When my dad was racing, you could race a sprinter for a living and be racing 4-5 nights a week for $10k+ each of those nights, all summer long. My uncle used to race dirt late models 3-4 nights a week too.
The cost of those cars are killing the classes.
Who can afford $75,000+ for a late model or even more for a 410 sprinter?
There use to be some great late model series in the midwest and they rarely completed for cars. Now there are 2 in MN/ND that schedule around one another and maybe 3-4 dozen guys total that travel a bunch for those races and maybe come to half of them.