Tuesday, March 3, 2015

Moffitt, State Fair and Extended Forecasts

Hey, how about Iowa's own Brett Moffitt wheeling the #55 Aaron's Dream Machine to an 8th-place finish in Atlanta on Sunday? The 22-year-old will turn the keys back over to Brian Vickers now and return to his regular ride on the K&N East Series, but you can bet that this performance definitely made his name much more recognizable to car owners throughout the NASCAR garage. As the Limited Modified Champion in 2007 when he turned fifteen-years-old late in the season, Moffitt now officially holds the record as having the best NASCAR Cup Series finish ever among drivers who were All Iowa Points champions. Here's hoping that he gets a chance to improve upon that soon!

There has been a lot of disappointment in the racing community regarding the decision by the Iowa State Fair to hold a Carrie Underwood concert this year on the Monday that is traditionally the night when the Deery Brothers Summer Series entertains the fair crowd. This announcement has led to people saying that race fans should speak with their dollars and not attend the Fair, among other similar ideas that, in my opinion at least make absolutely no sense if we as race drivers and fans still want to keep racing in Des Moines on a regular basis. You are fooling yourself if you don't think that 12,000 people will still pay the $$$ to see one of the hottest stars of country music whether there is a single race fan within that attendance total or not and perhaps you should take it on good faith that this is just an economical decision rather than "the first step to bring racing to an end FOREVER!!!" as some will tell you.

I kind of like Carrie Underwood's music and I really like watching her sing it, if you know what I mean, so I am not comfortable with tagging her as part of a conspiracy theory to end our sport at the state fairgrounds.

As I tried to express on one of the racing forums this afternoon, instead of threatening to boycott the State Fair perhaps those same people would be better off to make sure that they, and a few of their friends, make a point of attending some more of the weekly races that are held at the same facility every Friday night beginning on April 17th. After all, if the fair board ever sees that grandstand even close to half full for a regular race night again, maybe then they would think twice about scheduling a concert over a dirt track race.

I am always amazed at how much stock people put into long range weather forecasts. Honestly, I think it has proven out that you can only trust something two to three hours out rather than a day or two in advance and others still believe what a weather site's forecast will say more than a week in advance. To illustrate just how much these change with each of my entries here on the Back Stretch until these dates actually arrive I am going give you the "at the minute forceast" for these dates and locations as I anticipate a couple of early season events that I plan to attend. It will be interesting to see how much these change over time.

Beatrice, Nebraska, Friday March 13th - Turning Cloudy and 62

Donnellson, Iowa, Saturday March 28th - Cloudy with a little rain and 49

Burlington, Iowa April 11th - Mostly Sunny and 56

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