DeJong, Eckrich, Vis, Anderson, Havel and Hayes Take Season Opening Wins at West Liberty

When your local track canceled their races this weekend due to the cold, wet and windy conditions, if you jumped on Facebook and said" you should be racing", or something similar to that, shame on you. I officially strip you of your "Race Fan" status on a temporary basis until you realize that the people who put on this sport for our pleasure, the drivers and the promoters, have to use common business sense in weather like this.

Yes, there are drivers and crews who are so excited to get the season started that they will come out to compete in cold and windy conditions, but I believe that they are outnumbered by those who sit back and look at the forecast for next weekend and say, "yea, I'll just sit this one out." If that wasn't true there would have been 250 cars at Marshalltown when they were the only show in Iowa on Friday night and there would have been more than the 74 cars that came out for the season opener here at the West Liberty Raceway on Saturday. Yes, there were 138 cars at Boone tonight, but with them being the only other show in the state tonight, some might consider that a bit low.

Knowing that the weather plays a role in who will come out to compete makes a weekend like this even more of a risk for the track promoters who have to make a wise business decision as to forge ahead, or wait for better days. A lot of work goes into presenting a race program at a dirt track and the track crew will be out in that cold and wind far longer than any brave fans who make the trip, and there is nothing more miserable than to put forth all of that effort only to lose money while freezing your ass off. Something that we all need to keep in mind is that we all live in the day and age of live streaming racing and if you don't think that the lure of watching a race from wherever in your easy chair isn't more tempting than bundling up and supporting your local track, then you really don't understand what I have been trying to say here for the past few years.

That brings me back to West Liberty. The Kile Motorsports Racing Events team including  Bud, Kurt, Katie and many others have taken on the challenge of bringing the West Liberty Raceway back to life in 2022 with eight nights of racing on the schedule. When that schedule was first announced, one would have had to question the season opener on April 16th, what with other season openers at Maquoketa and Independence as well as the Slocum 50 on the schedule just down the road at 34 Raceway for the same night. As it turned out, scheduling the opener for this weekend was a stroke of genius as with every other track in the region waving the surrender flag due to the cold and wind, the Kiles decided to give it a try as the "only show around".

It made sense too because a race fan like me knew that the big old covered grandstand would partially protect me from that persistent northwest wind and they knew that there is a level of excitement out there about bringing this track that is so rich in racing history back to a somewhat regular racing schedule. For me, it brought back memories of going to the annual Spring Championship where one year there were snow flurries in the air as I watched Curt Hansen, Ed Sanger, Mike Niffeneggar, Duane Steffe, Mel Morris, Gary Webb, Pokey West, Roger Dolan, Darrell Dake, Rollie Frink, Ken Walton, Dave Birkhofer, Tom Hearst and so many more put on a show that kept me warm though the night.

Now don't get me wrong, tonight's program was nothing like those old days, but on this night it would be names such as Eckrich, Bridge, DeJong, McKinney, Zogg, Schmitt, Anderson, Paris, Vis and Spaw that in twenty years I hope that I am still around to have fond memories about how they too kept me, and a pretty good sized crowd warm on a chilly night in April at the West Liberty Raceway. So let's give you the details!

A full moon rises over the back stretch

The Stock Cars would be the first feature to the track after the intermission lasted ten minutes, just as advertised. Michiah Hidelbaugh who had made the long pull in from Menlo would draw the pole with this year's Bristol champion Dustin Vis to his outside. Vis would blast out to the early lead before caution waved for Brock Haines on lap four and following the restart it didn't take long for Johnny Spaw to move to second after starting the 15-lap race from eighth.

Spaw would close to a couple of car lengths, but could not get any closer to the leader until the final lap when he made a run to the inside of Vis entering turn three. Dustin would shut the door though by driving into the corner a bit lower than he had been and he would take the win just ahead of his car builder Spaw. Hidlebaugh would follow them in for third followed by Matt Picray and Tom Cannon.

Only six of the ten Sport Compacts that had signed in for the evening would start the ten lap main event and it would be pole-sitter Alex Hayes that would go the distance for the dominating win. Michael Lundeen was a distant second while the remaining four cars waged an entertaining battle mid-race that saw Trent Lebarge finish third ahead of Colton Stewart and Ashton Blain.

Fifteen laps for the Sport Mods were up next and with defending All Iowa Points Champion Logan Anderson drawing the pole this one was pretty much decided at the drop of the green. Caution waved for Justin Schroeder who was coasting down the front stretch on lap two and, after Anderson had taken the white flag, Jefferson City, Missouri, visitor Matt Speiss would spin in turn two to produce something that I haven't seen in awhile. A yellow/checker finish of a feature race.

Nobody was going to touch Anderson anyway as he scored the win after racing the night before over five hours away in Osborn, Missouri. Shane Paris went the distance in second, Shaun Slaughter was making a bid for that runner up spot when the caution waved, Ryan Walker was fourth and Wisconsin visitor Skylar Woods took fifth.

The ten lap Hobby Stock feature would be the only main event of the night that saw a pass for the lead and it came with a nifty move on lap seven when Ryan Havel went high into turn one, kicked it off of the cushion and then drove under Randy Lamar at the exit of turn two. Lamer would stay close over the final three laps, but there was not stopping Havel who scored the victory. David Crimmins made the trip down from Dubuque to finish third, Cody Staley was fourth and when Jacob Floyd dropped out of the race late that would give fifth to James Pilkington.

Even with being the only Late Model show in Iowa on this night, just seven cars signed in and one of them made the long tow from Waverly, Nebraska. That would be Jake Bridge who drew the pole for the sixteen lap A-Main that would see the other row one starter Andy Eckrich cruise to a flag to flag victory. Bridge tried to keep it close early on, but in the closing laps he had to ward off Matt Ryan to finish second. In the battle for fourth Jacob Waterman would fight off Ron Boyse who kicked off his 50th year in racing. Kurt Stewart drove Nick Marolf's back up car to a sixth place run while Marolf retired mid-race while running fourth.

A stout field of Modifieds would close out the evening with twenty laps the distance around the fast half-mile with veteran driver Ray Cox Jr. on the pole and teenager Maguire DeJong to his outside. In this being his first race ever in a Modified, DeJong was lightning quick opening up a big lead over the rest of the field. Meanwhile, fourth row starters Brandon Schmitt and Mike McKinney, along with eleventh starting Chris Zogg were working their way through the field and when the caution waved for Charlie Mohr's spin in turn two on lap twelve, DeJong would have some heavy hitters now lined up directly behind him for the restart.

McKinney looked like he was trying to get into the kid's head a bit during the caution, but since he was in Timmy Current's #21T instead of his own UMP ride, and the fact that DeJong in his first Modified start probably had no idea who that was pulling alongside of him during the caution, the intimidation attempt had no effect. When the green flag returned DeJong was cruising the cushion like a veteran as he again pulled away to score his first feature win after stepping up from the Sport Mods. (Sunday morning update, Maguire absolutely knew that it was one of his heroes pulling alongside him during the caution. And then he drove away from him!)

McKinney and Zogg had a good battle going for second until the final lap when McKinney went too high in turn four. He then over corrected and came down the track giving Zogg no place to go and contact sent both cars spinning as the checkers waved over DeJong. That would hand second over to the Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, driver Brandon Schmitt, Kurt Kile would pick up third, Schmitt's teammate Dan Roedl would come from thirteenth to fourth while Ray Cox Jr. would complete the top five.

If it is a cold night at the race track there is nothing better than an efficiently run show and Race Director Larry Richardson delivered with the final checkers waving at 9:10 p.m. The covered grandstands did their job by blocking the wind and even though it was twenty-five degrees colder, I was more comfortable here than I was when the wind was blowing into our faces last Saturday night in Kansas. The next event on the schedule here at West Liberty is on Saturday May 7th and it would be a good bet that it will be much warmer than the 29 degrees that showed on my car's output as I left the parking lot. 

I consider 34 Raceway to be my "home track", but I grew up here at the West Liberty Raceway listening to the great Denny Wachs on the microphone. This past week his son Mitch resigned after 30 years of coaching the girls basketball teams at Winfield-Mt. Union high school with a stellar record of 412-288. I had the pleasure of doing the play-by-play of a few of those wins on KILJ radio and he is a classy man. Maybe now along with the fishing and golfing we can get Mitch back out to the dirt tracks as well.

Next up for me if the weather cooperates will be the season opener at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa on Wednesday night. Hope to see you there!

Growing up going to the races at West Liberty I thought that all race tracks were supposed to have trees in the infield

Berry's Return To Dominance, Whitt's First Career Win and a Murty Photo Finish Highlight Stuart's Frostbuster

After staying overnight in El Dorado, Kansas, Saturday night which just happens to be the hometown of the better half of my favorite race car driver/dj, we rode the stiff south wind up to Stuart on Sunday for the second and final event of a weather abbreviated IMCA Frostbuster schedule. Despite that only the Boone and Stuart races could overcome Mother Nature there was still an impressive group of travelers who made the trip to central Iowa to kick off the 2022 season.

Track owner and promoter Mike Van Genderen was still not confident that all of the frost had worked its way out of his track surface and in fact did not put any water on it until the day of the race in an effort to keep the holes and ruts from developing. He knew though that this would be a give and take situation as with sunny skies and that same whistling wind from the south temperatures soared into the upper seventies quickly sucking up any moisture that was being applied. As long as that wind would remain from the south it would keep the dust off of the nice crowd that had gathered in the warm late afternoon hours.

The track prep strategy played out well as far as getting a good hard smooth base, but as the wind shifted to a more westerly direction with an earlier than expected passage of a front, that dust was now challenging those fans to watch anything other than turns one and two as they shielded their eyes from both the sun and the dirt. That meant more than the normal amount of track touch ups required to keep the track racy and to make it enjoyable for the fans and when the sun was finally shaded by a bank of clouds approaching from the west, conditions were once again bearable despite the fact that the temperature was now dropping!

Enough with the weather report, the bottom line is that MVG always has both the fans and the drivers in mind as he orchestrates a racing program and I know that because he gives me the access to watch him in action. And on a night like last night, that access was truly appreciated.

Since I also used the term in my report from 81 Speedway I must do it here as well, the Show Killing Support Class of the night was the Outlaw Mini Mods. Van Genderen knew that the twenty-three entries could lead to mayhem on opening night with the mixture of very young drivers all the way up to racing veterans who have raced in other divisions over the years. Still he wanted to put them on the track as the first feature and I ribbed him that his decision may have had something to do with this being a school night and needing to get the kids home at a decent hour.

A seven car pileup in turn one on the initial start and then a hard rollover by Kaden Rice on the second try where the young driver thankfully climbed from the car uninjured were just the first of at least five stoppages and finally Lucas Daniels held off a late charge from Kamdyn Haggard to take the win. You can bet that if this class continues to race in this manner once the regular season opens here on Wednesday, April 20th, that they will drop down in the Class Order when it comes to feature time. 

The Sport Mod feature more than made up for the slow start provided by the Mini Mods as they went twenty laps non-stop with plenty of two, three and even four wide action along the way. Hamilton, Missouri driver Jace Whitt started fourth and captured the lead on the opening lap and then showed the consistency that a multi-time winner would display as a talented field of drivers, including two former All Iowa Points champions, gave chase. With lapped traffic just ahead, the white flag waved and Whitt closed out the flag-to-flag run to then announce in victory lane that this was his first ever feature win. You would have never known it without his confession as he did it on a big stage here at the Frostbuster holding off defending AIP champion Logan Anderson who finished second. Minnesota charger Tim Bergerson would take the third spot while the 2020 AIP champion Brayton Carter raced his way from twelfth to fourth. Jake Sachau would fill out the top five just ahead of Saturday's winner at Boone, Taylor Kuehl.

The Stock Cars are always a treat to watch here at Stuart and tonight was no different with Johnathon Logue leading the first two laps before Damon Murty sailed by on the outside. As Damon opened up a big advantage his son Dallon worked his way up from ninth to second and as lapped traffic loomed ahead Dallon was closing the gap.

A caution for Scott Bailey's spin down the back stretch saved Damon from having to deal with heavy lapped traffic, but it also put Dallon right on his bumper and the race was on. Two more cautions on laps eighteen and nineteen slowed the action, but the final six laps would be run under green flag conditions and the Murtys racing side-by-side. Dallon inched ahead at the stripe to lead with two laps to go only to have Dad battle back and coming to the checkers it would be a photo finish, or better yet a winner determined by the transponders and it would go to Damon by .007 seconds over Dallon. Troy Jeorvetz was right behind them in third, Logue came home fourth and Buck Schafroth took fifth.

The Sport Compacts were up next for fifteen laps and they would go non-stop as well with Kaden Murray driving around Michael Hotze on lap three and then holding off Kolby Sabin to take the win. Mitchell Bunch moved from his fifth row start to take third at the checkers followed by Hotze and Tyler Fiebelkorn.

Twenty-five laps of IMCA Modified action was up next and back in 2020 Tom Berry Jr. dominated the racing here at Stuart. Frankly he sort of disappeared here in 2021, but on Sunday night Berry made it clear that he was back, baby, as he executed a nasty slide job on Arkansas driver Brint Hartwick to take the lead on lap thirteen and then drove away from the field. As Berry was taking the white flag Spencer Hartwick slowed to a stop on the front stretch causing a caution which would put Brint back on the bumper of Berry, but also it would put Cayden Carter to the outside of that first double row.

Berry would again pull away over the final two laps to complete his dominating performance while both Carter and Boone winner Tim Ward would drop Brint Hartwick back to fourth at the checkers. Young Drew Janssen from Pella continues to show improvement as he closed out the top five.

The Hobby Stocks would close out the night for twenty laps and after the third caution of the race on lap ten we decided to hit the road for home at 9:35. Dylan Nelson had started fourth and taken the lead on the opening lap, and he appeared to be in control of this one helping to make our decision. Checking the results today I see that Nelson did take the win over Luke Ramsey, Brandon Cox, Solomon Bennett and Skylar Pruitt.

A big thanks to Mike Van Genderen for his hospitality and again I invite anybody who might be new at being the Race Director at his or her track to come and watch this man in action for a night to see how it is done. Yes, you can call me a "Fan Boy" if you want, he definitely spoils us all when it comes to going to tracks that are not quite up to speed.

The regular season kicks off here at Stuart on Wednesday April 20th and make sure that you check the schedule and get here at least once in 2022.

Up on the schedule this week is three nights of MLRA Late Model action with Thursday night in Davenport, while Friday and Saturday the series will headline the annual Slocum 50 weekend at 34 Raceway. Bundle up and get ready for some great racing action!

Getting ready for the drivers' meeting at Stuart

Johnny Scott Takes MLRA Finale at 81

With a temperature in the high 70's I was already tempted to make the trip, but then when the Saturday potion of the Darkside Spring Fling at Tipton was wiped out, the choice was made. We were going to hit the road to see the Lucas Oil MLRA Late Models at 81 Speedway near Wichita, Kansas. Not only would it allow us to escape the crappy weather here in Iowa, but it would also allow me to knock off my first "new to me" track of 2022. Former Modified racer John Allen now heads up the ownership group at 81 and having the chance to get to know John during the days when there was not yet a "T" in USMTS, it is no surprise that this speedway is on the rise.

This would be the second night of the season opening doubleheader for the MLRA with Bobby Pierce taking the win over a field of 39 on Friday night. On Saturday 36 Late Models returned and they were joined by 25 Stock Cars, 13 Mod Lites and a stellar field of 35 USRA Modifieds that had a USMTS show caliber. The sun was out and the temperature hit the 80 degree mark as we made our way to our seats, but a stiff wind blowing from turn two to turn four was consistent throughout and even picked up in velocity after sunset. Despite a valiant effort from Allen, Ryan Whitworth and the rest of the track crew who farmed the track three different times after racing action started, the wind just sucked the moisture out of the track and it made for challenging viewing conditions.

Their efforts did payoff though with a racing surface that was multi-grooved for most of the night and the large crowd was treated to some thrilling moves, especially in the Late Models. One of those came from Ryan Gustin who made a bonsai run at Tad Pospisil in the opening heat race to make the pass and take the win to earn the pole position for the 35-lap main event and he would be joined on the front row by Johnny Scott. It would be Scott who would nose ahead down the back stretch on the opening lap and he would then stretch it out to nearly a full straightaway by the mid-race point. It was then that he would have to start dealing with lapped traffic and that would bring Gustin, Terry Phillips and Pierce back into contention.

Our payoff for making the seven hour trip would come from lap nineteen to twenty-three as the top four drivers maneuvered through traffic with Gustin taking the lead not once, but twice only to have Scott come charging back to officially maintain the lead at the line. So while this story would say that Johnny Scott went flag-to-flag leading every lap to win $7,000, that would be a bit misleading. On Gustin's second moment up front, his left rear tire went flat exiting turn four allowing Scott to regain the point just before the caution waved and even though Johnny would now have a clear track in front of him, he also had the Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer Terry Phillips and the young gun Bobby Pierce paired up behind him.

Johnny Scott on his way to a heat race win - Mike Ruefer photo

On the restart, as Phillips and Pierce battled for second, Gordy Gundaker got a big run off of turn two to drive under both of them down the back stretch and then contact between Phillips and Pierce in turn three would send Phillips for a spin in four causing the rest of the field to stack up. It looked like the Wal Mart parking lot on Black Friday with cars pointing every which way and a couple of them stacked up on each other with defending series champion Tony Jackson Jr. being one of several that were eliminated in the melee.

Mike Ruefer photo

Once everything was cleared up it looked like Pierce and Gundaker would be ready to challenge Scott, but before the green would wave Bobby would duck into the pits with a flat right front tire. Finally when back to green Gundaker could not match the pace of Scott who then clicked off the final twelve laps unchallenged to take the win. Gundaker's runner-up finish started from sixth, Chad Simpson was third, Tad Pospisil was fourth and Chris Simpson came from thirteenth to take fifth. Assisted a bit by the carnage, Dustin Walker was the hard charger of the night using an emergency provisional to start twenty-sixth and paid it off with a sixth place finish. Daniel Hilsabeck was solid all night in seventh, Kaeden Cornell who started next two Walker in the final row advanced to eighth, Blair Nothdurft was ninth and rookie-of-the-year contender Kolby Vandenberg was tenth.

The first feature of the night, just before the Late Models, was a scheduled fifteen lapper for the Stock Cars and let's just say that they were the night's Show Killing Support Class. Perhaps an omen of things to come, one of the back markers spun in turn two before the green flag ever waved and on one of the many mid-race restarts, the middle of the field bunched up sending two cars spinning down the back stretch. So, counting those two unofficial stoppages, there were nine caution flags before the checkers waved over Clint Smith who had started from the pole and had to be wondering just what in the world was going on behind him. Brandon Conkwright made a nifty fourth to second move in turn three coming to the white flag splitting Joey Richmond and Tanner Thiel who finished thrd and fourth with A.J. Finch taking sixth. I know that this wasn't a weekly show, but here is a reminder of what should have been done with this dud in regard to a fifteen minute time limit.

Nearly half the crowd had left when the Modifieds came to the track for their twenty lap $2,450-to-win headliner and unfortunately the track had narrowed down quite a bit. Tanner Mullens raced out to a big lead after a lap three restart and when the caution waved again with five laps to go it was now midnight and we headed for the gates. Checking the results this morning it was Mullens taking the win over Rodney Sanders, Terry Phillips, Jacob Bleess and Tyler Davis.

A big thank you to Mike Ruefer who sent me the photos overnight and make sure that you check out Mike's work from the entire weekend at Dirt On Dirt.

Time to put this one up, grab a bite to eat and hit the road again for today's IMCA Frostbuster at the Stuart Speedway. Hope to see you there!

Kenny Fires 'Em Up

I could bitch some more about the weather, but I already did that nine days ago. I have a bunch of non-racing subjects that I could weigh in on, but I try to limit that to one a blog entry so check the end of this one. Before that though I want to touch on a subject that I have presented my views on often in the past and that is the proliferation of Pay Per View, or subscription streaming of short track racing. If you don't already know my views on this subject I am going to make you go hunting through the Back Stretch archives to find them, or you might be able to pick them up in a subtle manner as you work your way through today's entry.

Let's talk about Kenny Wallace and how one Facebook post followed by a series of videos that he posted on the subject on the XR dirt race brought in over 3,000 comments not to mention how many there were on YouTube as well.

First a bit of background. This was the second year of the Bristol Dirt Nationals on the streaming site XR and in the inaugural event hundreds of cars in each division showed up for their chance to compete in racing's true colosseum. It was a once in a lifetime opportunity, at least in 2021 they thought that was the case, to race on the dirt covered high banks at NASCAR's most famous short track. In fact, there might had been even more cars show up in the support classes last year if there had not been a limit on the number of entries accepted. Super Late Models would headline on Friday and Saturday with around fifty drivers showing up for the $50,000-to-win finale. The early spring weather in eastern Tennessee is unpredictable and with all of those grassroots drivers, many of them from right here in the Midwest competing for five nights, plus the top names in Late Model racing slugging it out for big money I am sure that the number of people who paid for the $39 a month subscription to watch was incredibly high. I will admit that I was one of them.

Maquire DeJong came up one spot short of defending his Bristol Sport Mod win from 2021

It must have been so high that this year there would be two weeks of racing on the dirt with one set of four support classes running the first week and another set racing on week two with the Late Models now geared up for four, count 'em FOUR $50,000-to-win main events, two of them each week. When Barry Braun's XR announced not only the return and expansion of the Bristol Dirt Nationals, but the full XR Super Series of high paying Late Model shows through the remainder of 2022, I figured that he would be playing on "house money" given the obvious success of last year's trip to Bristol.

That might be a good thing because you only have to look at the car counts from the past couple of weeks to see that competing at Bristol was the novelty that I assumed it would be. These are the numbers for the opening night of each division:

28 Hobby Stocks

41 Stock Cars

28 Sport Mods

22 Modifieds

7 602 Crate Late Models

37 Super Late Models (week 1)

7 Factory Stocks (A division that did not race here in 2021)

25 Open Modifieds

42 Street Stocks (A division that did not race here in 2021)

84 Hornets (The division that had some races cut due to weather in 2021)

7 604 Crate Late Models

30 Super Late Models (week 2) 

Other than the single digit classes, still plenty to put on a good show, but way, way less than the year before. And with fewer cars in the pits, there were fewer people in the stands as well although one must remember that even a few thousand fans would look lost in this arena that lists a capacity of 153,000. Last year when I watched the stream I could see a few fans in the stands. This year, while checking out the highlights, I can honestly say that I never caught a glimpse of anybody in the seats. Obviously the camera angle and the coverage can have a lot to do with that, but even when the drone was flying over the seats I never saw anybody. And that was likely what prompted Kenny Wallace to post this comment on Facebook:

I guess the BRISTOL MOTOR Speedway DIRT race (Experiment) with the .. "Greatest Super Late Model" drivers in the world is over? .. I think there was 100 people in the stands

I left out two little emojis which, I guess, could have changed the way you might read that statement, but it definitely lit a fuse as there are now more than 1,000 comments on that post. There was a wide range of views on the subject and I was impressed with how well thought out most of them were with several of my own Facebook friends making some great points. (I hang with a good crowd) I'm not sure if Kenny really read any of those though as the next morning he posted a video that just seemed to stoke the fire even more. 

First of all, for Wallace to call it an "experiment" makes me wonder if he didn't realize that this took place last year, but when he asked about why there were no people in the stands, that was really the true tell. That's when the reasons started to roll about the price of fuel, the weather was too cold, hotel rooms are too expensive and so on, and so on and that prompted Kenny to follow up with another video where he comes to the conclusion that more and more people are going to stay home "to watch dirt racing on their app".

Is he right about that? Could anybody have predicted that, say two or three years ago when this was all getting started? Hmmm

What could not have been imagined a couple of years ago was the fact that dirt track races would be scheduled and promoted as PPV or streaming events, with seemingly little concern about how many fans might actually show up. FloRacing's Dirt Night in America started it last year, although Mother Nature did her best to strike it down and the 2022 XR Super Series moves the needle all the way to full tilt. How else can you explain four straight nights of $25,000-to-win Super Late Model races at the Stuart Speedway that can seat at best around 800 people in it's modest central Iowa bleachers. Fill the place at thirty dollars a head all four nights and you still come up $4,000 short of paying just the winner's share of the purse! It's all about subscriptions and the sponsorship money that you can command for ads during the broadcast.

Even with nobody in the stands at Bristol, if XR sold enough subscriptions to watch online they probably broke even, or only gave back some of that "house money" from last year. But that's Bristol, in March, when not much else is going on in the sport. Is this business model sustainable? If it is, doesn't that spell doom with a capital "D" for the grassroots level of the sport?

When I discuss this with friends, or anybody else who wants to listen to an old man give his theories on a sport that he has watched evolve over the past fifty years, I use my home track 34 Raceway near Burlington, Iowa as my example. The track has a 305 Sprint Car division that runs weekly on Saturday nights and has a loyal group of open wheel fans who have been regulars for years. Now let's say that some of those fans pay their subscription to DirtVision, $39 a month where they can watch every World of Outlaws event live on their computers or casted to their big screen TV. Now on this particular Saturday night the Outlaws will be racing at Eldora and, since that fan has already spent his $39 for the month, he decides to stay home and watch the Outlaws instead of buying that ticket at 34.

Now let's say that he invites three of his buddies over to watch the Outlaws with him, friends that he normally sits with at 34, and now that's four less tickets sold at the local track not to mention the food and beer that this foursome goes through while in attendance.

Proponents of streaming live races always want to argue that real fans would never stay home and watch racing on TV instead of going to the race if they are able, BUT THEY ARE ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT THE SAME RACETHAT IS BEING STREAMED. They never seem to grasp the residual effect that I have illustrated above.

After being on Done Right TV last year, 34 Raceway announced this past week that all of their events except those that are already under broadcast rights (WoO, Lucas Oil) will be presented live on FloRacing for 2022. I guess that means that the four guys who stayed home to watch Eldora can also bounce over to Flo if they have paid their $150/year subscription to see how their favorite 305 driver is doing, but I wonder if the rights fees that the track receives makes up for that $50 to $60 loss at the gate and concession stands. Not that I have directly asked, but I have never had a promoter tell me how much they get for Rights Fees allowing their event to be presented on PPV. It must be pretty good since so many are now doing it.

But again I have to ask, is it a sustainable business model?

No doubt that the $150 subscription to Flo is one of the best entertainment values around. Looking ahead to next weekend, since several previously scheduled events for tonight and tomorrow have been canceled due to weather, there are 27 racing events that you can watch live from the comfort of your own home. Twenty-seven! And that's just on Flo, how many other PPV's are available on other services as well? Does this reach a point of over saturation at some point? A friend of mine who owns one of these outlets feels as though we have already reached that point, but since he is already invested in it he has to do what he can to try to stay at the top of the heap.

My favorite comment and reply on 34's FloRacing announcement came from Sue Trevitz who said "This is awesome now I can watch my nephew Ray Raker", to which Ray replied "I will make sure they have a camera on the back of the pack so you can watch me!"

Back to Kenny Wallace's Facebook posts, one of the replies came from top-notch announcer Eric Huenefeld who basically said we are giving people too many reasons NOT to go to the races. Who would have ever thought that it would have been making racing too accessible that could be the downfall of the sport?

Even though I could stay home this weekend and watch any number of races on PPV, instead I have rounded up three friends and we are going to do a 1,000 road trip to take in some live racing putting cash in the hands of two different track promoters. Is that a wise budget decision? Hell no, but it is what I have been doing for more than forty years and only old age is going to eventually stop me, not the ease and comfort of live stream races! 

I hope that you as a fan of short track racing, take on this attitude as well. Besides, as I have said here before, live stream racing puts me to sleep in a matter of minutes.

Now for that non-racing rant that I promised. I have a real problem with this discussion about forgiving student loans as I see it as a political party just trying to buy some votes rather than looking at this logically. My wife and I are among many parents who scrimped and saved for many years to be able to cover the costs of our children's education and I am even more impressed with those kids/adults who worked hard through school, made good financial decisions and have already paid off their education bills on their own. To forgive the student loans using tax dollars to make the lenders whole would be a slap to the face of so many who did it right in the first place.

In some cases the person holding the debt is at blame, but I put this more on the colleges and universities that have raised tuition exponentially over the years knowing that the federal government would just keep backing larger and larger loans to pay those bills. And then, once the student earns their degree, they find out that the jobs that it will get them do not pay enough to even make a dent in their debt.

That's why I loved the suggestion made this week by David VanCamp on the Markley, VanCamp and Robbins show. Add them to your podcast list! He said that Congress should pass a law where a person who wants their student loan forgiven would apply for that right, and the school that this person went to would then be responsible for paying back the lender out of their endowment. But here's the kicker, the student would also have to surrender their degree or certification since they have deemed it worthless.

Puts the responsibility where it should be, on the student and the school rather than on the taxpayer.

Brilliant!

Now get on out there and support your local dirt track, IN PERSON! I will be looking for you from the Back Stretch.