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If the point of this is that road racing is sweeping the nation...that road racing is the new motorsport for the masses...I ain't buyin' it. Gonna be a hard sell to convince me. 150 in fifteen years? That is three new ones per state, in all fifty states. I would think that something like that would be much more publicized than it appears to be. Just sayin'.



Hmm, that's exactly what has happened in Colorado.
High Plains Raceway, Genoa, Elbert Motorsports Club, a new layout at PPIR, and rumors of several other private tracks going up all in the last ten years.

By contrast, I've seen no news about new drag strips opening, although attendance at the two front range accessible strips seems to be at all time highs and a test and tune night is so busy you won't get more than a few passes in.

A road course will attract street cars, race cars, bikes, even law enforcement training and driving schools. You also can run autocross events every weekend and use it for drivers training during the week. There are as many small road race organizations as there are drag race organizations, they just aren't advertised as widely, so the base is already out there. While it isn't as cheap per visit to go run at a road course, you do get a whole lot more seat time at a road course compared to a drag strip. How much actual driving time do you get at the drags, 60 seconds, maybe 90 of you get a lot of passes in? At a road course, a single 15 minute session will get you equivalent seat time of ten trips to the dragstrip, and you may get several sessions a day. So that $150-200 a day fee for 45 minutes of seat time begins to look like a bargain against the 180-200 trips to the drag strip at $20 a trip to get the same 45 minutes of seat time.

Most of the road course usage going on isn't necessarily all out racing either. As pointed out earlier, the payout for road courses is too low for most to do it for anything but the love of it, but, there are a lot of street cars going there for hot lap sessions. It isn't racing per say, but is still loads of fun running at speeds above what is allowable on regular streets. With the turning and stopping capabilities of newer cars these days, most owners want to feel more than just the acceleration capability of their ride. Add to that the focus on handling upgrades, the proliferation of Good Guys autocross events and you are seeing more traditional dragstrips cars changing suspensions and brakes and heading to an autocross event.