Sprints+ for CIRF

[over4T]

Marysville Raceway Park in CA last night was the first in the state to defy the state's directives during this Corona thing. The Guv's plenty ticked off at Yuba County (MRP's location), Modoc County and a couple of others that are opening up without permission and is thinking of possibly withholding state and national disaster funds from them.

The race ran without spectators and did pretty good on the car counts considering the show was announced only two days earlier. There were 23 winged 360 Sprints, including many of the region's best, 6 non wing crate Sprints, a class that's struggled to get going for a couple of years without success, 23 Sport Mods and over 20 Hobby Stocks.

The 360 main was pretty much a 2-4 lap stop and go crash fest with a lot of yellows and a couple of reds (usually for flips). Silver Dollar Speedway's recently announced driver of the decade, Sean Becker, only lasted 3 laps. The region's other, arguably, best in class Andy Forsberg pretty much dominated the race until falling out with 3 to go (flip?) leaving the win to D. J. Netto. Between Andy and Sean there are a ton of wins, track championships, Civil War championships and on and on. Both have been in Sprints since the '90s. In short, if there's a 360 or 410 show of any esteem in NorCal they're to be reckoned with. The 360s are very strong out here and there's many very good people in the class.

The Crate Sprint main was won by Brett Youngman from my town of Grass Valley He's been in the lower buck sprint classes for years and is, what some would call, a journeyman. He started in our long closed track at G.V. in the Hobby cars.

The Sport Mods started 3 or 4 years ago in these parts and have had tremendous growth and popularity with there reliable, cheap 602 engines and rear suspension that is much less complex than the A Mods. They started out with very low purses and a lot of guys saw them as a much less expensive alternative to the A's. The large fields and, now, pretty good $ purses still feature the slam bang racing that the crowds like. Their main was the usual expected drawn out affair. Son of a friend led the whole thing until 2 laps from the end, bummer for Jason.

The Hobby Stocks ran an exuberant main with a lot of action. Was rooting for another young son of a friend who won his first heat last night then started on the pole for the main. Sadly it wasn't to be as he got taken out on the second lap. Don't be bummed Jacob. You've got a lot of racing ahead of you. Another race with a ton of yellows dragged this last main of the night out till around 11:40 p.m.

Best info I can give you on the action CIRF as I was just following along on Race Monitor and trying to "interpret" what all the long stops and starts were for. Crummy track? Over enthusiastic drivers? New car bugs?
Not enough tow trucks? Opening night miseries? All of the above? Five hour show is longer than I care to be there if we're not racing but I'm sure those who were enjoyed getting to turn a wheel.

[CIRF]

Thanks a ton for the concise rundown of the activities. Do you double as a race journalist? You're actually pretty good.

I am quite surprised that the authorities didn't stop this from happening. To have that many cars on hand participating took some fairly extensive networking and planning.

Was this event available for purchase in the form of an internet PPV. It it was I missed it. I worked pretty late last night but the west coast events naturally run late in the Midwest.

Last night St. Francois County Raceway held an event featuring winged 410's as the headliner. Some fairly heavy hitters were in action there, too. Missouri is allowing racing to be held with many restrictive safeguards and in addition the USAC National Midgets will be racing near Tulsa on May 22nd & 23rd. The promoter is limiting ticket sales to comply with social distancing guidelines. We have close friends in Tulsa who we stay with during The Chili Bowl who could have procured a couple of the limited ticket supply for us. They suggested that we make the trip to Tulsa for this deal but my work obligations may have interfered and we didn't take the chance. Since many of the USAC National Midget teams are based in and near Indiana it will be interesting to see what the car count will be. There are some who would rather not travel during this time.

[over4T]

Appreciate the kind words CIRF but it won't change my hat size.

Yes to the race journalist question. Had many articles in the racing papers of yesteryear, Racing Wheels, Hawkeye Racing News, NSSN, etc. Was on school papers in high school and college...that was always an easy A for me. Wrote a novel the summer I was 14 that was ok considering my age but really didn't have a clue about how to get published. Started a second novel while at Kent State, way before the school got infamous with the shootings, but it never got finished when I left Ohio for Ca. CA had too many pretty girls, hot rods, pretty girls, surfing and, did I mention girls(?) to distract me.

First journalism teacher I had told me to keep personal opinions and biases out of reporting and I've always tried to do that with race reports and never blame a crash with someone's name attached to it, no matter how dumb the move was. Even on forums I try to stay out of the blame game.

Wrote extensively for the now all but dead Saturday Night Racer web site for several years. Race reports, scheduling stuff and anything that would promote circle track racing, primarily for the Super/Pro Stocks and Dirt Late Models. Lots of keyboard stuff at 2 or 3 a.m. when we'd get home after a race on a Friday, then a couple of hours sleep and back to repeat on Saturday. Was often pleasantly surprised when someone came up to me at a track and said they read my stuff and that they liked that I described the race, didn't just do the usual Joe won, Bill was second results. Saturday Night Racer is still up if you're ever hard up enough for something to read. There's a couple of thousands of my scribblings on there.

To answer your question about PPV for the Marysville race, yes there was on speedshifttv. I posted that on the Hoseheads sprint car forum but not on here.

It's raining here and I got word yesterday that we'll be running a spectatorless race at Antioch Speedwy (the track in CA not the one in Carolina) on June 6 so it's out to the shop to try to get the new car finished in time for that. Lots to do yet. Have a nice day.

[CIRF]

over, I'm not anything that resembles a journalism critic but I kinda' had a feeling that you're style and quality of content wasn't just an coincidence. You do a nice job.

As you've no doubt gathered while reading posts on other sections of the board no racing is being allowed in Illinois. Judging by what I've read posted by a couple of promoters of 2 of the higher profile tracks in the state it's going to be at least mid June to early July.

I'm a bit surprised that California is allowing short track racing at some venue's. From time to time I keep track of what's going on at Ventura and Perris and their websites show a basic wait and see policy. Perris just cancelled a scheduled USAC/CRA event that was to be run the Saturday night prior to the Indy 500, which was no surprise.

I'm curious as to whether or not Marysville was able to break even and if they're planning on any more non spectator events?

As I posted in this section earlier, Indiana Midget Week is set to go with spectator restrictions. Since all IMW venues are at minimum 3 1/2 hours from us we will probably take the camper over there for at least a couple of those shows. Of course that is contingent upon whether the Indiana State guidelines allow for camping and we can get tickets. I don't think we want to stay at a motel.

Best of luck with all of your racing exploits this season, over4T. Keep us posted on how things are going as the season progresses.

Sure hope this virus crisis doesn't have long lasting effects on racing and travel. We REALLY want to get back out to the left coast for some family time and racing!

[over4T]

CIRF, It sounds like Illinois is in worse shape than Cal as far as the possibility of seeing much, if any, racing this season and that's a shame. It's long been a favorite with me as far as just spectating. Been to several of your tracks as a watcher and a couple as a racer, the latter many years ago. Unfortunate that FALS has been on my bucket list for years and unlikely to be erased this year.

Good that Indiana isn't too far away and, as you well know, that's certainly one of , if not the, best in the country for your favored open wheel classes. Raced at a few back when I spent a year working near Fort Wayne on a tire factory addition for BFG. Always enjoyed the Midgets with the diversity they had and the little bullets were very entertaining.

California is treading very cautiously towards having racing and most of the tracks are tippy toeing around it. We've already lost half of our season at Silver Dollar, all of it at Marysville due to our class being dropped. The Winged Super Stocks I don't think are run anywhere else in the country and were a blast to drive and the crowd loved them. Most of our 12 race Tour season is also gone with the likelihood of only getting a couple more shows in late in the season to go with the 2 we had in Jan/Feb. That's a real shame; a lot of people worked very hard to get this thing going, the purses were good and the racers showed more enthusiasm and optimism for the class than I've seen in years.

Evolution marches on and they will be dinosaurs along with the Jalopies, Wedge Dirt Late Models and, unfortunately probably soon, the Silver Crown cars.

Re Marysville: The race was a big success as far as car counts while buckwise I'm not sure. Don't what the Speedshifttv deal brought in or how the split for that goes but at $25 a pop it could be ok. Pits were a flat $40 per head and my son and daughter-in-law went and said the pits were full. No spectators of course. MRP said the purse would be cut in half with no grandstands, concessions, etc. That meant the 360 Sprints raced for $750 to win instead of their usual $1,500. Sport Mods were cut from $500 to $250, Hobbies from $150? to $85, Crate Sprints I don't recall but it's very low as they only get 4-6 cars. Since most of these back gate oriented modern tracks count on the pits to bring in 40-60% of the purse I would think they came out pretty well.

The racers were surprised to come out much better than they'd thought, with the exception of the 360s. A lot of sponsors and many fans kicked in bucks to up the purses. Brent told me the Sport Mod winner ended up with over $1,500, the Hobby winner something like $800 and , again, don't know about the Crate Sprints. The 360 purse only went up a tiny bit, with few bucks donated to them. While the 360 Sprints are very popular out here, it's common knowledge that at all the tracks they're the highest paid and still constantly lobby for more while the support classes rarely can even cover expenses. Right or wrong it's nice to see the lower classes that usually lack serious sponsor money have a good night.

Got to get out and check on the geese. Our annual migratory pair of Canadian geese had 5 babies April 30 and I've been enjoying watching Mother and Poppa Goose teach them the ropes but haven't seen them for 2 days and hope the mountain lion that got our favorite goat a few weeks ago hasn't returned. Later.

[CIRF]

Glad to hear that Marysville was a relative success. It's amazing how fans are kicking in bucks toward the purses.

The promoter at Fairbury in on record as saying their biggest late model race that is run in July is a go at this point. I've been hoping that Late Model Mark would weigh in on what, if any, racing activity is taking place in his neck of the woods.

Fairbury is just about everything that is said about it. I've been going there since I was a child and it's been top notch since the first time I was ever there. You most likely will not be disappointed.

over, you hit a hot button in my world when you mention the USAC Silver Crown division. I believe SC cars to be the most beautiful race cars man has ever designed and built. One of the most beautiful and fastest ever to race was owned by a gentleman from your general neck of the woods. The gentleman I speak of is Junior Kurtz. Sadly, Mr. Kurtz passed away a few years ago. He owned the #30 Plastic Express driven by the incomparable Rim Rider Chuck Gurney! That car won the 100 miler at The Springfield Mile 4 or 5 times. Gurney was dam near unbeatable in The Springfield Mile in that car! If and when they do away with the Silver Crown division I will need anti-depressants. We only get to see the SC cars on the mile tracks twice a year now that the Indy Mile is gone and I look forward to those two races like an 8 year old looks forward to Christmas Morning!

Get that car ready to win some races, over!

Stay safe and healthy!