My Thoughts-WoO-Talladega
Hard to know where to start, here goes with some random thoughts from the booth.
I had personally seen in the weeks before this race what an effort this race was and a risk. So many details. The weather dudes had predicted doom and gloom for Friday but a nice Saturday. I rolled into the track about 4:30 to start my night announcing. At that moment I felt a vibe like none before at TST. The camping area was booming, there was a cool vendor row just like when the WoO sprints were in town on March 24.
The parking lot was quite full and building. The stands had a lot of fans already. In my view this was feeling like a big event, it was. 62 Supers, 34 Sprints and 22 Modifieds in the pits, the back gate this night was huge. The crowd friday was off the hook good. You need a great night #1 in hoped of breaking even.
Weather during the week made track prep not so easy as this was also only race #3 on brand new dirt of which we are learning how to prep this richer and darker red clay. Sure it got rough, happens, lots of character. It made for some wild time trials (Larson..OMG) and heats that were pretty good. The light 8pm rain shower gave us a chance to bust out the graders and tracktors time to fix things. Due to the large car count TST opened their wallets and had a 3rd $4k-to-win, $700-to-start features, not 2 but 3. Track got better thru out the night till the rain came in about 10:45 and stopped action for the night.
Saturday.....frigin killer folks. The largest crowd in the history of TST! Place was packed out like I have never scene. This night felt even more electric. Track was great come feature time and the Super race was the hands down best at TST in many a moon. Ol Bobby put on a show from 14th, there was passing galore thru the field. Sprints put on 2 great features too.
I was a very proud member of TST as this race was a huge risk and Adam and the TST staff pulled it off. Many folks thanked us and stated that if this race would continue it could become a jewel. The 2024 race was renewed too. This can and I believe will be the premiere race in the South for years to come.
This truly felt like a "national" event, a big event! TST was rockin. I thank everybody, it was off the chain good.
Late Model Mark
TST Announcer
