SOME TRACK ANSWERS

Jok, I always enjoy reading your articles. As a track operator, and former racer, I can identify with a lot of what you write. I don’t know if you were actually looking for answers to your questions, or just trying to get people thinking, but I couldn’t resist letting you know some of my thoughts on these issues.

“Why is it that bracket races have the worst emergency equipment?”  We have a commercial ambulance service with 2 licensed EMT’s on board whenever we’re open. That is the minimum Wisenberg requires, and I can’t believe there are tracks still operating without at least that. We used to have a fire truck from our local volunteer fire dept., but they

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had to quit coming out several years ago due to liability concerns from their insurance company. We can’t even hire them. If we call them, they will come. We do have about 20 big fire extinguishers, spread out from the start line to the end of the track, plus in our safety truck. I am getting more concerned about fire in today’s bracket cars, and would like to build some kind of a large tank and high volume pump on our safety truck.

“4. Why is it...I hear some racers complaining about a red-light in one lane and saying the roll-out must be messed up. Yet, I have only met a couple racers that have any idea how to measure roll-out or even what the standard amount of roll-out is. Ask the track manager and if he can’t look you in the eye and say he checked it before the races you might want to consider racing elsewhere or asking him about checking it and letting the racers know it was done to make racing better and improve the attitude of all racers.”

I actually had a couple of racers come up to me 2 weeks ago, to say they “knew” they went through by 6 inches, and didn’t get the first finish. I will be the first to admit that any equipment, including timing equipment can become unreliable, so we actually ran a tractor down the middle of the track, straddling the foam blocks, to see if we could get a .000 finish line. I was surprised to see it was .0007. I expected it to be .00000. I then decided to do the math, and realized that at 17 mph, .0007 was less than 1/4 of an inch! I guess I should have known better than to believe 2 bikes running side by side at 120 mph could tell who went through first by less than 6 inches! (since we laid out the infra-reds with tape measures and string, I was surprised to see that it was that close!)

“5. Why is it...that most tracks seem to have announcers that either have never raced or think they are at a national event.” One of the toughest positions to fill at any track. My brother or I do most of the announcing, so I would like to think we know what’s going on. We do leave the dial-ins displayed during eliminations, no MPH. We also have an FM station broadcasting the PA. The biggest problem I have seen with track PA systems is, if it is loud enough to be heard when there are cars running anywhere in the vicinity of your pit spot, then it becomes way too loud when there are not cars running near you. After an extraordinarily long oil down, or a day with an extra large field of trophy cars, I find a lot of my PA wires have been cut by the racers!

“6. Why is it...that payouts have always been so ‘top-heavy’ in drag racing? If we all pay the same entry fee and races are determined by thousandths of a second why isn’t the prize money spread out better over at least the last four racers? Is it because if a race paid $750 to win, $650 runner-up and $500 to each semi-finalists the car count would be less than if it paid $1500 to win $400 runner-up and $250 to each semi-finalists?” Exactly.

“8. Why is it...local tracks have pretty much abandoned special spectator events? Funny Car shows, Pro Stocks, Pro Mods, etc.?” I can tell you why we have. Because we have a much larger track 40 miles away that does several HUGE shows every year. When we try to book in a couple of jets and a wheelstander, it just doesn’t seem like a very big deal to the fans in our market. We get enough people to break even or make a little bit of money, but not enough to justify the risk of lost advertising dollars if it rains out.