Fuel Prices & Car Counts

[John DiBartolomeo]

One of the questions on my mind; as well as others I believe; is how will fuel prices affect car counts at certain events?

Two years ago (early 2020), diesel prices hovered around $2.50 a gallon. It’s my thinking that probably the majority of race rigs at the track are powered by diesel engines of some sort. But the rise in prices of gasoline pretty much follow the same patterns. Here in central Pennsylvania, diesel prices are now around $5.50, yet I do believe that Pennsylvania probably has some of the highest fuel taxes in the country, but that really has nothing to do with it. And of course, it appears as if prices are changing daily. I do read that California has even higher diesel; and gasoline; prices also.

So, what does all of this equate to? Let’s figure that on average, a racer may travel as far as 500 miles from home to attend an event, which means for him or her, it’s a 1,000 miles round trip affair. Now I can tell you that my own Renegade/conversion motorhome gets around 5-1/2 mpg, but let’s round it up to 6 for the sake of the argument which equates to around 166 gallons of diesel fuel. Multiply that by an increase of $3 and it adds $498 to my trip.

Actually though, I try to only purchase fuel at places where the prices are cheapest (read that as not in Pennsylvania). And of course, my toterhome holds 140 gallons of fuel, so I can afford to somewhat bypass the more expensive stations. However, that’s not they case for everyone. For the longest time, we used to sell the 140-gallon aluminum fuel tanks which were installed in the bed area in a great majority of racer’s pick-up trucks. One of their bigger selling features was the ability to purchase fuel at the prices you chose to do so. That part of the business slowly dried up as more and more motorhomes came into existence at the track. But its selling feature is still valid today.

Actually, the $498 is just a small portion of it, as everything has gone up in expense over the past two years. Two years ago, the average price of a gallon of milk was a little over $3. Now it’s a little over $4. Of course, I don’t buy milk so those prices are what I found on the internet, so you know they must be true 😉. You can blame it on whoever or whatever you want, but the fact is, things are still more expensive, and I’m not sure we’ve seen the end of it yet.

Two years ago, at the beginning of the pandemic, we were still seeing almost record amounts of entries showing up at some of the bigger bracket events. Some of that could have been blamed on the fact that racers were tired of staying home maybe in some sort of quarantine. Nonetheless, the numbers were up. Last year, 2021, from my 1,000’ perspective, it appeared as if car counts at certain events dropped off slightly. Naturally, you had those races which always seem to draw a crowd. For instance, on the NHRA front, you have the Gatornationals, which is more of a destination race than anything else. With quotas set by the sanctioning body, this past year, racer entries filled up fast. Then of course you had days of rain which precluded the event, yet from what I have heard and seen in pictures, spectator attendance was probably just as high as any other year. Go figure. And that’s probably the one thing I’m glad I don’t have to do; that’s figure out the metrics as to why or how an event should work.

While my above travel scenario might hold some water, one track owner I spoke with sells permanent pit parking spaces for the year, noting that this year so far, he’s sold more parking spaces than previous. Could this mean that racers are more liable to park their car at the track and leave it there, thereby eliminating towing it back and forth which uses more fuel? Maybe?

And in reality, so far this year, I have not seen a slowdown in car counts, so maybe all of this is simply a moot point. The NHRA races have seemingly been well-attended, however, we also haven’t gotten into the meat of the season yet, so maybe we haven’t seen the “slowdown” yet. Anybody want to take bets on if it will happen or not?

End result of this blabbering? First off, it’s only money. You can’t take it with you. However, even so, making sure your basic needs and bills are paid before you spend a dime on racing is probably sound advice. Advice I think I may sometimes been guilty of not following, but you get the idea. After that though… Enjoy yourself. Maybe that might mean staying home and drinking our Artisan Coffee, but in any event, as I’ve often said, for most, drag racing is the escape we need from the horrors of what real life has become. Go for it if you can, or tell me I’m full of s**t. John D out.

[JWhalen58]

Your right, I was just discussing this topic the other day. A few years ago when gas topped $4 here in Illinois, actually the number was $4.25 according to a good friend of mine that operated gas stations, people quit buying gas. Only buying what they "had" to have. He said it was just like the pump was shut off. Sales dropped dramatically. Now when it hit $5 no change people keep buying. More money, more places to go, just happy this pandemic thing is over, I don't know, you tell me. I can yell you this, at $5 for diesel that's $1 a mile towing, fuel cost only, our operation is only going to the closer races and the multi race events if only for the principal of it.

[BKSG1198]

I think you're going to see people weigh out their options for this year. We all know gas prices will only go up come summertime as more people are on the road and vacations start with school being out. I think racers will bypass the cost of events as long as they can justify running multiple times in a weekend. I have heard from a few racers that they were going to skip the Open events due to no contingency and lack of car count.....guess we'll see next weekend at Atco and Mooresville.

It's hard to put the pulse on the thinking of racers because you have a race like Tyler and Brians that was on the verge of being cancelled due to not enough pre-entries but, in turn you had the Gators fill up in like 8 hours for all the sportsman classes at a Grade 8 but, it was also a stupid 50 or 55 each car count each class. With bracket racing the Numidia 150 Spring Bracket race filled in 24 minutes on Monday for 150 cars. Granted Bracket racing is a little different because you have guys double & triple entering so when you have a quota those guys suck that right up.

I think your die-hard NHRA racers are going to go to as much as possible NHRA events, Epping I think will be the big test because it's the start of summer, always is a tough tow for the majority based teams in the Northeast and always struggles to fill up plus put this into perspective starting next weekend if you follow the tour, it's Atco Open, Atco D1, Charlotte NE, Leb Valley Open, Mom's Weekend, VMP NE, Cecil D1, MG D1, Epping NE, LVD D1, so 9 out of 10 weekends you're on the road. I think they are at a Grade 5 with only 68 cars total entered and 1/3 of them are stock. We all know Norwalk will fill in record time because that's one of those "can't miss" events.

In all I think racers will look at the "how many races can I do in a weekend" to justify the additional $500 fuel bill, can I go to this event and possibly break even for the weekend or get ahead....guess time will tell.

[Mike Pearson]

I have had to rethink my travel for racing. this year. I will not be traveling more than 500 miles one way to any race due to the fuel costs. Just does not make sense to go to a race that if you won the race you would be in the red.
Fuel here in the SE part of the country is above $5.50/ gal at truck stops. Last weekend i had to put fuel in all 3 of my trucks. I put $250 in the toter and that didnt fill it. $100 gas in my pick up for work and another $100 in my GMC 4500 and that didnt fill that truck either. So that was a total of $450 just on fuel. The fuel cost now have my fuel cost doubled from what it was 18 months ago. That was at $4.99/Gallon at my local fuel stop.

So yes I think fuel cost will start to have a negative effect on car counts at some events where the majority of the competitors have to travel longer distances to the events.

[Steve Stasko]

I normally drive my truck often through the summer and park it in the winter, but I've already decided that I'm just leaving it hooked to the trailer unless I absolutely need the truck for something. I can say that I am starting to see fuel prices relax some. I work in Carlisle, PA, and diesel is down a little over $.60 on average from a month ago ($5.37 now from $6.05 high). Gas (87) is around $4.14-4.25 between Carlisle and Harrisburg from what I observed on the drive home last night. I think we will see them come down some more, but certainly not to 2020 prices.

I will say that it seems like people are still willing to spend. I went to Maple Grove this past Saturday for the swap meet, and can honestly say I don't remember the last time I saw it so busy? I sold a lot of stuff I didn't want to bring home. Both racing and restoration pieces.

[larrylomascolo]

This is a little off topic,in Canada 20 miles from Buffalo N.Y. border,we have a V . P Fuel station...they sell what V.P makes.i priced a 5 gallon pail of c-12,,now this blew me away $189.00 plus tax $212.00 Canadian money.thats approx$40 a U.S gallon. And back ordered 1month. WOW

[Dyno]

I drove from my home in Maple Grove,Mn (NW corner of Mpls) to the Gators and Bradenton and back last month. Round trip was about 3500 miles. Average diesel going down was $3.89 and back it was $4.99 if you shopped around.($5.59 @ Loves Flying J). I spent $1500 on just the diesel. I believe unless the fuel goes down to under $4.00, the local tracks will see an increase in car count, which is good, and racers will try to hit the double combo races to try and keep travel costs down. We all have to much $$$ invested in our programs to just let it sit.

[Tom Meyer]

My wife and I run a mom and pop gas station in a north east NE town. High fuel prices have hit us hard also. Credit Card companies get almost three % of are take. We have to be inventive to keep going. Has anybody tried the mudflap app on fuel? My son is running 2 trucks in his business and some time saves up to .50 cent a gallon with it. We as racers also have to be inventive and look for the best deals to race also. Tom

[1matcoman]

Originally Posted by Tom Meyer

Has anybody tried the mudflap app on fuel?

I had not heard of that one, but I (and several of my buddies) do use the TSD discount program. If you stop at truck stops you'll see a substantial savings. The main drawback is that you have to provide a bank account for them to draft your fuel purchases - cannot use a credit card. I've used it for over a year now and had no issues whatsoever.

https://www.tsdlogistics.com/ (click on fuel services)

[Mike Gray]

Don't come to California. Gas at the Freeway by my house in Murrieta $5.99 Diesel $6.39. Two weeks ago I was in Colorado both were $3.89.