Charlotte, N.C. -- The supermodified season is over in the Northeast for 2024.  Nicotra Racing had a perfect last weekend, sweeping both races at Evans Mills Raceway Park with Otto Sitterly and winning the NESS race at Star Speedway with Jon McKennedy.  

Sitterly also won the 2024 ISMA/MSS Tour Championship, as Mike McVetta had issues at "The Mills" and Otto was unbeatable.  My hat's off to every member of Nicotra Racing, because you don't have success like they had without a lot of hard work and commitment.  

Bravo, guys! 

Here's the question I'm left with as we head into the offseason and prepare for 2025.  

Where is supermodified racing going?  Where are all three divisions (big blocks, 350's and SBS) headed for next year and into the future? 

Let's first talk about the schedule conflict from last weekend between Evans Mills and Star.  

When Star Speedway dropped the supermodifieds off their "Classic" schedule after a disagreement with ISMA, (big blocks) and Evans Mills picked them up, a perfect match was made for the New York supermodified contingent.  They could now go run a race at a first-class facility just a couple of hours from home, giving them a new third leg to the "triple crown" to replace Star.  

The New England supermodified teams, with a couple of exceptions, were not supporting either Oswego or Sandusky's classics, so nobody from New England was likely to win the "Triple Crown" anyhow.  

Then Star brought back their supermodified race with the NESS (New England Supermodified Series), a local series that only competes in New England. At that point, we had two supermodified races on the same day, where the only difference to compete was what size top wing you had. 

This is where the discussion gets a little muddy.  Depending on your point of view and what role you play in the conversation, your opinion of whether this conflict in schedule is a good thing, a bad thing or not much of a thing at all is different.  

Supermodified builder and 350 Supermodified Team Owner Joey Hawksby said online this week that "15 or 20 cars is plenty to have a good race", and he opined that since teams don't want to travel anymore, it's a good thing to have two series that give drivers a good race close to home. 

Joey is right, from the car owner's point of view.  As a team owner, if I can race closer to home and save money, that's a good thing in 2024.  A race is a race is a race, I guess, so as long as I can race, that's good enough.   

If I put my track owner's hat on, my goal is to make money.  It's a business.  The event has to make a profit.  A track has several revenue streams it can use to make money, but the biggest two are the front gate (fans) and back gate (pit passes/entry fees).  If you can get enough of those two items, you will have a strong concession (food) and tires/fuel (if the track runs those).  

Without enough fans and teams, it's hard to please sponsors, who pay money to advertise to an audience that includes the pit and the grandstand.  

Live video streams only make money for the track if the amount that comes in from subscriptions exceeds the cost of the staff to film it and the expenses to broadcast it.  If the track is with a big streamer like Flo, they don't make much revenue, but their expenses may be less if Flo is paying for the staff and costs to stream the race. 

A 17-car turnout brings in less income through the back gate than a 25 or 30-car turnout does. It also forces the track to rely on ticket sales and sponsorship, neither of which are as reliable with short fields as with large ones.  

If all the best drivers aren't there because there are conflicting shows or because teams won't travel, the size of the purse that can be paid is less, because the track's costs for staff, insurance, marketing, power, and food are the same regardless of how many cars show up. 

All I've heard about for years is how the purse needs to increase in supermodified racing.  I've had experience operating tracks.  It takes money to pay money.  If we are now in an era when 15-20 cars at a supermodified race is going to be the norm, then the purse structure for the races has to be adjusted according to the turnout of cars.  

Track owners are not in business to lose money (with a few exceptions, who seem to want to operate their tracks at a loss for business reasons).  As a track owner/promoter, you determine your ticket and pit pass prices by the turnout you expect of fans and cars and what gives you the best chance to make money that day.   

Neither of the two races last weekend was live-streamed, so both tracks lost out on any chance to make money from fans who couldn't make it to the track.

I don't think Evans Mills is going to keep hosting the race if they are losing money, so they must be doing all right.  They had about 21 cars to start the weekend, and a few had mechanical issues on Friday and weren't able to race on Saturday.  

NESS doesn't require the purse that ISMA does (or used to, anyway) so I'm sure Star did fine with 16 cars and multiple other divisions. 

But, the true losers are the fans, who cannot see the best of the best in the division do battle at the track because we are now in an era of local racing. A "Classic" should be prestigious enough to draw the all-stars, but that hasn't happened for years, so the title is just that...a title. It doesn't hold as much prestige as it used to.  

Only the International Classic at Oswego is strong enough to draw anywhere near 30 cars to the track.    

The different rules packages have divided the division (and the 350s as well) to the point where fans have to settle for short fields and be happy with that.  

There is one show left for supermodifieds on the East Coast in 2024 - and that's the ISMA / MSS race at Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, North Carolina.  That race is an addition to the already prestigious North-South Shootout, a weekend filled with Modifieds, Late Models and more where the supers will be a huge curiosity draw for this year, and don't really have to carry the load as the top class.  

It does pay $10,000 to win, however, so how many teams show up with a big-picture vision of what this event could be in the future will be important as to whether there is a future.  Track Manager Randy Myers went to Evans Mills to meet with ISMA/MSS officials and teams, showing his commitment, so we'll see if that is reciprocated. 

If 20 or more cars show their commitment to the long-term success of the event by coming out this year, the potential is there for this race to blow up big in future years and become a true "Classic" that could rank with or above even Sandusky or Evans Mills in terms of purse and prestige in the future, because potential sponsor dollars are there.  

While having these small local groups of big block supers is encouraging to the future of the division as a whole, it makes it harder to incentivize fans to go to the track if the ticket prices are too steep.  Thank God for John Nicotra, who has saved that division at Oswego with his efforts to bring sponsors into his series - it made Oswego's season far more successful than it otherwise would have been.

350 Supermodifieds  

The 350 Supermodifieds are even more divided than the big blocks, and Oswego drew the smallest average car count of any of the groups this season, averaging about 10 cars per week. 

When Oswego formed the 350 Class, they aligned with Star's motor rules so that the teams could travel and support each other's shows. But now, except for Classic, none of the New England cars support Oswego very much.

So, how do you build Oswego's car count now?  

One way is to open up the door for SMAC Tour or Ohio cars to compete by finding a way to restrict their power to compete fairly with Oswego's cars. Divisions with various packages compete well together all over the nation in 2024,  but the Oswego teams don't want that, preferring to have small fields instead.  

That means less back gate money for the speedway, but apparently, they are OK with that because they allowed the teams to have their way with this issue and to not (so far at least) pursue this no-cost way to add some cars to the field each week.

The word going through the pits on Classic Weekend was that there was talk of taking the top wings off the Oswego cars and going to a tail wing to match the big blocks, with the reason being that they want to slow the 350's down a little. 

I don't disagree at all with slowing the field down, but every other 350 in the country runs a top wing.  If you now isolate yourself even further by making the other 40 or so cars all have to buy a tail wing to race at Oswego, how many of those teams are going to do that? 

Wouldn't it make more sense to use gearing or a restrictor plate or some other method to slow the cars down? And if you are intending to do that, wouldn't it also make sense to use the same approach to equalize the other motor packages and let them run as well? 

Is there some data that suggests that a move to the tail wing will inspire more people to buy cars and race at Oswego? 

I said going into this season that this was the biggest opportunity we have had in decades to make the right moves and do the right things to grow supermodified racing in both the big blocks and the 350's.  

The change in the rules package at Oswego improved the racing there for the big blocks 1000 percent this year.  Car counts were up slightly, averaging around 19 or 20 with more for some of the bigger races and over 30 for Classic. 

The NESS field grew by a few cars, giving them mid-teen turnouts at some events. 

ISMA/MSS had some stellar racing and they are slowly building some prestige into their schedule of two-day race weekends. As long as the tracks can make money off those shows even with 20 cars or less then that's a great thing.  

That's all nothing but good.  

I would like to see ISMA replace their New England shows with shows at a couple of New York tracks, because the turnouts for the two shows this year weren't good, and I don't know if it helps ISMA to be in New England when they need to rely on NESS teams to make a decent field. Let NESS have New England, and focus on New York and the Midwest.  

How about a show at Lancaster or Spencer or Holland or a combination of those?  A doubleheader with some bonuses for competing in both could be a nice draw and give the Oswego guys a couple of extra shows to race.  

I'm excited about the potential of the Carolina show, but only if enough teams come down to run to make it worthwhile.  

Davey Hamilton, Jr. had a chance to create a bonanza supermodified race that would be big enough to draw teams from across the nation, but he's still paying $5k to win and putting all the big money behind the sprint car and midget races, so that will be a West Coast race with maybe a couple of well-heeled teams like Danzer and Otto going out to try to steal their money like Danzer did last year.

ISMA's Carolina race pays twice as much to win and is far closer, making it a much more affordable option for teams to run.  

There surely was an improvement in the big block division this year on many fronts. Maybe it can survive and even grow as a splintered group of local racers who rarely cross paths with each other, but it sure is harder for tracks and sponsors right now to justify big purses when only 15 or 20 cars are showing up, and it's harder for fans to justify paying high ticket prices to see a small field.  

Let's get back to the 350 class. 

The 350 class at Oswego is going to lose Josh Sokolic unless his car doesn't sell (which it will), but perhaps he will find a Big Block to race there.  The division will likely gain back Brian Sobus in the 45 car, and Dave Cliff will be back full-time in the Barbeau 50.  

That may put the weekly field back up to 12 or so, but that assumes that everyone else returns who raced weekly this year.  Hopefully, some new local teams will come in, but I think the best chance for that might be with much improvement in rules enforcement and forgetting the idea of removing the top wing.  

The Ohio area is growing their 350 division quite nicely, and both they and SMAC welcome the Oswego and Star cars to go run and provide a way for them to compete, so I'm sure those series will continue to hover around 15-18 cars per show with more in certain situations.  

I haven't mentioned the SBS division because it's an Oswego-only division (and then Danny Kapuscinski has a few races during the year at other local tracks).  That division is fairly stable around the 18-20 car mark.  I don't see huge growth but it will likely remain steady. 

Having "regional" racing in supermodifieds is, in and of itself, not uncharted territory.  But, the difference between the past and 2024, is that fewer and fewer drivers are traveling outside their region.  This means that each region has to work harder to build their group and fans have fewer and fewer opportunities to see drivers from outside their region.

The West Coast Supermodified group in 2024 is still more of an open competition series, with a nice variety of cars competing in their events.  It's kind of a throwback to when you could show up at the track and watch cars of all styles battle with each other.  Dave Danzer proved the East Coast supermodified's superiority last year in Las Vegas, but only because there were no real rules to equalize the competition.

 I'd like to see a new "Power Four" race group set up that includes the Budweiser International Classic at Oswego, the Sandusky Hy-Miler Classic, the John Burr Memorial Classic at Evans Mills, and the "Carolina Classic" at Caraway Speedway here in North Carolina.  I'd love to see a points series for those four events with bonuses for competing in all four.

There should be a 20-car minimum to pay for the advertised purse, which is the incentive for teams to support and for tracks and sponsors to be involved as well. 

If this type of "mini-series" were put together, in combination with John Nicotra's series at Oswego, the ongoing ISMA/MSS brand-building into its scheduled events, and a live-stream program for all of it, some bigger sponsors could be obtained because the market that the teams race in is large and there would be over 20 races for sponsors to be part of. 

I would think this would be the way to promote more drivers into the class and build the overall prestige of the most exciting short-track asphalt cars in the nation.

It isn't that I'm dis-including New England on purpose, but they've pretty much dis-included themselves by running their own rules and not supporting non-NESS shows.  They have a nice regional opportunity to build their group and get New England-based sponsors to support them, but they have to promote and market themselves first.  This group seems to realize it's not the main division at Tracks right now and its purse structure and casual approach to marketing and promotion indicate that they are happy just to go racing and enjoy doing it, which is fine if that works for them.

The 350s, for the near future, are going to be what they are now I believe, which is 4 distinct groups all doing their own thing. Oswego doesn't seem to be motivated to do what it takes to build the car count there, SMAC and the Outlaw series in Ohio will be steady and maybe grow a bit and New England's Star group will also be steady.  

15-20 cars will be the norm for those shows, with Oswego struggling to get to 15 weekly.  

The SBS division at Oswego will remain steady, I think, with 18-20 cars remaining the norm and Danny Kapuscinski's series will continue to provide a nice schedule of a few extra shows at other tracks for the group, which adds to the value of owning and racing in the class. 
 
Oswego Classic Coverage

There will be two successive supermodified-based Tom Baker Show episodes coming up on POWERTube TV.  

Friday, September 27th at 8 pm (all time zones), Jeff Abold will be my featured guest for the entire hour.  Then, the following Friday night, October 4th at 8 PM,  I will have a VLOG-type show dedicated to this year's Classic with driver interviews and a wrap-up of the weekend.  We have winnerviews from each of Sunday's races and more for that show.  

I wanted to let the worldwide POWERTube TV audience see supermodifieds and understand what they are and how exciting they are, so make sure you tune in on those nights via POWERTube's website, app, or their channels on ROKU, Apple TV, or Amazon!