It has been awhile since I sat down and actually written anything here on the Back Stretch so now that I have a few minutes here on the final day of 2014, let's see what I have in the notebook.
Several of the friends that I enjoy sitting with in the stands at assorted tracks regularly participate in Ron Hedger's "Super Fan" contest and after coming across Mr. Hedger's reminder to send in those entries this week I submitted my 66-race total for 2014. This will probably be about 70 off of the pace of our good friend Ed Reichert, but perhaps it will still make the top ten for the "pro" division.
I have spent the past couple of weeks working my way through the two nights of racing from the World Finals at Charlotte's Dirt Track. CBS Sports Network aired the Friday night program on December 14th and the Saturday night activities on December 21st with each night nicely edited into a three-hour program featuring the World of Outlaw Sprint Cars and Late Models plus the DIRT big block Modifieds. The broadcast was very nicely done showing all of the heats for the Sprints and Late Models, most of the last chance races and of course the feature events in all three divisions. I have never been much of a fan of watching dirt racing on TV, or the computer for that manner, but this effort might be bringing me around a bit. There wasn't the rapid fire switching of camera positions that we see from broadcasts of the other national Late Model series and while it was still obvious that the three booth commentators were laying in their words in the production studio rather than doing it live it was nowhere near as Stoutly annoying as the other brand.
How can you tell that the announcing was dubbed in at a later date? On the Friday night broadcast the sound editor messed up and had the announcers hootin' and hollerin' about a slide job for position that had happened at least five seconds earlier. It was rather comical to be able to back it up on the DVR and listen to it a few more times before continuing on. All in all it was grade A effort though by CBSSN and my buddy Tony Bokhoven did all of his stuff live and in person as the pitside and victory lane reporter. If you didn't catch them the first time, check your listings as I believe both nights will be shown again a few more times in January.
Congratulations to my good friend Ryan Clark who is the new Executive Secretary at IMCA. I could not think of anybody who would be better prepared to try to fill the shoes of Rick Haefner who has retired after more than 25 years in the position. Ryan had no idea that he would be considered for this job before he stepped away from being the track announcer at Independence at the end of the 2014 season, a move that he made in order to have more flexibility in his schedule. Well guess what Ryan, you will be going to some more races than you may have originally been planning on go forward, but I am sure that you will welcome that opportunity! Ryan represents racing well, so it only follows that he will represent IMCA well also.
In the IMCA press release announcing his new position they mentioned that Ryan was the author of the popular blog "In Staging", although they somehow neglected to mention where that blog can be found so we will help you out with that here. Of course with his new job any writing that Ryan does will be for his employer and therefore you might not see much activity going forward In Staging, but Ryan knows that the venue is still there if and when he wants to share his fantastic statistics from both Independence and Vinton, of if he ever wants to wax poetically about the sport once again.
I look forward to seeing you often in 2015 my friend!
With that I will once again put out my plea for anybody who might be interested in having a blog linked here at Positively Racing to contact me by sending a comment on this entry. We are especially interested in getting some writers from northern and western Iowa, so if you would like to join the team just let us know. I will want to see some examples of your work though. :)
The 2015 schedule is taking shape and there are several things to be excited about. An early start in Memphis; a Thursday Frostbuster in Vinton; the debut of the National Sprint League at 34 Raceway in early April; an April Thursday MARS Late Model show at East Moline with the series crossing the river to Davenport on Friday night before heading south to Burlington for the 10th Annual Slocum 50 on Saturday; two MLRA shows at Donnellson; All Star Sprints at West Liberty in late July followed closely by twin $10,000-to-win MLRA shows at Farley and West Liberty; two weeks of Sprint Car heaven at Knoxville; a Labor Day weekend Liberty 100.......just to name a few! Make sure that you check the Calendar page regularly as schedules continue to take shape.
So that's it for 2014, I do hope that you had a good year and that you are anticipating better things in 2015. No matter what you are facing, a positive attitude makes each day better. And with that I leave you with this, a throwback to my old "funky days" that were so long ago.....Happy New Year!!
No comments:
Post a Comment