8/8/03

Come on guys...lighten up
a little bit, it's a SHOW, not a bracket race!

could not let go of something I watched the other night. At the local dragstrip, Cedar Falls Raceway, they had their annual "Night of Fire" event. Note I did not call it a race. It is the one night the track advertises a lot and they book in all sorts of cool machines. The wildest is the triple jet engine-powered Kenworth of Les Shockley. They had a couple other jets, two wheel-standers, Nostalgia Pro Stockers, Outlaw Super Stocks, and some front engine fuelers. I used to own this track and I can appreciate the costs involved in paying for the booked-in professionals and the cost of advertising. My best guess is that this show had an overhead of about $35,000, maybe a little more or a little less. Either way it is a big risk by the owners.

The grandstands were full and I was totally geeked about the program. Oh yeah, they also had a bracket race. What I heard while we were racing struck a different chord with me and here is why. If you have ever been to a race like this, the entire evening is about one thing...THE SHOW! Not the bracket race, not the track prep, not the roll-out, not getting three time runs in an orderly fashion and eliminations in a timely manner...it is about the SHOW for the FANS, period!

As the night went on the bracket racers seemed to be doing more bitchin' about everything than I have ever heard. Only a few were smiling about how cool the jet truck was when it blew the fence down and lit the sky with burning debris. It was complaints from "Why don't they just run the time trials and get to the eliminations," to "Those damn jets are going to ruin the traction for me," to "Why would you have a points race on a night like this?" I had heard them before but I guess when I ran the "SHOWS" I was too involved in getting the SHOW done on time.

The track did suffer from the jets turning some rubber into charcoal and some cars did have traction problems and the track probably could have done a better job after the jets ran, but they didn't. So what? Big deal! It was a great show and I was happy to be a part of it. Note: our 60-ft times did not vary more than .012 from 2 p.m. until 12:30 a.m. Some guys' did, that is unfortunate but it comes with these SHOWS.

Now to my main point. If the bracket racers DON'T CHILL OUT on things like this they may suffer a change they don't expect. Why do they think they are so important? Have they considered that a local track, like CFR or any other small track for that matter, makes very little profit from a weekly bracket race? What if the track decides to just run a few SHOWS each year and do a bunch of Street Car Nights and drop bracket racing all together? What then?

Look, I don't have all the answers but when I go to ANY RACE where the bleachers are full at $20 a head and the show is over about midnight and followed by a huge fireworks show...I am glad to have been there.

My final word on this deal is simply this. Support the track if you choose to and do not be so arrogant to think that bracket racing is some sort of a SHOW. IT IS NOT! It is simply the hobby we have chosen and if we pocket a few hundred bucks once in a while that is a bonus. I'll leave this point with a quote from Smokey Yunick: "Why don't we all just shut up and race." Thanks Smokey, you said it all in nine words.