Both events are being offered on a Pay Per View basis and since you don't have your local track to go to this weekend or next anyway I encourage you to check them out. Dirt on Dirt provides spectacular coverage of the Wild West Shootout and you can even get a free preview tonight as they will show practice beginning at 7 p.m. Central. Chet Christner and his crew at SpeedShiftTv will provide the coverage from the Ice Bowl and while their website shows a time of 7 p.m. each day I am pretty show that both shows are matinees.
It looks like we are going to get in on that warming trend as well this week and a January thaw is what we need as we start to look ahead to the early season special events here in the Midwest. Remember when the IMCA Frostbusters used to be the first shows up in this area? Not anymore! A schedule update has been sent out to the Webmistress and she should have it posted soon on the Calendar page at Positively Racing and even that has changed a bit when it was announced yesterday that the Frostbusters would be pushed back a week beginning on Wednesday April 4th at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. The show then moves to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton on Thursday before wrapping up at Marshalltown and Boone on Friday and Saturday.Speaking of IMCA the perceived "war" with the USRA continues and the current battlefield is the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City. Long an IMCA sanctioned weekly facility the track has been operated by the fair board the past few years with a hired promoter, however the plans for the 2018 season have been up in the air. Apparently the fair board has an opportunity to hire former promoter Al Uhrhammer to serve as the race director for the upcoming season and remain IMCA sanction, but they also now have a proposal from USRA's Todd Staley who would lease the facility and promote weekly racing at his hometown track.
Before I continue I want you to know that I have had the honor of working with both gentlemen, Uhrhammer was extremely supportive of the NKF Tour during its four year run within his tenure as promoter at Webster City and I have announced shows for Staley several times over the years, so I respect them both and if either one of them run the track in 2018 I would anticipate success. The way I see this though is not a question of IMCA or USRA, but instead what role the fair board wants to have when it comes to the weekly racing at its facility.
Going back fifteen or twenty years, unless I am mistaken the only facility that I can recall that was being run by a fair board and its race committee with a paid employee running the show was the Knoxville Raceway and, let's face it, they were doing it quite successfully with Ralph Capitani leading the way. Most of the rest of the fairgrounds tracks were being leased by race promoters who were paying the fees that were agreed upon to the fair board and then running the racing at their own risk. The inherent problem with this was that if a promoter was successful when it came time to renew the agreement, the fair board could always ask for more and on the flip side if the promoter was struggling the board would often refuse to settle for less. That is why it amazed me when Lynn Richard was able to secure a thirty year transferable lease when he and Mike Barton brought the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson back to life in the early '90s, hell of a businessman, but I digress.
Over the past ten years or so, following the downturn in 2008, the "offers" from race promoters to fair boards became few and far between so rather than having the racing shut down at their tracks several fair boards stepped up, formed a race committee and then either appointed or hired someone to put on the show and serve as the promoter. This proved to be a successful new way of doing things, but one of the problems with doing this involves that word "committee". If Cappy were alive today I would bet that he would tell you that is not always easy to work with a group of people all with different ideas and theories on the best way to promote a race track. Seldom, if ever, do they all agree on something and that can quickly cause dissension in the ranks leading to even more issues. Plus, I am quite naive on the subject, but I have to wonder just how a fair board handles a financial loss. I have been told that if a fair board loses money in a promotion, whether it is with racing, a concert or something else that they must secure a loan to cover that loss and that a board member or members must personally co-sign the loan? If that is truly the case I have to wonder why anybody would do that.
Fast forward to today and we are now seeing some of these fair board promoted tracks in limbo. Yes, there are still success stories. All you have to do is look at the signage at the Lee County Speedway to see the support that it has from the surrounding community, something that a fair run facility probably has an advantage with over a promoter who would lease the place, and they have a well respected race director in Mike Van Genderen. The same can be said for what is going on fifty miles to the north where Larry Richardson has the C.J. Speedway at the Louisa County fairgrounds on the upswing after his first year at the helm in 2017. The same cannot be said for Oskaloosa though where the fair board, after taking the risk themselves for the past several seasons are now waiting for a proposal from someone else and the direction of the Hamilton County Speedway now depends upon this. Does the fair board want to continue to be in the business of promoting races, or do they want to go back to how this all worked for decades before? The result of last night's meeting was that they will accept proposals until January 15th and then they will decide. Stay tuned.
Things are tough at privately owned tracks as well, especially in Oklahoma where two gorgeous modern facilities, Outlaw Motor Speedway and Longdale Speedway, will be idle in 2018 and now the Flint Creek Speedway is up for sale as well.
The Lake Ozark Speedway has decided to make a change from their original plans in regard to the divisions that will compete on Fridays and Saturdays this coming season. The Friday show will now feature the A Mods, B-Mods, Pure Stocks and Hornets while the Saturday programs will have the "big tires" with the 360 Winged Sprints, the ULMA Late Models, the Racesaver 305 Sprints and the Street Stocks.
Arizona Sport Shirts has signed a five year agreement to produce all of the apparel for Scott Bloomquist so look for some great artwork and color separation from my friends Dusty and Clay Kemp among the other talented folks at Arizona.
Bobby Pierce has announced that he will chase the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Sreies in 2018, no surprise since that is where the Dunn Benson team has been since the beginning while the World of Outlaws added three more names to their roster this week in Rusty Schlenk, Chris Ferguson and Colton Flinner. It will be the first run at a national series for Schlenk who won his second UMP National Championship in 2017 while it will be the second time that Ferguson stated this intention as he abandoned his plans after Speed Weeks in 2016. Flinner has shown improvement, but still had a long way to go to be a contender on the Lucas series the past two years so he will see if that experience now pays off with the Outlaws.
That's it for today, gotta run, heading to the capital city to catch the Prince Experience tonight. We're gonna party like it's 1999......back when everything didn't hurt so much!
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