I personally think that a mini stock/bone stock friday night event would be great. I also thought the V8 stock race last week made a decent show. I would love to see the Eliminator race make a return. One division a week gets the Eliminator race. Cash only, no points. I hope people remember these. I dont think there is any one solution to low attendance or low car counts. Rather a mix of a lot of things. Maybe a 3 day event like Autumn Colours with lots of divisions, maybe common rules with Flamboro, maybe a new division all together. If the fans want to see more racing every friday, then maybe when car counts are below a specified level, everyone runs double heat races.
JOHN, what do you think about bringing back the Eliminator races?

I personally think that a mini stock/bone stock friday night event would be great.

As of right now there are 2 Friday nights that have Bone Stocks on the card. July 5th and August 23rd.

I know Mini-stocks are a different breed altogether, but I just don't think Delaware is the right track for a competitive 4cyl Mini-stock type class. They work better on the smaller tracks.

well speaking for myself as a fan living in hamilton i can tell ya, the drive to delly from here has to be the most boring drive to any track i go to...boringgggg...not the tracks fault...lol...and since we run ohsweken fridays now we hardly get that way more than 3 times a season but to see what has happened to the classes there, especially my faves the trucks from high 20's to now...i would rather see 20 or 30 minis buzzing around in close racing then 10 or 12 of something else spread all over that big track following each other...we bought the Otts old UGLY CAR for $300 and spent another $500 for repair parts and ex safety stuff, car finished 11th in points at Ohsweken by the way, and i brought it to the pumpkin smash last year and had a blast... havent been on a track as large since cayuga SS days, so i was a bit intimidated when i first got out there...it was a shame the weather was wet, racing in it was crazy and fun as i was crapping anytime i caught a rear wheel drive car, was running top 12 area till i just had to pull off cuz i was soaked and cramping up with just the dirt screen in the car, old guy that iam...and considering the mods could weigh 2500 with a 602 crate rocket in them and most minis weigh close to that and some even more, as long as they have safe cages and all the other safety stuff delly should consider it...

In the interest of keeping the conversation going, I’ll add some thoughts on some of the posts.  None of this will have any answers in it to the bigger issues, but might help shine some light into the ongoing conversation:

They (track management) don't answer emails and like the previous owners, they don't talk to the guy at the bottom of the hill (Tony Novotny).

We’re pretty serious about returning e-mail, though admittedly at times our spam filter has been overly aggressive which has caused some e-mails to be lost.  If you had an e-mail that went unreplied, I apologize for that.  In general, if you haven’t heard back for 48 hours, something has gone wrong.  During the on-season the info@delawarespeedway.com address aims for a 24 hour reply time.  During the off-season it is admittedly longer, but during the on-season it’s my job - - if things are getting lost in transit I want to know about it so it can be handled.

Here's my way of thinking, do a 2 for 1 night, promote the he'll out of it on tv and radio. That's bound to get new bodies in the stands.

This was, essentially, the most recent Friday night, except 50% off instead of two-for-one.  Website hits showed we were in for a massive night: but to be truthful the promotion crashed when the weather took a turn.  We still drew a decent crowd, all things considered, but we didn’t win the round.

why delly doesnt have a 4 cylinder mini stock class running every friday is beyond me...

I hear this a lot - - yet, I am quick to remind people that the track does have a four-cylinder series called the Bone Stocks which is based on the simple idea of completely stock four cylinder vehicles that do not have a ton of money in them (typically around $1,000).  It models the most successful grassroots series in speedway history: the Enduro.  Granted, it does not fit the mold of the four-cylinder series going on up north, but the reason why is that we have chosen the four-cylinders as the entry-level platform for new drivers.  This means there are restrictions on setup and customization, which keeps the barrier to entry low.  The series also has rules that let us handicap the fastest drivers, which increases the challenge for them and gives newer drivers a shot.  It’s a series meant to build experience and have fun.  It’s competition-level is significantly less serious than any other program at the track.

The current program seems to be growing at a rate of 2-5 participants per event (it was estimated that with the High School challenge entries today’s race may have started 40 competitors), but more to the point,  the division seems to have some of the happiest and most satisfied competitors at the track running in it.  It is this joy for competition that I would like to see brought back to the weekly divisions.

I also thought the V8 stock race last week made a decent show. I would love to see the Eliminator race make a return. One division a week gets the Eliminator race. Cash only, no points. […] JOHN, what do you think about bringing back the Eliminator races?

The V8 Stocks, indeed, did work well.

The issue with the eliminator races, as you just proposed, is pure economics from a speedway perspective.  You mentioned it’s a cash-only race: where does the cash come from?  In a time of speedway belt-tightening on the regular payout programs do we pull from that?  I would expect the answer from the drivers would be “no”.  The eliminator races had a sponsor on them when they were running.  No sponsor, no eliminator races.  Driver’s were also hesitant to risk their equipment in such events.

On the flip side, however, the eliminators were an awesome and strong way to start the event.

bonestocks, like bombers at ohsweken and purestocks at flammy and i hear varney, great classes for starting out and just have fun...i think if u just keep building on the 4 cylinder invitationals for now down the road u could have your own division and your own rules to keep it affordable...took flammy 3 years and then they had 40 cars running every saturday...