"That's not much more than what a guy can run a top Late Model team for today," said Southers. "Mr. Brooks said from day one that the mission for the Hooters ProCup Series was to give the guys who wanted to race on the short tracks a professional, affordable touring series. We wanted to create a place where they could call home and have a chance to compete. We think we've done that."
That strategy also seems to be working with the fans attending events in large numbers at tracks ranging from Lake Erie (Pennsylvania) Speedway in the tour's Northern Division, to Myrtle Beach Speedway in the Southern Division. The regular season events of 150 to 300 laps on tracks no bigger than 31/44-mile in length produce plenty of action. The playoff races at Lakeland (Florida), Radford (Virginia), Mansfield (Ohio), Jennerstown (Pennsylvania), and Myrtle Beach are hotly contested with a big money payout to the winner. Then, there's always the Hooters Girls.
"Our marketing director, Patrick Rogers, recently gave us the on-site attendance figures for 2004 and we are up over 25 percent for the year," said Southers. "That doesn't take into consideration the race at Bristol, where we had a companion event with the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series and drew over 50,000 fans. We threw that race out. That's 25 percent up without that race. That's pretty strong."
The 2004 series went to the post 29 times at 21 tracks in 10 states paying $3.5 million in posted purses and awards. A whopping 160 different drivers registered to race in 2003.
In fact, it was those kinds of participation numbers that pushed Hooters executives into considering some kind of playoff format to begin with.
"We had to do something because we were sending a lot of guys home from the racetrack," said Southers. "We had grown so much that by the middle of the 2000 season, we were sending home 12 to 15 cars a race. Mr. Brooks had always liked the idea of creating another division. That's what really got us to thinking about having a five-race playoff in 2001."
Brooks, and the rest of the Hooters brain trust, including USAR President Gene Cox and Director of Operations Tony Cox, decided to create two divisions-a North and a South-with races counting down to a five-race playoff at the end of the season. The problem was, nobody was sure it would work as staging races in the North was a somewhat new venture for the Southeastern-based organization.
"The original plan was to hold three to five races in the North, maybe even some exhibition races," said Southers. "We were hoping to just run some races and see what the response was. It proved to be overwhelming with interest from tracks that wanted to host races and competitors who were willing to make a commitment to fielding a Hooters ProCup car. That made it an easy decision to have two divisions.
"The next question was, how do we keep the cost down and still determine a national champion?" continued Southers. "That's where we decided to come up with the five-race format at the end of the year. We had an agreement with SPEED (Channel) to do 30 races, so we divided them up - 13 in the Southern Division, 12 in the Northern Division, and the five playoff races. It's been a great success."
Competitors have to race in only half of the division's races and finish in the Top 30 in division points to qualify for the five playoff races. While many of the drivers run the entire tour, either as North or South regulars, the system allows for teams with limited budgets to pick and choose their events and score enough points to get into the big money round at the end of the season.