Catchy title, huh? The answer is pretty basic really in that they can both draw Social Security, but hang with me here for a bit and you'll see why today's Back Stretch is titled as such.
Despite my common sense telling me differently, I have found myself caught up in a few interesting threads on the Iowastockcars.com Iowa Dirt Racing Forum. Some of you might say "hey, I thought you hate internet forums, so why would you be participating on them?" Without going into detail, I don't "hate" internet forums, they are for the most part a valuable source of information and can be a good place for responsible people to discuss both sides of an issue. What I do hate is when an internet poster, who is often an AWP, makes a blanket statement that makes the assumption that everybody is in agreement, or when someone posts something that is absolutely false. That's when I say to myself "aww crap" and I log in and get involved. There was one subject this week that saw an example of each.
The Knoxville Late Model Nationals is on the horizon and first of all it is amazing to me how the attitude toward this event has changed over the years. I remember back when the event started and how the chatter of the forum boards was surprisingly negative talking about how a track that focuses so much on sprint cars will never be able to put on a first class Late Model show and how the qualifying format will never work since the "big name" drivers will never want to race with full inverts. It seemed like everybody wanted to predict failure before the first green flag waved. Fast forward to present day and I am happy to see that the event has now become one that Late Model fans mark on their calendar each year and speak of very positively on the forum boards.
Over the years the Late Model Nationals have had support classes such as the Dirt Trucks and the 305 Sprints and have had nights where there was no support class. Last year, for the first time, IMCA Modifieds were included as a support class on an invitation-only basis and while I love the Modifieds, and thought that it was nice to be able to see them on the big half-mile once again last year, for this event to me they were a support class that was not necessary esepecially on the qualifying nights. And when they had a couple of lengthy cautions during the Thursday night show I started thinking that maybe it would have been nice if they had not been included since they were then making the show grow longer before my two hour drive home. So this past week when I saw a thread titled KNOXVILLE SUPPORT CLASS I just had to look.
"Does anyone know what,if any,support class will run on Thursday and Friday at Knoxville LM Nationals? IMCA type Modifieds by invitation will run on Saturday night like last year. It would be a shame not to have some support class run on Thursday and Friday---fans will feel cheated."
So there it was, a classic "blanket statement" post stating that fans will feel cheated if there is no support class on Thursday or Friday. Not "some" fans will feel cheated, not "many" fans will cheated, not even the most appropriate "I" will feel cheated, but instead the assertion that everybody feels the same way and that it would be a shame if Knoxville cheats all of the fans coming to this event by NOT having a support class on Thursday and Friday. So I, ol' melmorris32, had the honor of making the first response of "This fan won't feel cheated."
It was no surprise that Papa-Mac answered in a similar manner as did a few more, but because there was another active post going on about the addition of the Sport Compacts to the event at Marshalltown this weekend, that argument spilled over to this one and the next thing you know it was twisted around where those of us who perhaps felt that a support class was not needed were all of a sudden against Modifieds in general, that Knoxville didn't care about anything but Sprinters despite the fact that they are once again presenting the highest paying Late Model show anywhere next week and then somehow it became a pissing match between the IMCA Super Nationals and the Knoxville Nationals.
Then came the absolutely false statement. "Yeah Knoxville pays out huge money at the Sprint Car Nationals...and they are going bankrupt."
I couldn't stay away from that one. But since I have responded to false statements made by this individual two times before only to have him come back with a personal attack on my announcing skills the first time, and the second time on why I reported something factual about a confrontation between a driver and a flagman in my blog (one of the known risks of an internet disagreement between someone who has identified themself and someone who has not), I decided to take a different route this time around. So I simply pulled his quote and typed "?".
The next post by Kendirt summed it up perfectly stating "Facts are not important. This is the internet after all" and was reminiscent of the old saying that "it doesn't matter if it is true as long as it is interesting!" But it didn't stop there as the poster then tried to support his position by saying "This has been discussed before on here. Several people said Knoxville has been losing a lot of money the last couple years from this event. Isn't the head guy at Knoxville stepping down? There's a reason for that."
This was disturbing to me on two counts. First is that it supports my theory that a lot of people who read these forums believe that everything that is said on them has some level of truth behind it with "this has been discussed here before." And second that this statement was being made by someone who obviously knows VERY little, or absolutely nothing about the Knoxville Raceway with "isn't the head guy at Knoxville stepping down? There's a reason for that." I just had to respond to that and again, instead of being argumentative I went with "Um, because he's in his late 70's?"
And that my friends is when the inspiration for the title of this entry of the Back Stretch was given with perhaps one of the most mind-boggling analogies that I have ever seen as his response.
"Hey look at Hugh Hefner. You don't see him retiring do you."
There ya go Cappy, if they want you to stick around for another couple of years demand that they surround you with some Playboy bunnies up in the Press Box on race night. I know that Bill W would support that demand. I will be up every night next year to help Bill check in cars, fill in for Tony when he is out doing his TV gigs or to be in charge of keeping the window from fogging over, anything to be in that Press Box!
Would this drastic piece of misinformation gone unchecked if I would have stayed out of the mix? Of course not, our old friend Speedbump would have cleaned it up with facts, but in this case the falsehood of the statement that Knoxville was going bankrupt was so obvious that it was easy to shoot it down. How much other stuff like this goes unchecked and is allowed to fester until it eventually becomes accepted as truth and damages a track's or a person's reputation? Unfortunately this happens more than many forum board users will admit, so while I will once again tell myself to stay off of them and to instead use this venue, the Back Stretch, to support the sport as best that I can, don't be surprised if I just can't help myself again soon!
While I am once again discussing antics on the forum board I need to hopefully close the book on a blog entry from a couple of weeks ago titled "The Internet Promoters Are Getting An Early Start". This one took an interesting turn as it started to become obvious that the AWP who had started the thread was perhaps a second user name for one of Iowastockcars.com's most infamous users who cannot be considered an AWP since the "A" for Anonymous cannot be applied. The mysterious thread-starter made one last effort to keep the thread rolling this week only to see that he was only having a conversation with himself now. RIP dirtyskull.
Okay, enough talking about the internet, it is time to get back out to the race track and I am looking forward to doing that tonight as the MOWA 410 Sprint Cars return to the facility that kicked off their inaugural season in fine fashion back in April. The weather looks like it will be perfect for the sprints to tour the high-banks of 34 Raceway near Burlington tonight and the show will be supported by Stock Cars and Four Cylinders. If I don't see you there I do hope that it is because you are out attending another event of your choice!
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