Finally, yes finally, Mother Nature gave us weather for racing, not perfect weather but at least weather for racing. What a great night of racing it was too! Oh what great racing, side by side lap after lap racing but wait, there was even a comment from the announcers booth, “Look at that out of two, four wide resembles a race at Daytona International Speedway”, and you know what sure enough we had a class three and four wide most of the race, but you have to read on to find out what class!
Here is another comment a driver came up and said to me this week – “I LOVE this track, this track fits our class perfectly, just have to figure out the gearing and we are going to be fast, fast, fast, I lLOVE this track”. Or how about the victory lane interviews, “This track was perfect, simply perfect, love racing on tracks which are perfect like tonight”. Credit goes to the track prep crew for providing such a great surface.
To our race fans thank you for using the trash barrels, at the end of each race night, the officials and myself, pick up the grandstands and dump all the trash barrels in the facility. It truly helps when the fans and pit crews utilize the barrels making our night get done quicker. Yes, the officials and track workers (concessions, Trackside Bar and Grill, Office Staff, gate keepers, 50/50 sales) are some of the best in the business. They arrive early and leave late all because they love our sport of racing! Now if we could just get those litterbug drivers to pick up their own tear offs (written in jest).
What are tear offs you ask, especially if you are new to dirt track racing, let us explain. Tear offs are plastic clear sheets which go across the racers helmets. In dirt racing the cars do not have windshields, they would collect dirt and make it impossible for a driver to see. Without windshields the drivers are open to the dirt coming off the car in front of them, it pays to be the leader! This dirt hitting a driver’s helmet will collect and obscure visibility. It is an art in and of itself to put tear offs on helmets, sometimes the drivers do it themselves, sometimes this becomes the wife, mother, and/or girlfriends responsibility. Removing a tear off is also a talent because you want to remove one tear off at a time not all of them at once, which yours truly did in his first race at Riverside Stadium in 1988. Over the years we have even tried automated tear off removal and when they malfunctioned you might see a stream of tear offs out the back window. I know of one owner who used to pay children a nickel a tear off they collected after the races, hmm.
Now that we had a dirt track lesson, let’s get back to the super exciting three and four wide racing, as heard on the officials’ radio, wow this is fun reminds me of Days of Thunder. Congratulations to the Sport Compacts, if you missed this race you missed a wonderful time! These drivers put on a great, GREAT race, they were three and four wide behind the leader, it did look like a race at Daytona International Speedway, the battle for first through tenth was pure fun, front wheel drive versus rear wheel drive, Ford versus Chevy versus Dodge, this rapidly growing class displayed great competition and as an added bonus, they were lined up ready for competition a whole race early!
Finally, let me close this week with a recap of the month. Your track staff has not been sitting idle during this time. We will have more announcements forthcoming of future events at the track, we are constantly striving to provide our fans the most entertainment for the money so watch for our press releases.
