You are 100% correct dirty-white-boy! I believe all the negativity came from those who had no intention of going and needed an excuse? So-let the bashing begin!
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You are 100% correct dirty-white-boy! I believe all the negativity came from those who had no intention of going and needed an excuse? So-let the bashing begin!
Totally agree dirty-white-boy. The racing Friday night wasn't that good and Davenport even pointed out in Victory Lane Sat night how happy he was with the promoters listening to the drivers to stop completely re-prepping the track after every race nearly. I left Friday night thinking, okay, this is just a novelty show so I can say I went and it was really cool to see Super Lates zipping around Bristol on dirt.
The racing on Saturday though was WAY better throughout the whole day. The little battle between Bloomer and Larson in their heat race was exciting. Kyle Bush's drive through the filed in his B-Main. One more lap and he would have had a tussle with ole Guard Rail............I mean GR. A lot of people don't like K. Bush, but man they're were a LOT cheering around me for him during that B main. Would have been interesting to see how a tussle between him and GR went. Then the main was awesome. Thought Fergy was going to run away with a clean sweep but then Larson ran him down and got by. Bloomer was clearly fast as he was firing up right away on restarts. He and Larson had a tight race for a few laps. I didn't even notice that Davenport had been moving up from 10th until he blew by bloomer and Larson like they were sitting still. Certainly not a boring race at all.
As a racer in a support division class I will say that we did feel like an 'act in the circus'. That being said, to try and run that many races and cars, moving them in and out, rain, etc. was a huge undertaking that I do not feel comfortable throwing rocks at them. I knew going in it was a crap shoot, we had fun and rolled the car in the trailer on its own Saturday night. I will pass my 'advise' on to them and they can do what they want with it... Also A+ to Mr. Carlton and crew, made tech straightforward and easy.
First time I EVER paid to watch a dirt track race in my life.... 22 seasons of racing before hanging it up after the 2015 season.
Id do it again.
If I could suggest anything it would be dont limit the 602 class entries, and run that class every other race... wow talk about junking a lot of cars.
I also think super lates should have a tire rule, one tire. It would make for closer racing.......
When I was there Friday and I saw the car count for the late models , 42 and about 5 with any chance at all of winning I was pretty heated. The racing Friday night didn't warm my mood on a cold night. I declared the event an epic, total failure. Maybe I would have been less upset had they NOT advertised over 100 SLM entries.
Saturday, I got there as the late model heats rolled out. I was pretty dang shocked by the size of the crowd to be totally honest with you. The racing was a little bit better, then there was that fist fight in turn 1, right in front of me between an very angry, Austin Holcombe and some other guy in the modified last chance race and the hooks chucking those guys.... I don't know how many people were there but they were all really riled up.... Then the Stock Stocker boys went out there and put on 4 break neck epic B features in front of the biggest darn crowd that I have ever seen at a dirt track race, including Eldora not limited to a guy missing the feature by about 2 feet in a 71 Dart with a Chrome rear bumper. This btw showed me that the NASCAR races will be entertaining... So that part was a success.
Kyle Busch runs the B main and gets in (twice). Johnny Huck makes the $50k A-Main... NASCAR fans that came to see Elliot and Larson saw something. What they saw, was a bunch of anonymous dudes that race in the middle of nowhere, in front of nobody putting on a show in front of the kind of crowd that I wish every track got. As a dude that eats sleeps and breathes weekly racing, I loved that. Everybody that made it to Saturday Night deserved that. So that part was definitely a success.
I don't see this race returning with Supers headlining. Because as I stated before, there wasn't gonna be any upset special at that joint and they would be LUCKY to get 20 cars next time. Sanctioned or not, even a good regional car is a lapper on that race track.
Was it a success? I dunno. I had a good time.
FWIW the incident with the cars stopped in the modified heat, is on a guy I know a little bit's YouTube Channel GavinHunyady187 with incar because he got caught up in it.... Go search it on YT, you'll find it.
There you go, That's the incident video. Gavin's a decent fella, watch it all for him. That and I don't remember exactly where in there the wreck is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OM3Pu2IkGEo
It was a success to this guy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYdx3enOyRs
With the one driver suffering broken ribs and a collapsed lung, im sure the lawyers are lining up!
Lets hope that one big mistake doesnt make the promoters gun shy about doing it again!
Things they got right:
Entertaining, good media, lots of track prep equipment, track was good, impressive wrecker crew, kept things moving.
Things that need improved:
Too much track prep that wasn't necessary and ultimately wasted everyone's time, too many fees, poor to no response to email or phone calls, need to see what can be done to make the top faster or slow the bottom down so there is more two groove racing, cut out the hornet's and 602 crates, tell the 604 guys to get their schitt together if they want to come back because no one wants to see crashing every 2 laps, pay the stock cars more because they put on the best show.
As a spectator , Overall job well done. As a racer I have no desire to be a part of the carnage or sit there all week and race a few times spending big money to be a part of it. I think the car count will be down if they don't address this.
It's pretty obvious the promoter did well. Big crowd, lots of cars and out passes over multiple days. The vendors all said they did well.
Super latest did have a tire rule you could run a 1350 or a 1600 but with the speed/ loads and the surface being on the abrasive side at times. Tire prep was as big a deal as ever most of the guys that had speed through out the weekend hit the prep right. And by prep I mean cutting and siping