1. Volunteer Speedway goes from Flo to closed?
The Kyle Larson Late Model Challenge on Flo Racing appeared to be a completely unmitigated success, with the grandstand crowd at the Volunteer Speedway reported to be the largest the track had seen in 20 years, and Flo Racing reporting that the event was the highest-viewed event in the history of its parent company, Flo Sports.
Despite all that, it wasn’t a week removed from the event that the track announced that the remainder of its 2022 schedule was canceled.
Volunteer Speedway announced via its website that it would be canceling its event scheduled on May 7th and they would not be going forward with scheduling any more events for the 2022 racing season.https://t.co/DacvD3JN1M
— News 5 WCYB (@news5wcyb) April 22, 2022
There are two competing forces at work here. One, the business model of streaming dirt races is still new, and one that has yet to find a perfect balance between the interests of streaming platforms and of the racetracks they stream from. Yes, streaming opens up racetracks to a national audience that otherwise would not see racing from them.
On the other hand, they do make it easier for paying fans to stay home out of the grandstands. What’s more, unless it’s a national touring series with national sponsors on the cars, most of the small businesses that sponsor local racecars aren’t going to see a boom in business for the exposure.
Which brings us to point number two; that is, that high-profile events with large purses in the dirt racing ranks are actually the lowest-margin events a racetrack can host. Many tracks actually host touring series events at a loss as an incentive of sorts for local race fans to frequent the track for the rest of their seasons.
At day’s end here, the fault for this mess does fall on the promoters, well-intentioned or not. Contracts had to be signed to bring Flo Racing and the Kyle Larson Challenge to their facility, meaning they knew what it would…
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