That's what I am worried about it looks all to familiar, same as open wheels. It would have worked great when we had an a&b feature!  Has anyone built a new steel body car this year?

I'm reading through my post and I want to make it clear that I'm not down on the SS division. They are, and always have been, my favorite division. In fact, I suggested last year in a conversation that the track should be looking at grooming SS as the regular friday night headliner.

I'm keen to see what transpires. And I do have faith that the right people are handling it now.

The current model reminds me so much of the old CASCAR lm from back in the late 80s.....and those were good years for car counts, level of competition and crowds.(I'm talking now about the period before they were forced to buy in-house fiberglass bodies)

Anyway, the whole modified debacle  just makes me nervous to see another division in transition...and this time its my favorite guys. I'm worried to see the "rules creep" that will bring them to a point, a couple years down the road, where they will ALSO be able to say that its almost as expensive as running a late model. 

"Yes and No, from a parts/cost point of view. From what I have been told, it costs nearly the same to run a Mod as it did a Late Model. Payouts, and competition pushed everyone out as far as I am concerned."

If you ask some guys that have run Mods and LM's, they will explain that while it costs 'about the same' to build a LM or a Modified, it costs a lot more to run a LM.  Full fender cars = contact = broken body panels and lots of bent rims and steering components = more money spent on replacement parts.

You can easily pinpoint the exact moment in time when the Modified class hit the peak and started down the other side of the mountain.
Around 2004-2006 the track raised the payouts for the Modifieds, and let them purchase new tires to race on.
(Give or take a couple of bucks on the following numbers).
Purse
Before, winners share $300, after $450.

Tires
Before, $20 at the most (sometimes free) to LM teams for their old tires, after $250 plus per night if you bought two brand new slicks every evening out.

At the time, the biggest concern that led to the 'new tire' rule was that the Mods had to run on 'used' tires.
Some of the higher budget Modified teams would pay a LM driver to purchase brand new tires for them, scuff them, and then slap them on the Modifieds ... this increased tire budgets ...
While this was a loophole that some teams exploited, in the past couple of years a used tire rule would have really helped the Modifieds, as with the LM's having a limit to the amount of tires that they could buy, a Mod team wouldn't be able to get a LM team to scuff some 'almost new' tires for them.

I also agree with the previous poster that the 'advance' in technology of changing the cars was another large part of it, and probably as equally destructive to the car counts, much like the great Sportsman / LM changeover that 'obsoleted' cars, no matter what breaks the teams with the old school cars were given.

This is a great discussion and I hope a lot of people join in with their views.  I have been following racing for a long time now, especially Delaware.  I dont beleive you can pinpoint the demise of a certain car type design or car count simply by blaming it on the rules. Every short track in North America has difficulty with car counts the last couple of years. no matter what class. Yes, you can go back to the "Novotony years" to see that car counts were better in the 80s, esepcially when he went to Cascar rules.  I can go back to  the 70s at Cayuga, with full out late models and there were 30 -35 cars every night. I can remember just 4-5 years ago when Delaware was getting 24-28 late models every week.  There will always be good times and lean times, no matter what the rules are.  There has been some missteps by track management along the way, thats for sure. For the modifieds, I'm not sure what exactly happened. Seems that no track in Ontario that has run them over the last couple years had good car counts and the rules were all different.  Maybe thats the issue !  Same with the SS class. It is evolving.
for the better?  Not sure. I guess we will see this year.  I really like the fact that new cars are coming into the class.  Are they better because they have fibreglass bodies or are they better, because they are new cars? Has there been any new steel bodied cars built in the last few years? I think we need both models there for good fan interest.I personally hope there will be a freeze on rules for a couple years, but you cant stop the advancements of technology.  I love the competition and some advancement, but it should be controlled somewhat.  Thoughts?

I personally would much rather see a re-bodied (fiberglass or not) 69 camaro, 70 chevelle, 69 mustang, or what ever from the 70's early 80's, remeber that 68 camaro that would show up, that thing was sick, everybody that I know who goes to the races loves the old cars, enduro, super street or whatever, muscle cars are cool, race cars are cool, a muscle car turned into a race car, way cool, if they can make molds for the new vegetarian looking cars,  than they can make them for REAL cars,  just my two cents