Despite some headwinds, car counts are up, and the competition is intense. Now the focus for many organizers is the development of strategies that will help asphalt modifieds maintain that momentum.

Asphalt modified racing has seen its fair share of ups and downs since fledgling incarnations of the sport began to sprout in the early 1970s. That in turn has led to fluctuations in interest over the years. But a diehard contingent of fans and competitors has remained passionate about the sport regardless of the speed bumps it has encountered along the way.
“It’s cyclical,” said Larry Collins of the Spears Modified Series, Bakersfield, California. “Every race division goes through cycles like this. We’ve had an upswing of interest lately, but six or seven years ago we were seeing a dip in car counts, and that had us wondering if we should go to a crate-motor-only format or open it up and regulate the horsepower with the tire. It’s one of those debates that’s always a mixed bag with the teams. Going into this season we no longer have restrictor plates on the built motors, but you can also still run a 602 motor with a weight break. People seem pretty happy with that.”
As is the case across virtually all motorsports disciplines right now, cost is a growing concern for asphalt modified organizers and competitors alike.
“The series have been looking at a lot of different strategies that we can use to make it viable for more drivers to compete,” explained Chris Williams of the SMART Modified Tour, Martinsville, Virginia. “Everything from entry forms to tire costs to race formats has been re-examined to assess where we can help control costs. There are a number of folks with race cars just sitting in their garages. We want to figure out what it is going to take to get them out to the track.”

Threading The Needle

Joe Skotnicki of the Race of Champions (ROC) in Buffalo, New York, noted that engine rules have been a recent common item of contention in asphalt modified racing. As organizers seek to curb running costs, they also have to avoid alienating competitors whose setups may potentially run afoul of proposed regulations.
“The evolution of the NASCAR spec engine has changed the landscape a bit,” he explained. “It’s much lighter, and that allows teams to move some weights around. That engine has brought some new elements to the game; for many years, the 18-degree engine kind of ruled the roost. But we have to be gentle with implementation. We try to focus on the budget, recognizing that the teams don’t have a free-flowing faucet of money. So we have to take an approach that avoids forcing teams to re-tool their entire shop in regard to their engine program. And we’ve made some weight adjustments again this year in order to fine-tune the balance of the field.”
Collins said it can be difficult to get everyone on the same page when it comes to engine rules, but a measured approach to regulation helps ensure that teams aren’t pushed out of the division as a result of the power plant they’ve chosen.

“When you ask a team what they want, they’re going to vote for whatever they have in the car today,” Collins confirmed. “If they have a 602 crate engine, they’re voting crate. If they’ve got an open motor, they’re voting open. So you almost have to give a voice to the person who doesn’t have a vote—the person who is about to build or buy a modified to come run with us in the future. If they’re on the outside looking in, seeing that everyone’s running a 602 crate motor, and those motors are $5,000, it’s like, ‘OK, I can afford that, and I’ll have the same motor as everyone else.’ But as soon as you open it up, you might have that same guy wondering what it’s going to cost to have a race-winning built motor. The sky’s the limit when it comes to that. So there’s a sense that the 602 might be more inviting to the new teams, but at the same time, we don’t want to exclude the cars that have built motors sitting in them right now. There’s really no right answer, so we ultimately landed on a weight break for the 602 and allow the built motors to be more open, and we’re going to see where things end up.”
Meanwhile, Matt Eddy of Howe Racing Enterprises in Beaverton, Michigan, also pointed to suspension tuning as another aspect of the car that has been scrutinized by organizers in recent years as they seek to rein in running costs.
“In this division you get racers who’re moving up from Street Stocks, and you also have people who’re moving down from Late Models to save some money, so there’s a wide range of experience here,” Eddy said. “That has shaped how organizers operate things to a degree. In the southern regions there are some regulations that don’t allow bump stops, for example. Bump stops are pretty finnicky when it comes to tuning—a lot of folks don’t understand them that well, and the folks who do can get a pretty big advantage from them. Allowing them would force a lot of teams to work with specialists to get that sorted out, which would, of course, drive up the expense.”
But the near-unanimous sentiment is that rising tire costs are one of the primary challenges that asphalt modified teams face today. “It’s concerning when a team’s tire bill is $2,000 for a race,” said Darren Hackett of Caraway Speedway, Sophia, North Carolina. “Back in 2019, that probably would have been $1,400. Raw materials and labor costs keep rising, and the starting money just hasn’t been able to keep up. The tracks just can’t afford it because it will kill the ticket sales.”
Shortages in the wake of the pandemic forced series to put limits on the number of tires that teams could use, and many have chosen to maintain those regulations even as supply has stabilized to help stem the tide.

“The most expensive part of the equation once you leave the shop is tires,” Williams said. “So we started taking a look at how many tires you really need in order to run. We needed to put in limits to prevent teams with bigger budgets from out-spending others to give themselves a competitive advantage. We also cut our races back to 99 laps, which helps lower the motor costs for the teams, too. This is a hobby; these teams aren’t doing this for profit. We’re trying to have fun and provide a platform for these folks to get to the race track. So much of that comes down to cost, so we’re doing what we can to minimize how much they need to spend. We don’t make money off the tires like some other series do, and that seems to have helped out tremendously.”
While innovation has always been an integral part of motorsports, the teams that hunt for the gray areas of the rulebook have a tendency to create more expenses for the rest of the field if they’re left unchecked by series organizers. Skotnicki pointed out that efforts to push the boundaries also rarely result in significant, lasting innovation that bolsters the appeal of the division for teams, organizers, and audiences.
“The recipe for making these cars do the right thing has always been pretty basic,” he said. “There are people who can grasp that, and then there are people who are in the industry and they’re looking to revolutionize the racing. But revolution costs people a ton of money, and the technology doesn’t really resonate with the fans we’re trying to sell tickets to. At the end of the day, we’re collectively better off when more people are racing.”

The Path Forward

Hackett said that despite ongoing cost challenges, he remains optimistic about the division’s overall health in the years ahead. “If the economy stays where it’s at, I think we will be OK. We had 27 SMART Tour cars here at our most recent event, and in 2019, that same event had 12 or 13 cars. So the car count has effectively doubled over the past few years, and that’s a big increase. I think the crate mod cars have led to more tour mod cars as people move up the ranks, and that’s something that is happening in a lot of different regions. It’s also just an incredibly competitive division. Managing the tire has become a big part of winning races, but track position and pit stops are important factors, too.”
He added that the recent influx of younger competitors coming into the division bodes well for its future. “That’s hugely important as some of the older racers start to age out of motorsports. Younger drivers also tend to bring more fans to the table, and potentially more sponsorship dollars along with that. We’re seeing more interest in open wheel racing from the younger generation right now than we have in quite a while.”

Skotnicki agreed that engaging with younger audiences is crucial to the lasting health of the sport. “I think for a period of time, the division was kind of ignoring some of the strategies that were working in the dirt stuff, and we’re just starting to catch up to that now,” he said. “It’s almost like it skipped two generations. You go to an asphalt modified race and look in the stands, and the average fan is over 50 years old. It’s an older crowd, and every time the calendar flips, there are fewer of those people involved unless we actively bring more people in. That’s been an important goal for us, so a few years ago, we created the entry-level crate modified division than runs on the narrower 10-inch tire. Several of the racers who started with us in crate have moved up to the sportsman class, and they will eventually become modified competitors. The interest is there; we collectively just didn’t have the insight to create something for those racers until now. Thankfully, it wasn’t too late.”
Along with improving the sport’s visibility through social media and event streams, he said that traditional outreach methods have also been an essential part of the strategy. “It’s about getting back to the organic types of programs that we as promoters have kind of forgotten about, like taking cars to schools and events. We’re also looking at different scholarship programs and other initiatives that will bring young folks out to the race track. I think it’s important to teach people that they don’t have to be a race car driver in order to have a career in the sport.”

Collins said that the steps taken over the past few years have led to the gradual growth of the sport, and the goal is to maintain a similar pace in the years ahead. “I think it will continue to slowly grow over the next few seasons, and we’ll be stronger five seasons from now than we are today,” he predicted. “That’s based on the chatter amongst the teams, and the fact that we are in that sweet spot in the cycle of interest right now. Those cycles really are a natural occurrence in race divisions, and when things are headed in the right direction, you do everything you can to keep it going that way.”
Williams said car counts are the key to maintaining that trajectory. “Strong car counts ease the pain for a lot of different reasons. It benefits television coverage, streaming, the back gate, and the purse payout. So everybody is trying to do what they can to get these cars racing, whether that’s bonuses for showing up, a points purse, going to ‘destination tracks,’ or other creative means of encouraging participation. You’ve got to do everything you can to incentivize showing up to these events,” Williams concluded.

SOURCES

Caraway Speedway
carawayspeedway.com
Howe Racing Enterprises
howeracing.com
Race of Champions
rocmodifiedseries.com
SMART Modified Tour
smartmodtour.com
Spears Modified Series
spearsmodifiedseries.com