Today's plan was to be giving you the story from either the Deery Brothers Summer Series in Columbus Junction or the USMTS show in Oskaloosa, but the 20% chance of rain yesterday came through with a vengeance and wiped out both events. So instead I will go to the Notebook today to give you my thoughts on the Grundy County Speedway and to provide a specific example of how times have changed with the onslaught of social media.
Returning from three days in Washington DC for business last Friday night my flight arrived at Midway in Chicago just before 8 p.m. and with the Grundy County Speedway in Morris just off my route home I decided to stop in and see if I could catch some feature racing. The 3/8-mile paved oval sits on the Grundy County Fairgrounds just a mile or two north of I-80 and the grandstands were much bigger than I remembered from my only other visit here back in the mid-1980's. Pulling into the parking lot it was obvious that a nice crowd was on hand and I was fortunate enough to find one open spot near the gate so that I could hustle in just past 9:30 and the Super Late Models were coming up for a lap eight restart in their thirty lap main event.
I was in my dress clothes, slacks a buttoned down long sleeve shirt and dress shoes, and if this were a dirt track I would have taken the time to change once I retrieved my luggage at the airport. No worries about dust here though and as I looked around at the part of the large crowd near where I had found a seat I noticed several families with two, three or more children. It was definitely a younger crowd in general than what I have been seeing at the other tracks that I attend and I have to wonder if the paved surface, no dust, and the muffled engines, less noise, had something to do with that. Then again, it could just be a regional demographic difference, something that will need more input before coming to a conclusion.
The track is reasonably wide with moderate banking and, like most paved tracks, the preferred line is right around the bottom. If a driver was challenging for position, he or she was always trying to get a nose under the car in front and, if the challenger could get underneath, the driver had little or no chance of holding the position once up into that second lane. I have been to a few paved tracks where the outside line can even be used for passing, Slinger, LaCrosse and I-44 Lebanon to name a few, but most are like what you will find here at Grundy County and that is why I will always prefer dirt, however I do enjoy my occasional trips to "the tar tracks" as my friend Warren calls them.
Not only was the crowd large last Friday night, they were involved as well cheering loudly as their favorites made their move and with each driver that visited victory lane there was a big round of applause. Their involvement wasn't because the announcer was hyping them up, in fact he was quite subdued often going for long periods of time without saying word. No complaints here as it was obvious that this event wasn't being live streamed out so that others could watch on a computer and need a constant description of the action. To give you a comparison of the crowd involvement I would have to refer you to the Benton County Speedway in Vinton, perhaps the most "involved" crowd that you will find anywhere when it comes to cheering for their favorites and jeering those who aren't.
So back to the racing, the Super Late Models were the second feature of the night as I missed the Four Cylinders. Only ten cars were on hand tonight and two of them had retired to the pits by the lap eight restart with Nathan Kelly leading them back to green. As Kelly eased away the battle for second was a good one as Eddie Hoffman tried to fight off a couple of challengers, but he would eventually fade to fourth leaving David Einhaus and Keith Tolf to finish second and third. It would be Kelly's first win ever in a Super Late Model and during his interview he said that there were probably a lot of people who up until then thought that he should go back to driving a Street Stock.
Fourteen Mid-American Sportsman cars were up next for twenty-five laps that saw Aaron Shelton make his way to the front and score the win. Shelton was one driver who did show that the wide way around could work as Luke Baldwin finished second and Cody Clubb who also races a dirt car on Saturday nights in Fairbury finished third. Ten Street Stocks would close out the evening with Randy Weese taking the win.
A check of the results shows that the Four Cylinders had sixteen cars so the four division total was 50 proving that you don't need a huge car count to draw a good crowd as long as you are presenting a good show. One of the things that they do at the pavement tracks that I would like to see on dirt is the manner in which they set the lineups for restarts. When the caution waves, scorers put the cars into the proper single file order, just as they do on dirt, and when the lineup is set the "cone of commission" is placed on the front stretch. At both Slinger and here at Grundy County this cone is even sponsored, giving a local business a nice opportunity for some regular name mentions each race night and as the cars go past it the driver much choose whether he or she will restart on the inside, or the outside.
At Slinger it was a full double file restart, so even the leader had to pick a line, but here at Grundy the leader would start out front and the field would double up behind just like we see on dirt. BUT, if the low line is the place to be on this night, you might see the second, third and fourth place drivers all choose the bottom allowing the fifth place car to say "okay I'll give the top a try" from the outside of the first double row.
One of the things that I don't like about the Delaware double file restarts on dirt is that we give the second place driver a choice of high or low, but if he chooses the high line we still "force" the driver in fourth to start down low even though that likely gives the fifth place car, and the seventh, and the ninth, and the eleventh, etc. the advantage if the high side is the dominant groove.
If I recall correctly, this is something that Cam Granger and the Corn Belt Clash did for awhile, but I would love to see a dirt track give this a try for all divisions as it adds to the strategy for each driver and it is also interesting for the fans to watch as each driver chooses a line.
The final checkers waved just before 10:30 p.m. and I was back on the road for home, more than ready to get back to dirt, but still open to another pavement event late in 2019.
So that brings us to a point that I want to make about social media and how it has changed not only our sport, but our society as a whole. Let's go back to, let's say, 1985 where a driver and his crew go to a track that has been struggling with the weather recently, but on this night the sun is high and both the drivers and the fans are happy to finally be back at the race track. Our featured driver is in the second heat race of the night and even though he finishes second in that heat, when he returns to the pits he tells his crew that the track is pretty rough and that he is concerned about his equipment getting torn up later in the feature. The driver and his crew decide to take a wait and see attitude and if the track is still rough come feature time he will tell the officials that he would like to start at the rear where he will make one lap under green before pulling to the pits so that he can collect his $50 start money and put the car on the trailer in one piece before looking forward to next week.
Seems like a pretty reasonable and mature way to handle it, but now let's move ahead to 2019 with the same scenario.
First of all, before the race night the driver announces to his tens of followers that he will be in competition at XYZ Speedway on Saturday night. Okay, so that's not a bad thing, in fact it is actually helping to promote the event that the driver is intending, however it apparently is also giving the driver the feeling that he is somehow responsible for his followers who now actually go to the event. Why do I believe that? Well, it is the only way for me to rationalize what happens on race night.
Same scenario, second heat race of the night, finishes second on a rough race track and when he returns to the pits this is what happens. He gets on Facebook and announces that due to the rough track My Racing Team will be loading up and leaving XYZ Speedway immediately, stating that no drivers should be expected to race under such terrible conditions. He and his crew then load up and head for home, hopefully without any kind of tow money check especially if the promoter found out that this was how the driver handled the situation.
I'm old, so maybe I just don't get it, but what was the point of doing that? Did this driver expect that all of his fans would also pack up their stuff in the stands and leave immediately as well? Does this type of one-to-one immediate communication help the sport at all? Wouldn't he have been better off financially from handling the situation like the driver from 1985? I know that he wouldn't have lost my respect if he had handled it like they did before social media. I just don't get it.
As it turned out the track conditions improved as the night went on and as far as I can tell not one other driver either complained, or even did the ol' "start and park", so hopefully none of this driver's tens of fans joined him in leaving or they too would have missed out on their ten bucks worth.
A good friend of mine who works in racing told me the other night that at this point he could care less if he went to another race this season due to all of the crap that is spewed on Facebook and other social media and I must say that the bashing has ticked up a notch over the past week. That is just sad.
I have given up on trying to get people to stop doing that and this is why. Because I believe that if you are a regular reader of the Back Stretch, especially taking the time today just to read through another Notebook of thoughts and observations, you are already a GOOD race fan. Not someone who is going to go on Facebook and bash a track or a driver, so there is no need for me to plead with you to stay positive.
Instead I will ask you to do this if you are a fan or even a promoter. Just ignore it, let the negative narcissistic know-it-alls continue to do what they do, but if you don't read it then it cannot have a negative effect on how you enjoy the sport.
That's my plan, and it will probably be tested right away as several promoters have made the decision to cancel their races for this weekend due to the excessive heat. Some tracks are still racing though so either way you should respect each promoter's decision and if you want to go racing this weekend, you might have to drive a bit further than usual, but you still can.
I already had other non-racing plans for the weekend so my next event will be next Wednesday July 24th when the Sprint Invaders return to the Dubuque County Fair for another crack at the 3/8-mile high banks and with the Knoxville Nationals coming up you just never know who will be in the area and looking to race. Californian Dominic Scelzi has won there each of the past two years, so perhaps we will see you there!
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