It is a "link and comment" day here on the Back Stretch.....
Found this video on Facebook this morning showing a crash that first tears one Late Model in half and then goes to another that catches on fire after getting hung up on the infield barrier. Yes, the accident is spectacular and thankfully nobody was injued, but as you watch the first minute and forty seconds of the video see if you think the same thing that I do. Many people feel that online videos help a race track by providing exposure and encouraging future attendance by those who see it. As you watch these Late Models race single file around the bottom of a narrow rubbered-up surface are you thinking "now there's some action that I just have to see in person"?
Next we step away from racing for a moment for a story that supports how I feel about "the need" to make everything public in an instant. I am not a huge supporter of Kirk Ferentz as a coach as I feel that the style of play in college football has evolved and he is still years behind that evolution, but I do respect his character and his values. And I definitely agree that those interviews where they grab the coach either going into, or coming out of the locker room at halftime are a complete waste of time. Kudos as well to author Mike Hlas who closes out the story with the perfect ending: "Football games are already reality shows. ripe with successes, failures, agony and ecstasy. Leave the phony nonsense for the “Real” Housewives."
With Brady Smith announcing his retirement from dirt Late Model racing this week right on the heels of Brian Birkhofer doing the same, there are some folks who want to see this as just the beginning of a mass exodus from the sport. In both cases the cost of racing is given as a major reason for the decision, but with each there were some other major factors that played a role as well. I don't know who 'huskerdirt' is, but I do find him to be a voice of reason on the forum and he makes some really good points in this thread.
We all know that the cost of racing has gone up, but when that assertion is followed by "and we are still racing for the same purses that we had thirty years ago" that's where you lose me. Thirty years ago guys weren't towing their cars to the track in quarter of a million dollar rigs with no markings on the outside that would give anybody any indication that this was a race car heading to a race track that is racing tonight. Thirty years ago we didn't split up seventy drivers from the area into five or six divisions leaving each with only enough cars to run one or two meaningless heat races and a feature that doesn't come close to having a full field. No, back then those seventy drivers were across two or at most three divisions so that meant that every race meant something. You had to qualify out of your heat or a B-Main to make a twenty or twenty-four car feature field and those "purses" were actually less in total than they are today because you were only paying two or three feature winners. Nobody was getting $250 to top a seven car field of "entry level" cars that only family members would pay to see. And finally, in part due to some of these things that I just mentioned, thirty years ago two thousand people would happily spend their money to come to the races every Saturday night to watch.....the races!
If drivers want to race for better purses than those before them did thirty years ago perhaps they should quit pissing and moaning about their local track on Facebook and Twitter and instead start pumping the place up. More butts in the stands produces more revenue for the track and in turn higher purses for the drivers. Is it really that hard to understand?
Two great shows coming up here in my neck of the woods this weekend with the rescheduled Liberty 100 at West Liberty and the Fall Extravaganza at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. With different formats at each of these two day shows, if I am able to go Friday night it will be to Donnellson and if my race night is Saturday night then I will head to West Liberty. Who knows, maybe I will get to do both!
Still some racing to be had on the schedule, get out and enjoy one!
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