[70NovaPRP]

I don't post here much at all, and I do not have a class car (I will someday...as long as the classes still exist). That said, I do bracket race pretty seriously. I am also a high school teacher and only 26 years old, so I would like to think I have a pretty close connection to todays youth. There are absolutely still kids/young people interested in cars, and there are still places where they congregate and hang out just like they did 20-40 years ago. Here is the problem, if they are not backed by their parents funding or somehow independently wealthy, they do what they can on very low budgets. Budgets so low that sometimes it doesn't even allow an extra $25 dollars to go to test and tune and run their cars. I believe it really comes down to money. They work hard at their part time jobs during school and their summer jobs but still it is very difficult to make enough to get ahead when it comes to hobbies like cars and racing. Even when they get out of high school and college, entry level jobs often times don't allow the time or money to get into these hobbies, and next thing you know by the time they can afford it they are 40 or so and have many other "irons in the fire".

I am a huge advocate for the sport in general, be it import racing, class racing, bracket racing, heck even heads up racing. It is just so hard to get new blood. I was talking to some racers at the track the other day, I think tracks need to institute entry level classes that CANNOT be taken over by experienced racers and all out race cars.

Beaver Springs instituted a class this season called True Street, I think this class would possibly be appealing to young people. The cars must be 100% street legal and cannot have the DOT "slicks". This would allow them to race their daily driver or hot street car and not be immediately killed by a .020 package in a weekly bracket class. I know for a fact that young people get intimidated very quickly when you DO actually get them to attend the race track, they see slicks, fire suits, parachutes, 150 mph cars, the list goes on. They see this and say..."I'm out" before even giving it a chance.

I typed this quickly hopefully my thoughts weren't scattered.