It is Friday race day here in the Midwest and with a chance of scattered thunderstorms in the area race fans will be checking the radar before heading out to their favorite track. One track that is already canceled for tonight though is the Farley Speedway, and in fact the entire weekly program has been "suspended" for the remainder of the 2018. Not sure if I would use the word suspended as in some definitions for it the term "temporary" is used. I am under the impression that the weekly program has been canceled for the season.
The Farley Speedway Promotions team rocked the eastern Iowa Late Model scene last December when they announced a rules package similar to the SLMR rules in eastern Nebraska and as incentive the guaranteed a $20,000+ points fund for the division in a December 1st press release. The rules change package didn't catch on like many thought it would though as outside of one of the track owners himself and Tyler Bruening who appears to have sold off his IMCA motors, a scan of the race results through the first three nights of weekly racing shows no other "open" Late Model drivers who were there to take advantage of the change. I really thought that you would see some of the guys who only race when the open shows come into the area jump at the chance to race on Fridays close to home and I thought that you might even see some northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin guys pop in from time to time as well.
Mother Nature certainly didn't help the track get off to a good start in 2018 and she definitely gave the track a black eye with this year's first attempt to run the Super Modified Weekend. You can bet that they now wish that they had just canceled it on Thursday based upon the foul forecast and rescheduled for October, because even now the promotional team is being scrutinized for how they are going to handle the resumption of the show.
We have all heard the old saying, "How do you make a million dollars as a race promoter? You start with ten million!" Whether you have a lot to start with or not, nobody likes to lose money especially when you are not having fun doing so and I have to think that this factors in greatly to this sudden announcement. Do these guys have the capital to keep running this place at a loss? Absolutely, but why would they do so when their character, business sense and reputation are all called into question in a public manner on a daily basis? Does that mean that I am saying that Social Media is the reason that the track is shutting down its weekly operation? Absolutely not, but it sure does seem to speed up the process of promoters like these saying you know what, we've had enough. We tried to do something that we believed in and it is just not working so we are done.
I had that same feeling when Larry Kemp and I tried to run a weekly Wednesday night show at the Lee County All Star Speedway in 1992. With $18,000 down the drain and a few drivers complaining about how we had handled some issues that weather had created we said that enough is enough not far into the season as well. So yes, tracks did shut down before the onset of social media which seems to be the rallying cry from at least one well known and active internet troll. The problem is that he has had to take that stance way too many times here recently and you would think that he might start considering the other side of the argument.
The FSP crew have not completely thrown in the towel, the special events remaining on the schedule will go on as planned and despite the failed experiment thus far I am still excited to see how the new Late Model rules package will work at this year's Yankee. I am still hoping to see some drivers pull in from UMP land, WISSOTA country, perhaps southern Missouri and the SLMR cars from Nebraska as well joining the IMCA cars for what should be a great show. There are questions still to be answered though. What about that point fund and will current point leader Tyler Bruening still have a guaranteed spot in the SLMR main event during the Saturday show at the Knoxville Late Model Nationals? What about Dubuque, will weekly racing continue there for the remainder of the season? The track will be hosting a Fan Appreciation Night this Sunday with half-price admission and half-price concessions, but beyond that? The answer might be in the lease agreement with the fair board if there is a clause stating that a minimum number of shows must be run. And how will this effect Independence, the only other non-FSP track that adopted the new set of Late Model rules? It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few weeks.
One thing is for certain, somebody is saying "I told you so" in Vinton today.
Unfortunately there have been other similar announcements in the area recently. Tony Izzo Jr. canceled his big two-day Lucas Oil Late Model show for last weekend days in advance stating that he needed to take some time to regroup. I was told that the MLRA show held a few weeks back at LaSalle was very poorly attended and I now wonder how well the show that he recently promoted at the 141 Speedway in Wisconsin went. Perhaps our dairy state correspondent David Schlise can give us a report on that one. Also, Phil Cowell's attempt to revive weekly racing at the Paducah International Raceway has been "suspended" along with the other track that he promoted the Tennessee National Raceway. The car counts at Paducah just were not there and that is too big of a track to make a six or seven car field look entertaining.
In one bit of good news though Bobby Lincoln was able to complete the purchase of the US 30 Speedway last month and bring the track in Columbus, Nebraska, back to life after it looked like it might be gone for 2018. The Thursday May 24th weekly opener not only had a packed pit area, but a near capacity crowd as well.
A couple of noteworthy victories from this past weekend. Stock Car driver Abe Huls made the decision to make the nearly four hour tow from Carthage, Illinois, to Winston, Missouri, where he won the main event in his first appearance at the I-35 Speedway. Young Jonathan Brauns made the trip from his shop in Muscatine over to the Sycamore Speedway just west of the Chicago metro area where he was the winner of the Late Model feature over a solid field of sixteen Saturday. See, some of these guys were who I thought might race on Friday nights at Farley.
For the second time this season I made a Wednesday evening drive toward Osakloosa only to turn around between Ottumwa and Eddyville due to rain wiping out the races before they could get started. In both cases I was listening to Jeremy Fox do his pre-race radio show on KBOE 104.9 FM and the thought crossed my mind that it had to be one of the toughest positions for a race announcer to be in. A line of storms is obviously approaching, you can see it on radar and you know that there is no way in hell that they are going to miss the track, yet you have to continue to promote the night's races as if the skies will part and all will go on as scheduled. Foxman's voice did not waiver a bit as he said that yes, the skies do look ominous, but come on out to the Southern Iowa Speedway where plenty of seats are available. During his interview with the night's guest announcer Jerry Mackey the two of them were interrupted with the emergency alert system tones and the announcement of a severe thunderstorm warning for the county just north of Osky for a storm that was moving south at 35 miles per hour. Once back on the air, the show must go on and the interview continued still looking ahead to a night of racing that was obviously doomed.
Jeremy, you were doing your job young man and I salute you for it! I have to wonder if it was a bit like this as he was wrapping up the broadcast.
I did learn from the show that a night of racing has been added to the schedule at Osky as the four weekly classes will race on Tuesday night July 17th during the Southern Iowa Fair. The following night the USMTS Modifieds along with USRA Iron Man Stock Cars and B-Mods will be in action on the big half-mile.
No racing for me tonight as my daughter and son-in-law have made the trip in from Michigan for the evening to attend a wedding on Saturday. That will give me the opportunity though to head on over to the Knoxville Raceway where the USAC Sprint Cars will be in action. Hope to see you on the Back Stretch!
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