Thank Yous And Other Thoughts

The 61st Knoxville Nationals are now in the books and after a few days of reflection I wanted to follow up with some Thank Yous and Thoughts. 

First of all I want to thank the people that make my annual week or two in Knoxville so much fun and that starts with the Johnsons, Barry Stephanie and Aidan who have been allowing me to invade their home for more than twenty years now during these two race weeks. With their home being on the southwest edge of Pella it allows me to escape the hoopla and get some much needed rest, while being close enough to make it just a fifteen minute trip to and from the race track. Barry and I can talk racing for twenty-four hours straight while Steph and Aidan are always leaving something yummy on the counter for either a late night snack or a morning treat. Plus this year, with my son Morgan and his wife Em expecting my fourth grandson any day now, they welcomed in my nephew Nick Woodley for a couple of nights even though they had never met him before. As always, thank you so much for your hospitality!

It is a given that I am going to gain a few pounds during Knoxville, with Steph's Blueberry Buckle and Aidan's Brownies, but then it is impossible to stop eating when Keith Nachbor is grilling at the camper just outside of the track. The man is a wizard on the grill and I have been sitting in Section I with he and his brother Jeff for as long as I can remember. I have had a once a year opportunity to watch three of their boys become fine young men and Sean, Sam and Ethan were great hosts as well giving Nick the "younger generation" view of the Nationals. There is no place I would rather be than with this crew when it becomes "race time in the valley!" Thank you to the Nachbors for making me a part of your family every August.

I am so fortunate to be friends with another wizard on the grill and don't be surprised if you are ever at a Sprint Car race and have a gravelly voiced man say "come on over here and eat with us!" Jack Donlan is known to do just that with strangers and as Nick and I were enjoying one of his perfect steaks and luscious baked potatoes on Saturday afternoon, one of the other guests was telling us that this was just how he had met Jack down at the World Finals in Charlotte. I have had the pleasure of knowing Jack as a racer, a flagman and a Grillmaster, but most important of all as a friend and I always look forward to swapping stories with him.

Finally, I want to again mention the Credentials team at the Knoxville Raceway. I first noted Angie Uitermarkt in my story from the Thursday opener of the 360 Nationals and I can guarantee you that the smile and friendly attitude carried all the way through to Saturday night's finale. Angie, Kellie and everybody with the Knoxville Raceway were the perfect hosts for this old "media" man again this year and I hope that they know just how much everything was appreciated!

It was a very interesting week of racing that if you read many of the posts on social media, you would be lead to believe that the event is in need of a huge overhaul. Not so fast my friend! You will not find a more fan friendly format anywhere in racing that still results in the top drivers ending up on the podium at the end of the weekend. Donny Schatz won for the eleventh time with the 2019 champion David Gravel and perhaps the week's fastest car driven by Logan Schuchart in third. It is hard to argue with those results, but many will and I will admit that I have suggested one tweak in the system to consider going forward.

I ask that you read my story from Wednesday's opener that I had posted before noon on Thursday to get the full details, but the luck of the pill draw for the qualifying order for each night has become way too important in the process. Take Tasker Phillips as an example. On Thursday night he is the third car out to qualify where he sets the quick time for the night. In his heat race Tasker moves from eighth to sixth, two positions shy of a transfer to the feature, so with his quick time he starts on the pole of the B-Main. He drops to third at the checkers of that one, still good enough to start him 23rd for the main event where he advances to eighteenth at the finish. Under the current system this performance is the feel good story of the week, enhanced by the wild battle that he had with defending champion Kyle Larson for that second spot in the B-Main, and while I am happy for Tasker that he was able to qualify for Saturday night's championship race, I can't help to feel that it was all made possible by one good pill draw.

Many people blame the eight car invert for the heat races and they are lobbying for a change to six. In my opinion that will only exasperate the issue as then a top driver who draws late in the qualifying order will have to muster a lap that lands in the top thirty rather than the top forty in order to have a chance to recover points in the main event. Ask Brian Brown or Kerry Madsen how easy that is, and thank goodness for the Hard Knox Friday Night format change that was brought about just a few years ago!

I believe that my suggestion of running one lap in the qualifying order that was determined by the draw, awarding 100 points for quick time with one point increments, and then running another lap on the clock in the reverse order and awarding 100 points for the fast lap in that round with one point increments is the best way to mitigate the "luck of the draw" when it comes to such an important part of the point accumulation process. 

Would drivers accept a "pill draw" for their starting positions in a heat race? Hell no, but in a roundabout way they are doing just that in the current system. I can't remember if it was Jeff or Keith who said that drivers used to want go out from 15th to 20th in qualifying because the track used to start out greasy, then get fast before dropping off in speed toward the end. Over the past several years, if you aren't one of the first ten cars on the track for qualifying, you have no chance of earning 200 points in this segment of the process and that just seems like something that needs to be adjusted.

When you read that story from Wednesday night you will see that I was spot on when it came to three predictions. And, since I am rarely correct when it comes to making predictions, I am damn well going to call your attention to all of them now! 

First the easy one, you will see that I correctly picked Donny Schatz as Saturday night's winner after he came from a fourth row start to finish in second on Sunday at the Capitani Classic and then repeated that performance during Wednesday's qualifying night. This showed the strength of the #15 and with his obvious experience in achieving success here at the biggest Sprint Car race in the world, there was little doubt in my mind who would take the win. It was nice to see that his first win here since 2017 was met with substantially more cheers than the boo birds that dominated the second half of his run of ten championships.

I was also correct in predicting that only six of Wednesday's point totals would be among the sixteen drivers to lock in for Saturday's A-Main and I even speculated that Logan Schuchart would become the first qualifying night feature winner that would fail to lock into the Knoxville Nationals Championship race through qualifying. You heard it here first Back Stretch readers as that tidbit of trivia seemed to be slow to circulate with one media outlet finally stating late on Friday night that "it has been confirmed".

On Friday afternoon as I was giving Nick the tour of the grounds and letting him know what to watch for in his first ever visit to Knoxville, we went to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum where Schuchart and David Gravel were two of the four drivers signing autographs at a table in front of the replica of Bob Trostle's garage. I told them that my nephew was here for the first time so as they signed their cards for him I noted that David had won the Nationals here in 2019 and that Logan had won on both Sunday and Wednesday, but that he was the first qualifying night winner to not make it to the A-Main with his point total. Schuchart immediately looked up at me in disbelief, then turned to Gravel and said, "is that true?" David chuckled and said "yea Dude!" giving my nephew yet another cool story to tell from his first trip to the Knoxville Nationals.

Was he hooked after two nights? Absolutely and how could he not be with great racing, new friends, fantastic food and cold beer? Sounds like the perfect combination for a twenty-five-year-old bachelor and he definitely wants to come back in 2023 to experience it with his cousin Morgan in attendance as well. Nicky has already checked the schedule at what would be his "home track", the Creek County Speedway in Sapulpa, Oklahoma, to see that the ASCS Sooner Region will be there on Friday August 26th where he will be trying to get his Dad hooked on the sport as well. Thank you for making the trip in Nicky, it was a pleasure to introduce you to this great event!

On Saturday it was interesting to see a few fans wearing shirts that said "Anybody But Larson" on them. Of course they were vastly outnumbered by those who had purchased the Yung $$$ Knoxville Nationals version of the Kyle Larson shirts, topped only by the number of different Rico Abreu apparel that I saw throughout the week.

Larson's next venture, the High Limit Sprint Car Series presented by FloRacing will provide its appetizer tonight from the Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana, and it will be interesting to see who is in the field. When I reported on this earlier I had been told by a good source that all of the top teams in the World of Outlaws had decided that they will not honor the non-compete portion of the contract in 2023 so that they can participate in the twelve race High Limit Series in 2023. However this past week I was told that World Racing Group, the owner of the World of Outlaws will stand tough on that agreement that limits drivers on the events that they can run outside of the series if they want to still collect the guaranteed money that they currently receive for participating in each WoO sanctioned event. That amount of money added up over eighty races would require a driver to have to win at least half of those High Limit races to match it, so once again it will be very interesting to see how that scenario plays out as it develops next season.

So perhaps those "Anybody But Larson" shirts are being worn by World of Outlaws loyalists who see this new series as a threat, or they could be because of a quote from Larson in a recent story in regard to the purse money that is paid out at the Chili Bowl. I don't think that Larson meant it to become such a big deal, but when a reporter asked him about the Chili Bowl he stated that he would likely go race for his Dirt Late Model team at the Wild West Shootout instead this January since the Saturday night winner makes $10,000 and he has a chance to make much more than that over the six nights of racing in the desert southwest.

In my opinion Chili Bowl founder and promoter Emmett Hahn did himself no favors by making more of a story out of it by listing off his expenses and stating that he gets no concessions. Even with some of the numbers that he put forth it doesn't take a math major to see that the combination of the Tulsa Shootout and the Chili Bowl is a huge money maker for Hahn and, as far as I am concerned, he deserves every penny of it. After all, it was his vision and it was at his own financial risk when the first Chili Bowl was run with probably twenty-five cars and a few hundred people in the stands. I don't see anybody trying to run the numbers on that one, and it was Hahn who stuck with it over the years and built the event up to what it is today. When Larson's quote first came out, I wish Hahn would have wished him well and then stated that now there might be over 400 drivers in attendance looking for the Golden Driller if they know that they don't have to beat Larson. It seems like that has been how the same subject has been handled by events like the Ice Bowl and the IMCA SuperNationals whenever somebody wants to try to argue the point.

That leads me to my next topic and that is some of the reasons that have been given recently for canceling events in advance of race day and to lead off this discussion I feel that it is important to define something that so many in this sport seem to have a problem with, and that is THE PROMOTER NEEDS TO MAKE A PROFIT! Whine, bitch, make all the suggestions on social media about getting more sponsorship, lower the price of admission, raise the purse, add classes, reduce the number of classes, etc., etc., but the bottom line is this" The promoter of the race (individual, fair board or nowadays even a Pay Per View provider) needs to make a profit, or at the very least come close to breakeven, otherwise there will be no more races scheduled for drivers to compete in, for fans to attend and for pay-per-view subscribers to watch. Trust me, nobody is in the business of putting on races just for your enjoyment. If promoters are not successful, there will be no more racing. That may sound harsh, but it's true!

My first foray into promoting came in 1992 when I partnered with my favorite promoter of all time, Larry Kemp to try out a weekly Wednesday night show featuring only Late Models and Hobby Stocks at what we dubbed the Lee County All-Star Speedway in Donnellson. After six weeks that included some challenging weather, great Late Model car counts and smaller than hoped for grandstand attendance, I was $18,000 in the hole so we sent out a brief press release stating that the rest of the season had been canceled. There was no social media at that point so we didn't have to put up with any "know it alls" tapping on a keyboard, so no "excuses" were needed. Our ideas didn't work and that was that.

Recently we have seen several events that had been placed on the schedule by the promoter way back in the winter or early Spring of 2022 that were later altered, or canceled prior to race day. In each case the promoter felt the need to offer up excuses as to why they were making the changes, or canceling the event all together. This may be an unpopular opinion, but I don't feel that the promoter owes anybody an explanation, especially when it comes to canceling an event. If you don't feel that you are going to make money on that show when you consider all of the factors that go into that, just announce the cancellation and let it be. Don't worry about, or even acknowledge all of the crap on social media as nobody on there has anything other than perhaps a pre-purchased ticket at stake in the process and surely you are going to state how that will be refunded. Offering up a series of excuses only fuels the fire of the social media storm with the ever popular "they seem to have tires for the next race" leading the way.

If one event cancels, racers and fans have several other options, especially in this region of the country and you can always search for your next event on the Special Events Calendar at our website Positively Racing!  

The quote of the week from Knoxville, in my opinion, came from the fine infield reporter for the World of Outlaws, Chase Raudman, who on Saturday started a segment about how Sprint Cars are put together with this line. "I'm sure there's a lot of people watching tonight on DirtVision who have never seen a Sprint Car race before." While that is quite optimistic, I can't imagine that there were more than just a few disgruntled wives or girlfriends who were watching Sprint Cars for the "first time" on a broadcast where you had to actually pay to specifically watch Sprint Cars.

After seeing some of the dumbest posts over the past two weeks, topped off by one titled "Free The Knoxville Nationals" where it was argued that it costs way too much to sit at home, leave your car in the garage, eat your own food and drink your own beer while watching the Knoxville Nationals on DirtVision, I just had to take action. So I briefly expressed my opinion, then when challenged I responded that I knew that it was never wise to argue online with somebody who wanted something for free. After that I unfollowed the Sprint Car Fan Page on Facebook and I feel better already.

Now if I can just get rid of all of these "Facebook suggested" posts that I keep getting about how the entire roster of WNBA players don't make as much as Lebron James, or where Kevin Durant is demanding to be traded to today, I would be much happier. I just want to see how big of a fish that David Schlise caught today, or where I can find the Zipp's Pizzeria food truck over the next few days! I could care less where KD plays next year unless he is going to donate half of his salary to those poor WNBA players.

In another effort to cleanse my mind when it comes to racing, I have decided to unfollow a podcast where the host, in arguing the Kyle Larson vs. Chili Bowl or Wild West Shootout conversation, didn't realize that that the pay-per-view provider for both events is FloRacing, who also happens to sponsor Larson's short track racing efforts. A little pre-show prep never hurts, especially if you are going to spend fifteen minutes on the subject!

The Sprint Invaders return to action this coming weekend with a Saturday night visit to the Peoria Speedway, one that I will have to miss due to family commitments, and then on Sunday I will catch up with the series again at the Adams County Illinois Speedway in Quincy. Then the following week I am looking forward to the Quad Cities World of Outlaws 150 at the Davenport Speedway featuring the Late Models and the Xtreme Midgets. Hope to see you again soon here on the Back Stretch!