What’s Happening?

Landon Huffman posed an interesting question on social media talking about the usage of social media in dirt track racing vs asphalt racing. He argued that social media seems to be less important on dirt. Was he right? What did everyone have to say about it?

The dirt vs asphalt is so intriguing

Many of Dirt’s biggest stars have small social numbers vs asphalt personalities, yet dirt seems to thrive in all areas.

Why is social less important on dirt? Is it the volume of racing that creates popularity? Geo covered due to traveling?

— Landon Huffman (@LandonHuffman) December 18, 2023

• Many big personalities on dirt and asphalt chimed in to discuss the topic. They debated whether or not dirt actually had smaller numbers on social media, and what makes that true or false.
• There has been a general debate about asphalt racing vs dirt racing. Both are very different disciplines with different personalities and different drivers.
• Much of the discourse was very respectful. Some pointed to different events, while others pointed to specific social channels for what causes this social media difference if there is one.

The Costs of Racing

Kenny Wallace has an interesting perspective on this as he has raced in the dirt and asphalt scenes. He argues that asphalt drivers are forced to market themselves because of how expensive asphalt racing is compared to dirt racing. This is why dirt track social media, according to Huffman, is not as important.

Wallace is someone who would know as he has raced in both disciplines before. He is not the only one who talks about how much it costs to go dirt racing vs asphalt racing.

Max McLaughlin offered up why this is the case. He argued that attendance is far better at dirt track races, and that means that those races can pay more. As a result, it is more performance-based in dirt rather than sponsorship-based.

Dirt Track Racers On Social Media

There were differing opinions on whether or not dirt track racers actually were not as active on social media. Many argued that, aside from Cup Series drivers, the social interaction is relatively the same. Austin Weaver argued this below.

One interesting driver that chimed in was Rico Abreu, who has 82,000 followers on X, formerly Twitter. He mentioned that he does not think about how many people follow him, rather, he just works hard to build himself up on social media.

Abreu has nearly 5x as many followers on social media as Huffman, who made the original tweet, has. He is proof that there are personalities out there on social media that are active with the fans.

However, even some within dirt racing argue that dirt track racing has been behind for a long time on social media. William Richard, who does social media in dirt track racing argues this, but, he believes it is getting better.

He mentions the specific example of @ChrisFerguson22 on social media, who is constantly active throughout the month of December with giveaways and is generally active on social media to begin with. He has over 20,000 followers.

The Big Events

Logan Seavey does not fully agree with the social media numbers part of the argument. However, he does bring up an interesting point about big events. He points out that asphalt racing has one major event, the Snowball Derby, while there are three major events in dirt, Dome, Chili Bowl, and Knoxville Nationals.

Now, other asphalt events are big races. The Martinsville 300 for late models and even the All-American 400 at the Nashville Fairgrounds are two examples. What Seavey is likely pointing out is how much crossover interest there is between the two events.

Carson Hocevar is a driver who entered into both events, so, obviously, there is some crossover. Is one event bigger than the other?

The Value of Social Media

Parker Kligerman also gave his take on how social media works. To him, he feels that dirt track racing is not appreciated by the general public, but he does feel that social media is not necessarily about popularity. He feels that the followings are both relatively similar.

Given the fact that multiple Cup Series drivers have risen out of both disciplines, it’s easy to see that both have some following. Kligerman is right that working with the algorithm does matter in social media. Certain social media algorithms take things differently than others do.

Does social media following really give a good indicator of popularity? Sproutsocial.com indicates that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and LinkedIn all have their largest demographic of users under 40 years old. Does it show what is popular in the country, or, just what is popular amongst younger people?

It does not seem like there is any consensus on this discussion that Landon Huffman brought up. Everyone has a differing opinion on it. What side do you fall on?