Monday, March 26, 2012

Leaving Texas.

I was amazed by the empty seats at Bristol. I’ve been to Bristol and saw seats go for $450! The racing’s good. Brad Keselowski won. It was good to see the Blue Duece back in Victory Lane. Two of my favorite drivers, Rusty Wallace and Kurt Busch both sat in the Blue Dueses and won races in it. There’s no doubt that Keselowski’s got talent and since Karl gave him the little ride, he seems to have respect for everybody too.

Cowtown Speedway opened with the POWRi Midgets and had 64 midgets. I think that’s an absolute awesome turnout. Dave Darland picked up the $5000 win. Boyd opened with 100+ cars, RPM was in the 90s, and a good bunch to start at Mountain Creek Speedway took care of the Friday night racing in the Dallas Metroplex.

I’m gonna miss the Texas racing. This weekend you’ve got a big show at 281 Speedway at Stephensville… IMCA spring opener. There’s an ASCS Spring Nationals at Devil’s Bowl. Last Saturday night there was 100+ cars at Superbowl Speedway in Greenville. Grayson County doesn’t open ‘til April the 7th.

The target date for the move is April 1st for Sharyl and May 1st for all our furniture and me. My grandkids are excited. Keifer says, “There’ll be a LOT more sprint car races for me this year!!” I’ll be less than 5 miles from Lexi and we can do afternoon swims at Lytle Park Pool. I rode my bike 16 miles from Sullivan to Lytel Park several times each summer from the time I was 12 ’til the time I was 16 and got me some wheels.

Talked to Buddy Haimes and Heidi. Buddy used to drive for me in the Mopar Magic car at Macon. Heidi’s won the track championship a couple of times there. They came down to Dallas and stayed with us. And they said Heidi’s not driving this year. Said they’re going to concentrate on business and just go to the races for relaxation. I’ll bet anybody two tickets to Macon that Heidi’s in a car by the end of June. Any takers?

Lonnie Hastings told me that Jared Webb was gonna retire. And I’ll take the same bet on two tickets that Jared’s in a car by June!

Strong bonds have this sport on all of us. Bryan Chase joined us from Pennsylvania. Covered the Modified Race of Champions at Selinsgrove. Not only is he a shooter, check his pictures out, but he’s a writer too. Check out ChaseFX on the Writer’s Page. Charity Price just came on board from Diamond Park Speedway. She’s going to help us there and at some of the tracks in Arkansas and around the area. She’ll be Diamond Parks regular track photographer this year.

Back on the first paragraph about the empty seats at Bristol. We all think they’re a bunch of arrogant jerks. But we’re kinda a reverse prejudice in our own little world. And we need those guys to be healthy to help fuel our sport at the bottom too. To go from a $450 seat in a five-years to half empty. I really don’t understand why. We have more coverage and more exposure…. Aaahhhh could it be the same thing as when the Midgets overexposed their self after WWII?? Every town had a Midget track. You could go to midgets 6 nights a week in my home area in Illinois. I don’t know if that’s the reason. But I don’t like seeing any track half empty.

Now at our end of the sport in the short track, when a track goes down, 90% of the time, you can blame it on the promoter. And whether its true or not, when you switch the promoter, people come back to the races. TV ratings are up for NASCAR, and maybe that’s all that counts to them.



LuvRacinRog

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