Is Grassroots Motorsports Dying — Or Just Changing? An Honest Take on the Future of Participatory Racing | Thursday Pit Stop
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Is Grassroots Motorsports Dying — Or Just Changing? An Honest Take on the Future of Participatory Racing | Thursday Pit StopBe Differential · Jun 25, 2026
They’re asking whether local, non-pro racing is going away or just changing into something else. Think community races and track days, not the big factory teams.
Pikes Peak International Raceway is a real race track in Colorado. The host uses it as an example of a track that tried to survive by focusing more on local racing before it closed.
Maple Grove Raceway is a drag strip in Pennsylvania. The host is pointing to it as an example of a local track that got sold and stopped hosting major drag events.
Commerce Dragway is a drag racing venue referenced here as another example of the same broader trend affecting grassroots racing. The host notes it’s seeing some resurgence even while other tracks are disappearing.
Formula One is the highest level of race car driving with teams and drivers competing worldwide. The host is saying F1’s audience is growing fast, while local grassroots racing is under pressure.
In this context, “hypercar manufacturers” means the big-name companies building the newest top-level race cars for endurance racing. The host is pointing out that many of them showed up at Le Mans.
The host means the part of racing where regular people actually show up and participate. That could be doing a track day, racing locally, or helping out at an event.
A track day is when regular drivers bring their cars to a race track and drive them on the track in a controlled, safer setting. The host is saying this kind of event is part of what’s getting squeezed.
A corner station is a spot on the track where volunteers/marshals watch a specific corner. They help with safety and respond if something happens during a session.
This is the idea that small local racing events help “feed” the bigger racing world. People get their start there, learn the ropes, and later work in racing as careers.
Atlanta Motorsports Park is a local race track. The host is saying it helped them get started and build their foundation in motorsports.
LIVE
Hello, everybody, and welcome back to this week's episode of the Thursday pit stop here
on the Betaferential podcast.
I'm your host, Ava Gregory, and this week I'm asking you a question that I think is
going to make some of you uncomfortable, and honestly, it should.
The question is, is the grassroots motorsport scene dying, or is it just changing?
And what does even matter, which one, if the outcome looks the same?
But first, let's have a brief little catch up on what I've been doing behind the scenes.
Y'all, I told you last week, June has been so busy with travel and things going on.
My sister's getting married next year, so we just started some of the wedding planning
and dress fittings, and that has been a bit of a journey.
Neither of us have been married before, so hey, we got to learn this together.
Anyway, outside of that, working on some beetle projects, and I'm gearing up for a move.
Anyway, let's get into the actual topic that you guys care about.
When I say that you want to stay with me on this one, I really mean it,
because I think I'm going to push some things that don't have easy answers,
and I'm trying to be a little provocative in this episode, okay?
I think that there are some things that we need to talk about,
and what we're actually seeing is real evidence.
So, let me lay out the landscape first, because I really do think it's important
to be honest about what's happening before we have an opinion about it,
and I'm talking about grassroots middlesporgs.
Tracks are closing, right?
Like we talked about Pikes Peak International Raceway at the top of this month.
This is a facility that survived the end of professional racing,
reinvented itself as a grassroots hub, and is still closing,
because the land underneath it is worth more as condos than as a racetrack.
And this, again, is not an isolated story.
Maple Grove Raceway in Pennsylvania, 40 years of drag racing,
was sold at the end of 2025, and dropped from the NHRA schedule.
These are not anomalies either.
They're literally a pattern.
I see this throughout Georgia, the Commerce Dragway.
Luckily, it has been kind of resurged, but this is happening all over the place.
And at the same time, the top of the sport has never looked healthier on paper,
which is insane, right?
Formula One's global fan base has exploded.
Obviously, I talk about this all the time, but it was driven largely by a younger demographic
that found the sport through Drive to Survive, right?
Le Mans just wrapped a race weekend with 62 cars,
eight hypercar manufacturers, and a capacity crowd.
The global motorsports market is valued at nearly $7 billion,
and projected to nearly double by 2034.
The numbers at the top were seriously impressive.
So here's the tension, right?
The professional and media side of motorsport is growing fast.
I mean, astronomically fast.
And the grassroots physical participatory side,
the part where everyday people actually get in a car and go racing,
or do a track day, or volunteer at a corner station,
that part is really what's under pressure.
So we're talking about fewer venues, higher costs, and aging participant base.
And a younger generation that is deeply interested in cars and racing as content,
but really is quite less connected to it as a physical activity, right?
And I think, in my opinion, that's the honest picture.
So let's talk about what all of this means.
Now that we've kind of set the scene a little bit,
because this is changing.
It's changing a lot.
I think we're seeing this industry having gone through many evolutions and growths and dips.
So I think there are two ways to read the optimistic read, right?
It's changing, it's not dying.
Okay, so the people who hold this view, and I don't think they're wrong,
point to the fact that interest in cars and motorsports amongst younger people is genuinely high.
It's just maybe let's call it expressed differently.
So if we look, sim racing has grown enormously, right?
Like automotive content on YouTube and social media reaches audiences
that traditional motorsports never touched.
I mean, this podcast has what, like 1600, 1700 followers,
and I reach over 30,000 people in a month.
And that's not a brag on this podcast,
because honestly, I feel like I could be doing a lot more with that.
But that's just, it's sharing example that like these things are expanding.
So car meets and automotive lifestyle events are thriving in ways that sanctioned racing
never really was for younger demographics.
The argument is that the culture is healthy, it's just finding new forms.
And then some of those people will eventually make their way to the physical side of the sport,
like things like track days or autocross or amateur racing as they get older
and maybe have more resources, right?
I think these are all the optimistic sides.
We're looking at this feeder kind of mentality.
The pessimistic read is that it's changing and dying,
aren't mutually exclusive.
And here's where I'll be honest with you about where I kind of land on this.
I think the optimistic read is partially true and partially comforting fiction.
I think there's a specific thing that the grassroots physical scene
does that no amount of sim racing or YouTube content can replicate.
It creates that actual pipeline, right?
And I've talked about a pipeline issue before on Thursday pit stops.
The people who end up working in this industry,
the engineers, the operation staff, the mechanics,
the marketers who actually understand what they're marketing,
almost all of them came through from some version of physical participation.
I mean, I'm an example of that like working out a racetrack.
So maybe for them, it was a track day that got them hooked
or a karting series that taught them car control
or maybe they volunteered at a local race
or they went to races with their family when they were a kid where they caught the bug.
As I mentioned, like Atlanta Motorsports Park didn't just give me a job.
It actually gave me the foundation.
And if the physical infrastructure of grassroots motorsports continues to erode,
that pipeline in turn gets thinner.
And a thinner pipeline means fewer people who actually know this world
from the inside that are entering the industry.
And in turn, fewer of those people mean the industry becomes more insular,
more expensive, more disconnected from the enthusiast
that it's actually supposed to be serving.
So I think you can watch a thousand hours of racing content
and care deeply about cars.
But until you've stood at a corner station in the rain
or pulled a wheel in the paddock with your hands
or made a split second operational call that affected driver safety,
it doesn't even have to be that dramatic.
But unless you've like taken a wheel off your own car,
I don't think you actually have like a true grasp
on what this world's actually made of.
And I think that when we lose something real,
when fewer people get the chance to find that out.
So I'm not trying to like discount or look down on anybody
that maybe is a fan in this world
or has come into this world but has no experience in it.
I just, I kind of want to leave you with a question
and I want to push on you a little bit
because I think it's the easiest response to everything that I just said.
Someone should fix this, right?
The industry should do more
or tracks should find a way to survive
or organizations should maybe make all of this more accessible.
And yes, all of that is true.
But I want to challenge the passive version of that response
because ultimately I think the grassroots scene
doesn't get saved by the industry.
It gets saved by the people who show up, right?
Like this sounds obvious,
but it gets saved by the person who decides to do a track day this summer
instead of just watching one on YouTube.
And I think that there are some things like,
this is a very hot take
because everyone's like listening to this and is like,
yeah, I'll do that if I can afford it
because these things are expensive
and the global economy is crazy right now.
But I think we can also look at it
as the enthusiasts who volunteers at local autocross events
instead of just following the results online.
Or by the car club member who brings three people
who have never been to a meet.
Or perhaps by the person who buys a struggling regional magazine
or supports the small independent shops
or brands or writers or print media
who shows up to the local race when the weather's bad
and the attendance would otherwise be embarrassing.
The grassroots scene is participatory by definition, right?
I really, really believe this.
It only exists if people participate.
And right now the culture around cars
is producing a lot of engaged observers
and not enough engaged participants.
And this is not a critique.
It's really, really not.
It's just that a dynamic that I think is worth naming honestly.
I'm not exempt from this either.
Like there are seasons where I'm way, way, way more consumer
than contributor where I'm watching way more than doing.
And I feel the difference, right?
The doing is where the real thing lives.
And I told you this one was going to push some things.
And I also genuinely don't know the answer
to the question I started with.
I don't think the grassroots scene is necessarily dying,
but I do think it's changing in ways
that require active choices from people who care about it
and not just passive optimism.
So I guess I would kind of leave you with a closing question here
of when was the last time you participated
in something motorsports related?
Not just watching it or not just following it,
but actually showed up and did something.
And if it's been a while, what would it take to change that?
I'm honestly, I'm not asking you this to make you feel guilty.
I'm asking because I think the answer tells you
something real about your relationship with this world
and what you actually want it to be.
I think that there are a lot, a lot of obstacles
to get involved in motorsport, right?
I think that there's a high cost and barrier of entry
just from a fan perspective,
not even to mention competing in it,
whether that's HPDE, Track Day, Solo National,
whatever it is, there are costs.
And that's just not feasible for everybody.
But I do think, again, like restating by nature,
this industry is participatory.
And if we are unable to show up for it,
there's not going to be anything to watch down the line.
And it's going to start feeling even more exclusive
than I think it already does.
If the only way that we can watch it
is through the top tiers of this industry,
at IndyCar, at F1, at IMSA.
And I think that that's something
we really, really need to put a little pressure on ourselves
and find more ways to gather some of your friends
and say, hey, let's go do a drive together.
Hey, let's go to this car meet.
I'm just kind of yapping now.
But I feel like this is kind of a hot topic
because I have heard a lot about grassroots.
I've had some guest conversations recently
where we've discussed this and how can we change it?
How can we fix it?
And it really is.
It's like, yeah, someone should fix it,
but that someone kind of has to be the person
you see in the mirror sometimes, you know?
Anyway, that said, that's it for this week's Pit Stop.
And that wraps up our June run
of the Thursday Pit Stop episodes.
Thank you for spending the month with me.
And don't forget to sign up for our newsletter
so you can stay in the know.
I will see you next week.
Bye.
About this episode
The debate centers on whether grassroots motorsport is dying or just changing. Track closures and venues dropping from major schedules point to pressure on participatory racing, even as top-tier series like F1 and Le Mans stay strong. The hosts argue the grassroots scene is shifting toward sim racing, digital content, and engaged observers—while physical participation still creates a real talent pipeline that sim and YouTube can’t replicate. The episode ends by urging listeners to show up locally.
Formula 1 has never been more popular. Le Mans just sold out. The global motorsports market is valued at nearly seven billion dollars. So why do tracks keep closing? Why is the participant pipeline getting thinner? And why does it feel like the sport is producing more engaged observers and fewer engaged participants?
In this week's Thursday Pit Stop, Eva Gregory asks the question the motorsports community doesn't always want to sit with: is the grassroots scene dying — or just changing? And does the distinction even matter if the outcome looks the same?
Drawing on her career working inside motorsports facilities and her current role at Hagerty, Eva makes the case that the health of professional motorsports and the health of grassroots motorsports are not the same thing — and that confusing the two is exactly how the foundation gets hollowed out without anyone noticing.
This one has a point of view. And it ends with a question that might make you uncomfortable — in the best way.
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