Monday, February 10, 2020

The Eternal Struggle; To Watch on TV or to Actually Attend?

For the first st time ever, I actually started watching a series of dirt track races on TV. I have never been much for watching auto racing on TV and other than a few NASCAR races such as the Daytona 500, I have never spent much time watching short track racing on the tube. Usually I'm at a race myself, so it isn't even a consideration. However, with the Lucas Oil Racing Series running during the week at East Bay Raceway Park, and having much interest in how the racing was going, I caught the first race on TV on Monday night and found myself watching most of the rest of the week without much else on the tube to challenge it anyway.

The racing, for the most part, was spectacular, so we decided that we should catch at least one race in person. So Friday afternoon about 4 pm we rolled out from the house with our destination being the Gibsonton Florida home of the East Bay Raceway Park. Twenty three and a half hours later, with no stops other than for gas, and one thousand, five hundred and eighty one miles later, I was standing in the pits at East Bay Raceway Park, groggy and feeling a little a little out of sorts but happy at the sight of a full field of dirt Late Models and just as happy about the warm temperatures and bright sunshine.

But the big question was, was it really worth it? Or would it have been just as simple and perhaps cheaper in the long run just to have hung out in the house and watch it on TV? With Lucas Oil TV and Mav TV both showing races, this series is more and more being targeted as a TV series. There are breaks after each heat race so that a replay of the previous event can be shown on TV, the winner interviewed for the cameras and the off course necessary commercials to be shown on TV.

It was forty bucks to get into the races on Saturday night and probably less than that to watch on TV. There were long lines at the concession stands at the track and also for the restrooms. No such lines existed at my house. My bleacher seat was not nearly as comfortable as the "easy chair" next to my TV. Of course TV can't cover a race nearly as well as being there in person and watching with ones on eyes can, but for a lot of people they cover it plenty well enough on the tube that there is really no reason to actually be there in person. Based on what I saw, it seems like more and more racing is being tailored for the TV audience and not much being done to make it more pleasurable for the fan actually in the stands. At home when the race was completed, I simply shut off the TV and walked to the next room while at the track I fought with a bunch of rude drivers to fight my way out of the parking lot.

Now I'm not a guy that would ever consider staying home and watching a race on TV as opposed to actually going out to the track, but based on what I saw and experienced over the course of most of the week, I can see why more and more people are just staying home and watching, rather than having to deal with the issues actually surrounding attending in person. There truly are a lot of positives to just experiencing the racing from the comfort of your own house.

But is that what we want for short track racing, to turn it into a TV sport played out in front of a handful of people while everyone sits at home and watches? I don't have the answer for that, but in the rush of more and more tracks trying to get their races on TV and take their track to a "different level", this will become more and more of an issue. By the way, the race was the worst of the entire week as the track took rubber and most in the stands walked out feeling disappointed with the finale after having a week of racing that was mostly terrific. And if I was at home, I could just have gotten up and went to the "reffer" for a snack when it locked down and everyone went to the bottom. No such offer was available at the track.

By the way, the grandstands were packed on this night as they have been for most of the week at East Bay. The combination of excellent racing for the most part, nice weather and the realization that if you want to see the Late Models at East Bay you better not wait too long as the track is scheduled for demolition in 2024, all seemed to have played a part in getting the crowds to come out to the track. What happens when East Bay closes seemed to be the really big question. 

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