, front assembly gets finished with the pitman arm and drag link, transponder mount, and some more tether action. Plus Zach shows us how to square the front end.
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