Well I went last Saturday to watch the local boys run and I probably won't be going back much. I plan on watching one of the bigger series when they come through but that'll be it for me and 311 I think.
I got to the track just as practice was ending and found my old seats (5 rows up on the concrete, like God intended). Had some youngins with me who'd never been to a race in their lives, so I spent a lot of time explaining things like "What does the black flag mean?"...to 16 year old males. Man this new generation doesn't know anything and if they were my kids I'd be ashamed
Anyway....track looked like it was in better shape than the last time I went so I was hopeful dust wouldn't be a problem. Don't even ask me what classes ran because I honestly couldn't tell you. I think it was two 4-banger classes and two modified stock classes running V8s. Sorry, haven't kept up with dirt since I was a kid and the cars have changed a little over the years. All in all they ran four races not including heat races.
Back to the track itself: Any good track needs two things in addition to good racing. Those things are good bathrooms and good food. The bathrooms are the one thing that improved since my last visit to them. The mens room has actual stalls now and someone is actually cleaning the place. I did my business and moved on to the food. The food was 50/50, its cheap and the fries are good but my hot dog frankly sucked. I think it had been sitting around under a heat lamp for at least an hour. If not for the chili masking the flavor I wouldn't have finished it. The kids got chicken and burgers and said they were good so maybe I just got a bad hot dog. Food is still half price after the main event starts.
The track itself was in so-so condition but by the third race the dust was flying everywhere and it did get pretty bad. I'm not one to complain about getting dirty but when I have to wear safety glasses just to see the track its getting a little extreme.
The first race wasn't that good, it was the stock 4 class (whatever you call that) and they only had four cars in the entire field. No passing...just guys turning laps. I appreciate letting that class run but they really need to get more cars together and have a proper race.
Second race was mostly like the first one with more cars, boring in other words.
Third race was the race of the night. It was late model stock class iirc and they had a decent field of about 10 cars. Lots of good racing and only a few yellows for the duration. Wish they would have run at least 10-20 more laps because I was really enjoying that one. The dust wasn't bad and they were turning good lap times. Reminded me of why I enjoyed the place so much as a kid.
Fourth and final race of the night was a disaster. I honestly don't understand exactly what went on but I'll try to explain the best I can:
By this point the dust was really bad as the cars were cutting 3/4 as tight as they could plowing up the mound of dust at the bottom of the corner and throwing it into the air. I don't understand why they left a huge mound of dust that close to the track but I don't tend to the place so what do I know. It got so bad that I couldn't even see the cars coming off turn four until they got back to the flag stand.
There was one car that dominated that entire race and was later found to be running light, but was not DQed. Rumor is he's the track owner's favorite or something. I can't get the full story on this because the guy keeps deleting comments about it from the tracks facebook page (more on that in a second).
There was another car that ran second about the whole race but something about it seemed off to me. He'd spin out or be running 3rd or 4th then there would be a caution and he'd line up 2nd. Every freaking caution he'd just line up in 2nd place no matter where he was on track. The crowd was booing him pretty loudly. At one point under caution he was lined up 4th and stopped on the track, talked to the flag man, then guess what he does...he goes out and lines up in 2nd for the restart.
At some point that car had an issue and went into the garage area. He was obviously pissed off and came running across the track to get through the gate. He walked through the crowd on his way to what I assume was either his car or the booth and the crowd let loose on him with a shower of boos and insults. It was nice to see that.
Back to the race itself: There were no fewer than 15 caution flags in that 40 lap race. There may have been more than that as I stopped counting at 10. They couldn't run longer than 2 laps without a yellow flag. No one could catch the lead car so all the racing was mid-pack. One car hit the wall really hard in turn 4 but no one could see it for about 2 minutes due to the dust. We were all up in the stands wondering why the hell the caution was out for a good while until the dust cleared.
One last thing to mention:
The owner of the track has taken his website offline and says they're doing everything via facebook now. The problem is there is no way to find out what's scheduled in the coming weeks, they do not list ticket prices until the day before a race, and most importantly they delete any comments they don't happen to like from the page very quickly. Just in the 15 minutes I spent on the page the other day I saw several comments deleted asking about what was up with the light car not begin DQed.
The track owner is listing that the track is for sale on his personal facebook page now (at the hefty sum of 1.2 million dollars). I hope that if someone buys it they will bring it back to its former glory. I don't think the current owner is willing to invest the money needed into the place to get it up to par every weekend.
Next time I go to a dirt track I'll be driving further for a better experience. I hate that the local track is in such bad shape as I have fond memories but I'm not going to pay to see the so called racing I watched last weekend.
