[Chuck Beach]

Today racing is so much different than it was when I first started. First and foremost it did not cost a fortune (back in the day) to build a competitve stocker. There were certainly more limitations of what you could and couldn't do so you had to work with what you had to improve your performance. It was all about performance and the work it took to be the fastest. At that time the ROI was pretty good, if you won class or won a pts. meet or National event you made out pretty well (actually made a profit). Your chances of winning were pretty good to because we did not have reaction times or weather stations like today.

In todays racing to build a competitve car the costs could be overwhelming. There are centainly racers where cost is no object. There are racers that have had the same combo over the years, continued to worked on them, and updated them to be very much competitive today. There are racers who just want to compete but don't need to be the fastest. The biggest difference today is the ROI. It takes so much more $$$ and time to be competitve today than in the past. It is so much tougher to win today because 'everyone' is good and we have the professional sportsman racers. Class pays about 1/3 of what it used to but costs us 10x more money to get there. And now there is that potential penalty of going to fast and getting HP.

Our poor economy does not help either. Lots of manufacturers are tightening their belts and it seems more difficult to win any contingency, some have limitations on what pays and what doesn't and the contingency list seems to get shorter and shorter.

I think we are at the point or have been at the point where many racers are picking and chosing what races to attend based on their funds, the race, the distance to the race, the payout of the race and who is attending. When it gets to expensive or over our budgets we choose other things to do or other races.

I think we all still enjoy racing and hanging out with all of our buds, but for most of us to consider racing other events or adding to our current list of races we want to attend there has to be good possible ROI to get racers to go. If you won a race years ago, that money alone would cover all of your costs and you would have some left over. Now winning a race and getting of the contingency may not even cover the cost of going.