The stands were not full on Fridays when they had the regular show Mini's , Thunder cars, Sportsman.But when the Sprints were their on Fridays the place was packed and when the World of Outlaws showed up they had 9,000-10,000 plus fans. This is one of the reason Oshwegan management changed things.On their press release they said they were not pleased with the Friday show.So they are changing it around. 360 Sprints on a weekly basis.Nowing Glen Styers  he is no dummy and for the last 3 years he has had sprints on Specials and that is his bread & butter . Whether he can get good fields for Friday shows with no specials that will be interesting to see but knowing Oshwegan management they will figure it out.I still believe as I have said Oshwegan is the Eldora of Dirt Tracks in Canada.And hopefully every track in Ontario will take them seriously

let put it this way. If the track doesn't develop an advertising budget, sprint cars will be running in front of the same 500-600 fans that watched sportsmen and there is no way he cannot help but raise the front gate admission in the process, because of having to pay double the purse. I think the problem is that many fans have only seen the tarted up Oshweken (note the spelling) when WOO was there. The track still lacks good grandstands (some of the temps there for the WOO show are gone) and better washrooms and food services on the spectator side. There was no advertising for the track in the Hamilton area (its' prime draw area) this season and promotion has been preaching to the choirs at custom car shows. One thing the track chose to ignore re declining spectator attendance is the Caledonia Land Claim issue wherein many folks in the area have sworn off doing business with any Native owned establishment until it's settled and that includes the track unfortunately.
But I guess it's Glenn Styres and Ken Pelkie's sand box and they are choosing who can play. I just have a feeling that the sanctioned specials will be well attended as in the past and the weekly shows will lag behind without proper promotion. Humberstone tried unsanctioned sprint car racing every second week this season and got a high of 12 cars. The Patriot sanctioned show had 21 and the biggest crowd of the season.
The track's thunderstock division has failed miserably with usually no more than a dozen cars this season and I'm amazed it was kept. In trying to go with rules similar to the Flamboro pavement cars, they isolated the Merrittville and Humberstone cars by running different rules.
Just when drivers like Dan Erskine, Robbie Rounce and a couple others moved up from minis to sportsmen (like we had hoped), they have to find a new place to run. I have a feeling Merrittville will gain a few cars on Saturdays.
In a case of bad timing, I see the Red Hill Creek expressway in Hamilton is opening soon which would have made it easier for Niagara based teams to get much more quickly from the QEW to Hwy 6 on Hamilton Mountain.
On another board, driver Matt Williamson seemed to indicate the problem of the track location being a problem with no fast way for Niagara based drivers to get there. I think a lot of people also didn't realize how little the DIRT sportsmen ran for-$600 to win and $125 to start is not much of an incentive to travel any great distance.
It should be an interesting year but get the feeling that it will be the same circus with different clowns.

Mike32 I was surprised they dropped the Dirt Sportsman but there must have been a reason for it.What it is I donot no but it will probably come out in the future.You were talking about the lack of grandstands and that the temperary stands were gone and that is exactually what they were brought in for was for the
World of Outlaw Show only.As for advertising why there was none in the Hamilton area I donot no but they were heavy in advertising at Auto Shows (Toronto & London) .As a fan that follows the SOS (Southern Ontario Sprints ) every track they went to this year drew record crowds.Remember Glen is part of this series.Will this series get hurt by the weekly shows only time will tell.This series SOS is getting bigger so some of these drivers will possibly go to Oshwegan to run for $1200.00 to win on Fridays.Also remember alot of these drivers (SOS) are from the Hamilton area.As you said it should be an interesting year and I think the same as you.

Mike 32 you are consistently a plethora of misinformation...but I digress.
The thunderstock class rules were adapted to algin more closely with the flammy cars.  This allowed flamboro cars interested in trying the dirt a chance to run at Ohsweken.  However, it was also instituted into the rules that merrittville/humerstone cars could run at Ohsweken (for points and money) against the thunderstocks under their home track rules package ( the merrittville/humerstone cars were very competitive with the ohsweken cars)
On just about every night there were a few merrittville/humberstone cars running at Ohsweken.
The thunderstock class at this point is far from perfect, but it is a work in progress.
The thundercar class at Flammy was once at about 6 cars....in 3 or 4 years it has now grown to 30.  

Robbie Rounce had chosen this past year to run at Merrittville and not Ohsweken.  Acutally he only raced at Ohsweken once or twice this year.  
Dan Erskine has never raced a sportsman car.  Doug Erskine his brother had moved up from mini stocks to race sportsman for the past 2 years, but had his car and all of his equipment up for sale towards the end of this year.
The Ohsweken Sportsman purse of $600 to win and $125 to start was the highest payout in this area.
The big special Lucas Oil races for sportsman paid $750 to win...not that big of a difference.  

The difference in payout between a 15 car sportsman field and a 15 car thunderstock field is over $2000.  Glenn can now put this money towards the purse of the sprint cars which always draw a bigger crowd than the sportsman.

You shouldn't look at it as the Thunderstocks replacing the Sportsmans....it's the sprint cars that are replacing the sportsmans simply because they have always drawn more fans.  

i think the thunderstock rules were in place to draw cars that ran at cayuga and flamboro....and its 3 hours to ohsweken from the barrie area if the traffic is good, so i cant see many fans making it a regular venture...i hope ohsweken goes to the 80 dollar driver admission for the year like humberstone and merrittville.