AndyMarquisLive
I love short track racing (Taylor's Version)
Moving next to a track and complaining about the noise in general makes one a wanker.
If a racetrack makes a habit of running until after midnight, they're the problem.
It's called respect, and it's a two-way street. It's just the same as having a cookout in the summer. If it's 6pm and you're grilling hot dogs and playing loud music, only some uptight wretched bitch is gonna get mad about it and the cops won't even respond to their phone call. If it's 11pm and you're blaring loud music, EVERYONE is going to be mad about it and that's when cops come out and issue citations and shut your party down.
There was one track I worked at and we were pretty flexible about testing. I'd stay late and cut the lights on for them and everything. Well, one night (a school night, mind you), a driver decided he was going to practice all night. By about 10:30pm, he was still going, so I called the track owner and asked him for permission to cut the dude off.
I went down and told the driver he was done and he cussed me out. Finally, at about 11:15pm, I cut all the lights out on him - which pissed him off even more. On race day, the track owner went off on the driver and said, "Disrespectful **** like that is what's gonna get us closed down." The driver STILL did not care.
Another track I worked at, there were a couple Karens trying to get the place closed but they were already outcasts in the community and had no support. Most everyone supported the track. That was until....
One autumn night, some rain moved in early-afternoon and didn't clear out until about 6:30pm or so. So we call a driver's meeting to run down the schedule, and the drivers all bitched and whined because they hadn't gotten to practice or qualify yet. The race director/promoter makes the decision to give them a round of practice and to do single car qualifying for every division (80 ****** cars!). I was PISSED at this point because, if it's 7pm, fans are in the stands, and the track's dry, the track needs to just draw pills and go racing.
By the time qualifying wrapped up at 9:30pm, he then says we're going to do an autograph session on the frontstretch (pretty common thing at asphalt short tracks). The first words out of my mouth were about how those two Karens were going to gain A TON of sympathy tonight because the race wasn't going to end until 2am. The promoter didn't care and gave me the "they shouldn't move next to a track then" hur dur routine.
The race didn't START until 10:45pm!!! All the fans had already left, and they were pissed because they didn't see a single race - just a bunch of single car qualifying runs. But the track had an "obligation to the drivers."
Sure enough, the race ran until 1:30am, and the next day, the community was in an absolute uproar about it, demanding the town do something about it. And I couldn't defend the track with a straight face AT ALL because I knew we were in the wrong.
