Newspaper Publications

Over the years, getting news about the dirt tracks came pretty easy.  If you attended a track, a lot of times you could pick up the latest copy of Mid American Auto Racing News.  It was chaulk full of results of the dirt tracks from Michigan, Kentucky and even way down into Georgia.  It was always full of complete write ups from the writer of the tracks and even had all teh qualifying times and results of the heats.  Other publications were more specific to asphalt racing. One of those was the natioanl stock car racing sporting news...or better known as Speed Sport.  Speed Sport has all kinds of opinionated jouran entries form all their editors.  The top editor at that time is the nations tell all in auto racing, Chris Economaki.

What is common with those two publications? Well they are both defunct, or are darn near.I did some invetigating and found that Speed Sport know longer runs a printed version of their newspaper. Chris Economaki no longer does his column for each week of racing...and more or less is retired.  Mid American Auto Racing completely went out of business about 4 years ago.  Both papers cited the same reasoning for having to call it quits.  Lack of subscriptions.

It shouldn't come as any surprise that these newpapers have falled so hard.  The internet is our one stop shopping mall to find out everything we want to know...and now.  No longer do we have to wait for the print up, we can get instant twitter feeds or postings to message boards not any longer than 2-3 minutes after a feature is finished.  What is missing?  Just the mental image of how the race started, progressed and ended.  Now we are stuck with one sided fans who see the race for how their favorite driver drove it, not how the race actually went on. 

So the point?  Not really one I guess, just a note that with the internet in place, may more physical papers will fall by the wayside.  Dirt Late Model Magazine is holding on with a nice monthly print out.  For the likes of us who like to read while relaxing in a chair, couch, or hot bath....we pray it doesn't become the next victim