WICHITA, Kansas, July 7th, 2008 - The Wichita Wingnuts are back home to kick off the second half of their first season in Wichita. And so far, the turnout has made the team a big success.

When the season started, the Wingnuts knew the pressure was on to fill seats, especially after the wranglers left because of poor turnout. But the Wingnuts have found a formula to success that is paying off in more ways than one.

Crews are putting the finishing touches on the "field pass" tent, while others are working on concessions. They'll need to cook up a lot, because they expect to feed a few thousand fans.

"The success that we've had is a lot better than we expected," said Wingnuts General Manager Josh Robertson.

When the Wranglers were in town, they averaged just fewer than 2,700 fans per game, the worst in the Texas League. So far, the Wingnuts average at least 3,400 fans a game, that's the fourth highest attendance in their league.

Just two weeks ago fans set a record when 8,225 showed up on June 21st, which isn’t bad for a stadium with a capacity of just 6,100.

"I had to go back through the record books and look and see the last time we had 8,000 here," Robertson said. "That was 1998, the NBC championship game."

Robertson credits the success to several things: independent teams have more marketing freedom and fans have noticed more on the field fun between innings. Plus, players tend to stay around longer, which helps build a following. The more fans that come, the better the team seems to play.

"The fans are our sixth man or in baseball terms our 10th man," said Kash Beauchamp, Wingnuts Manager. "All you have to do is look at our record to see that, we have been dominant at home."

With 21 home games to go, the team hopes to continue the success both on and off the field.

"So the pressure is still there to maintain what we've done and continue to look for ways to improve and make things better," Robertson said.