A Dirt Thank You

Maybe it seems silly to talk about being thankful for auto racing, but it is Thanksgiving, and this is a racing blog, so I am going to give thanks to the sport we love.

 

I am thankful that Americans continue to have a love affair with their automobiles, and that Americans are highly competitive.

 

I thank my dad for taking me to see my first race at the fairgrounds track in Arlington, Nebraska over 50 years ago.  I was hooked forever before a single race was run.

 

I am thankful that my son Matt loves racing as much as I do.  Well, to be honest, he loves it even more than I do.  His mother and his wife contend I “wrecked” him with racing, but racing links us like no other connection.  Our road trips are very special to me, and mostly I don’t mind that he is now the driver and I am the rider on these trips.  The singing Johnny Cash songs is a hair-raising experience, but he offsets that with cranking up the speakers for “Free Bird.”  I love talking racing with him, and even the longest trips don’t seem so long when you are doing something you love with someone you love.

 

I am thankful for all the friends I have made through racing.  Actually, I should give a little credit to the internet forums on this.  Years ago Matt said “you have to go to a website called “Whowon.com.”  I did, and my comments on the forum led to meeting then Sunset Speedway promoter Craig Kelley and becoming a member of the Sunset Mafia.  The Mafia is made up of only the hardest of hard core race fans, but all my race friends are hard core.  When you see some of the same faces at tracks in Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and Kansas, you know they are hard core.

 

I am thankful for a track like Eagle Raceway to call my home track.  It is a great venue with super racing, and just enough members of the old Sunset crew to give it a homey feeling.  If the IMCA Supernationals ever leave Boone, Iowa, Eagle would be the perfect venue to host the event.

 

I am also thankful that Tim Lee, former editor of Dirt Late Model magazine, gave me the chance to write an article for the magazine.  Seeing “by Ron Meyer” in the magazine is a thrill I will never forget.  Heck, I am still thrilled when I see my name shown as author. That article led to another article, and another, and seeing my name listed on the masthead of the magazine as a “Contributing Writer.” I have no idea how many articles I have written for the magazine, just that I don’t plan on stopping until I have written a lot more.

 

I am also thankful I got the opportunity to write for Dirt Modified magazine.  It caused me to look at mods in a totally different light, and to realize that I was wrong about this class of racing.  It took me a long time to realize it, but there are other divisions than late models, and the racing is as good in those classes as it is in late models. Actually many nights the support class racing is better than the feature class events, and a lot of good drivers do not get enough credit for the show they put on for us fans.

 

This is why there is a blog called The Rest of the Dirt.  I am passionate about dirt track racing.  I love the cars, the drivers, the noise, the speed, the excitement, and the fans.  I am grateful I have the opportunity to write about racing, and I am more than thankful that you give me a few minutes of your time to see what I have to say.

 

More than you know, I mean it when I say “thank you for stopping by.”

 

Have a great Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Round 27-The Internet Forums Vs. Promoters

I posted on the General Racing forum on Dirt Drivers today.  I haven’t done much of that lately.  Trying to come up with 1,200 words three or four times a week for my blogs and writing for Dirt Late Model and Dirt Modified doesn’t leave me with a lot of time to make comments on the forums.  I am pretty sure that is not a bad thing.  There were times that bruton was a real ass on the forums, even when I was right. There were times when I thought “I wish I hadn’t said that.”  There were things I said that cost me dearly in my career as a writer.  Basher bruton is history, but from time to time I do feel the need to speak up.  Like today.

 

Stating that internet forums and those who post on them are a detriment to racing is nothing new.  Lots of promoters have said so, and if my information is correct, it was even stated by NASCAR officials at a promoter’s meeting in Daytona a number of years back. It is just a statement that I strongly, and I do mean STRONGLY disagree with.

 

I have mentioned interviewing promoter Mike Swims before he passed away.  It was the last interview he did for a racing publication, and I am honored that my son Matt and I were able to talk with this dirt track legend.  He was one of the few dirt track promoters who truly “got” what promoting a dirt track was all about.  Talking with him for several hours seemed like just a few minutes.  He was part of some of the biggest moments in dirt racing history, and his loss was a bigger loss to the sport than many realize.

 

I would like to take credit for asking this question, but Matt asked Mike what he thought about the internet and racing.  He couldn’t have been clearer in his answer.  He answered quickly with “any promoter who blames the forums for his problems is in a state of denial.”  The racing forums are for hard core fans that are exceedingly passionate about the sport.  We don’t have radio talk shows, so we spout our opinions on the forums.  But it is to other hard core fans we are talking.

 

Who are the hard core fans?  Well, I have seen them at Eagle and I-80, but also Fairmont, Minnesota and West Liberty, Iowa.  They may be regulars at ACS in Corning, but they regularly attend specials at places like Knoxville and West Plains and Cedar Lake.  They don’t go to an event because of what they read on a forum, and they don’t stay away from a track because of anything any “amateur journalists” state on the internet.  They go or stay away because of the product, and nothing else.

 

I have been as critical of race promoters as anyone.  I have also been accused of being a homer for some of my comments that were very positive.  Honestly, I would much rather everything I say be positive.  I criticize when I feel I have been lied to, or when I feel promoters are not giving their all to provide a great show for the fans.  Actually, if I feel they are trying and things were beyond their control, I don’t say anything about promoters. But I don’t think they should get a free pass on criticism.  I don’t get it at my job, and promoting is their job, and we are paying our hard earned money to them.

 

Instead of worrying about what is said on the internet, promoter should stand at the front gate as fans are leaving at the end of a show and listen to what they are saying.  Better yet, don’t just stand there, ask them what they think.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

Memories-NASCAR, Knoxville, and Fair Grounds too.

I had to make a flying trip to Blair this afternoon.  Blair is only about 25 miles from Fremont, but the hour round trip had me traveling down memory lane as much as down Highway 30.  That always happens when I pass the Washington County Fair Grounds in Arlington, about seven miles east of Fremont, and the site of my earliest racing memories.  The Fair Grounds look nothing like they did 50 years ago, but that doesn’t matter.

 

Today my thoughts weren’t of golden oldies, more like the 90’s and into this century, and trips to Denison, Harlan, and Knoxville.  We travel through Blair to get to each of these tracks, and the memories of past road trips are good ones.

 

Any thoughts of races at Denison always begin with the weather.  The races we went to at the Crawford County Fair Grounds were usually the first or last race of the season, and it was always cold.  Denison is the only place I sat through a snow flurry prior to a race.  I think the city must create its own weather, because I remember going to a July race there and it was cold then. 

 

We did not attend any weekly shows at Denison, only specials, and usually these were NASCAR Busch All-Star Tour events, meaning the best late model drivers in the region were on hand.  It was great seeing the likes of Gary Webb, Kyle Berck, and the Kosiski brothers in their prime.  Hearing the roar of the high horse power engines for the first or last time in a season seemed to offset the cold a little.  The track was a big half-mile, and I do mean big, with terribly long straight-aways that provided a lot of speed, though not as good of racing as some smaller tracks.  Still, for a number of years we never missed a tour event there, and always turned the heater on full as soon as we could on the way home.

 

Harlan is a big and very wide oval.  The Shelby County Speedway is fast, and I have some very good memories of Harlan.  Like many fair grounds ovals, it is located in town, and I always wonder about what living close to such a track must be like.  I went to several weekly shows at the half-mile oval, and also remember an MLRA event there.  One of these seasons I hope to make it to SCS for the Tiny Lund Memorial.

 

Knoxville is a long way from Fremont, but like Denison and Harlan, the trip does take us through Blair.  It also takes us through several score Iowa towns and cities, skirting Des Moines.  The first time we went to Knoxville was for the Knoxville Late Model Nationals.  Arriving at the track, you find parking sucks, and it is a lot like parking at a Nebraska football game-it costs bucks to park close to the track.  And, it the stands make the venue look somewhat like a football stadium.  They go on and on and on. 

 

Knoxville is another big half mile, and seeing all the big name late model drivers at one show is definitely worth the price of admission.  My only real complaint about Knoxville is the race should be 75 laps instead of 100.  There doesn’t seem to be a lot passing the last 25 laps, so let ‘em race balls to the wall for 75 laps.

 

Oh, one other thing I don’t like about Knoxville is getting home at 3:00 a.m.  To keep awake Matt starts singing Johnny Cash tunes on the way home.  I know they are Johnny Cash songs, because I am a Johnny Cash fan.  If you didn’t know the songs were by Johnny Cash before, you wouldn’t know after Matt sings them either.  But that is a part of the fun of the road trip.  Talking races for hours is another fun aspect.  Eating junk food is another-if it isn’t bad for you, we don’t eat it on a road trip.  When we first started road tripping to places like Denison, Harlan, and Knoxville, I was the pilot and navigator.  I am now relegated to navigator, but I am grateful for not having to drive.  These trips have brought many wonderful memories, and thinking of past trips made the trip to Blair today an enjoyable one.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

NFL Super Bowl vs. NASCAR Super Bowl? Who is the smartest?

My son Matt continually amazes me with his ability to come up with odd but interesting information.  His latest tidbit is that the NFL is seriously considering doing away with some preseason exhibitions and going to an 18 game regular season schedule.  What makes this interesting for race fans is that if the NFL makes such a switch, it would still keep the traditional weekend after Labor Day opening.  This would send the playoffs into February and set up a conflict with NASCAR’s own Super Bowl, the Daytona 500.

 

Obviously NFL owners are looking toward the almighty dollar and filling stadiums with one more regular season home game.  As popular as MASCAR Sprint Cup racing may be, I cannot see it being able to compete with NFL championship games, and certainly not the Super Bowl, even though the football game would start about when the race finished.  If nothing else, this is an interesting rumor.

 

If you visit my website, you might notice that I have ads placed there my Google Adsense.  Believe me, these are not huge money makers for me, rather I hope they will offset some of my costs in developing and keeping up the site.  Right now the site is like Charlotte to Sonoma away from making a profit, so click on a few of these ads sometime.

 

Actually, why I brought up the ads was that I noticed one of the current ads asks if you are smarter than Tony Stewart.  I have a great answer to that for my friends who are Tony Stewart fans.  A similar ad has run, asking if you are smarter than Dale Earnhardt Jr.  What surprised me is that Dale Jr. is supposedly smarter than Stewart.  Well, maybe.  Dale Jr. left his own team to go with one of the top NASCAR teams, Hendricks Motorsports.  Tony just left one of the top teams, Joe Gibbs Racing, to start his own team.  Interesting.

 

Hall of Fame late model driver Mike Duvall recently ended his Blaze of Glory tour, and retired from driving.  Mike is one of racing’s good guys, and he lives the faithful live he proclaims.  Matt and I had the good fortune of meeting Duvall during one of his Mike Duvall Driving Schools.  Only weeks before this class, Duvall had surgery, and we were unsure if he was going to be able to conduct the school.  But conduct it he did. 

 

Twelve drivers participated in the session we visited, and one of the days of the class is devoted solely to on track teaching.  Despite his recent surgery, Duvall showed he was a true racer as he climbed in and out of several race cars, and drove or rode several hundred laps that day.  The Dirt Late Model article I wrote about the Duvall school is first in the article section of my website-www.therestofthedirt.com.  I enjoyed re-reading the article, and I hope you will take a look at it too.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

NASCAR Lay-Offs A Sign Of The Time

The following was sent to me by my son Matt.  This was an Associated Press article from Charlotte dated 11/17/08.  It wasn’t that long ago that NASCAR and its top three series was the equivalent to minting money.  Anything that touched NASCAR turned golden.   It is sad and it is frightening for anyone to lose a job.  Nearing the holiday season adds to the angst. That this is happening in NASCAR is just an exclamation point to what is happening to the economy period. 

 

I wonder how long this situation will last.  Certainly the entire 2009 season, but no one knows when the economy will turn around.  Heck, no one knows if we have hit bottom yet which is the scariest thought of all.  Even when the economy is better, will sponsors rush out to spend $20-$25,000,000 dollars to fund a race team?  I would think corporations would be conscious of every penny they spend for quite some time.

 

Brian France has stated that NASCAR will survive, and I am sure it will.  Will the NASCAR of 2010 or 2011 look completely different from the NASCAR of 2008?  Are there other cost cutting measures that NASCAR should take?  SHOULD, not could.  Will every race have a full field of 43 cars?

 

Will there be even more depressing news before Daytona in February?  Cross your fingers, but don’t hold your breath.  Thanks for the article Matt, and thank you for stopping by.

 

 

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The glitz and glamour surrounding NASCAR’s championship-deciding race roared on at Homestead-Miami Speedway as if nothing was amiss.

Lucky fans still lined up for their pre-race garage tours, celebrities and CEO’s crowded pit road and the champagne flowed following Jimmie Johnson’s record-tying third consecutive title.
 
Yet it felt a little flat.
 
Above all the pomp of Sunday’s season-finale hung an air of uncertainty and, in some cases, sheer panic. Team members quietly passed around resumes, looking to latch on at stable organizations. Others worried that the checkered flag at the end of the race would also signify the end of a steady paycheck.
 
Mass layoffs are expected throughout the NASCAR this week, as team owners from all three national series adjust to the economic crisis. It’s difficult to say how many will be put out of work, but some guess as many as 1,000 will lose their jobs.
 
The cutbacks are most evident at the top-level Sprint Cup Series, where layoffs began a mere two months into the season when BAM Racing stopped showing up at the track. Then Chip Ganassi let 71 people go when he cut down to two cars in July.
 
The numbers have steadily grown since, reaching all the way to the elite teams of NASCAR. Hendrick Motorsports, Roush Fenway Racing and Joe Gibbs Racing — three teams that combined to grab nine of the 12 spots in the Chase for the championship — have all gone through a round of layoffs in the past month.
 
It all paled to last Wednesday, when Dale Earnhardt Inc. gave pink slips to 116 employees so it could ease the way for a merger with Ganassi. “It’s gut-wrenching to make those decisions,” DEI president Max Siegel said.
 
Several other teams will probably share that experience this week.
 
Sponsorship woes have put famed Petty Enterprises and the Wood Brothers on shaky ground, while the bottom might well be about to drop at Bill Davis Racing. The team won the Truck Series championship with Johnny Benson on Friday night, but the owner struggled to muster even a small celebratory smile.
 
“The entire economy, worldwide, is something that I don’t think many of us … certainly myself, has never seen in 40 years of business,” Davis said. People are angry and confused that after almost a decade of growth, the sport has turned so fast.
 
Some resentment is directed at NASCAR, which finds itself trying to help its teams while not creating a welfare system. Unlike most professional sports leagues, NASCAR doesn’t have franchises and all its participants are viewed as independent contractors free to come and go as they please.
 
So chairman Brian France isn’t about to start floating loans of credit to keep teams in business. The sport is and always will be a survival of the fastest and fittest.
But France and his staff are willing to look at cost-cutting measures, and just last weekend suspended all testing in 2009 to help teams save millions of dollars. The decision comes with consequences: If there’s no testing, teams no longer need employees dedicated to that part of the program.
 
It’s a given that NASCAR’s business model is best suited for NASCAR and its direct employees, and it should be noted the sanctioning body has no current plans for staff reductions. Car owners knew the rules when they decided to enter this big-time level of auto racing, and they can’t fault NASCAR if their businesses are now failing.
 
At some point, when those once employed by DEI or any other prominent team look for someone to blame, they need to consider this: Bad business decisions and mismanagement have as much to do with team stability as the crumbling economy does.
 
“We’ve all overspent,” seven-time series champion Richard Petty said. “We all had it so good we just kept going forward without saying, ‘What if it goes bad?’ ”
 
As the layoffs by Hendrick, Gibbs and Roush demonstrate, not every team that is downsizing is in financial crisis. Some are simply tightening the bulging staffs they created in their climb to the top. Teams added specialists to prepare for the Car of Tomorrow, which was meant to be phased in, but went to full-time use this season ahead of schedule. Now that teams are using one model of car instead of two, shop production has decreased and there’s not as much work to do.
 
 
“If you looked at where we were a year ago, we were running two different kinds of cars,” owner Jack Roush said. “So that required a staffing increase for most of the teams that enabled or justified a reduction. Most of our reduction was in the area of car building.”
 
But it’s not going to end there, and it’s likely to get much worse. Attendance is down at most tracks, sponsorships are harder to come by and the Big Three automakers are in deep financial trouble.
 
France said a little more than a week ago that NASCAR “won’t live or die” by a manufacturer pullback or pullout. But many teams most certainly will, and the trickle-down effect will be devastating to those who rely on racing to pay the bills.
 
“This is the way they pay their mortgages,” driver Jeff Burton said. “And this is the way they pay their car loans and send their children to school and pay their bills.”

So Much To Do, So Little Time

So many options, so little time.  How should I spend my Sunday afternoon?  I could go to the Wellness Center and work out.  I could read a book.  I could watch NFL football.  I could play with my grand-puppy.  I could work on my blogs.  I could watch Duke basketball.  I could take a nap.  OR, I could watch the NASCAR Sprint Cup finale from Homestead, FL.  I did everything but take a nap.

 

Duke beat Rhode Island by 3 points.  I can’t tell you who won any NFL games, but I watched Denver vs. Atlanta, and Green Bay vs. Chicago while I was working out at the Wellness Center.  Sophie had too much energy to sit on my lap, but I threw her ball to her a few times-she doesn’t share well.  I read about Vic Powers in my “One Great Season” book.  I did not take a nap.  Oh, and I watched a lot of NASCAR racing today.

 

A lot of NASCAR racing, and it actually was a race with a lot of racing.  The progressive banking of the Homestead track makes for multiple grooves, and three wide racing was not uncommon.  How the various strategies unfolded was interesting.  Chad Knaus make several great calls and showed that the 48 car winning three straight championships is more than just driver Jimmy Johnson.  I did not even take a lap, and don’t have anything to bash NASCAR over this week.  Well, there were a few drivers with their head up their posteriors, but that is so during every race at any track.

 

I do have another NASCAR race I would like to attend now.  For me that is a pretty strong endorsement.  Miami in mid-November sounds nicer than Nebraska anyway.

 

Now comes the months of no racing activity.  Boo.  Whatever happened to televised racing from Arizona in January?  I can remember WoO sprint car races AND then origin of the NASCAR Truck Series. Why is now not as good as then for televising races? Instead of some of the gawd-awful stupid “reality” shows Speed Network pawns off on us, why not some real racing?  There are late model and modified races in Arizona in January.  Sprint cars, late models, and modifieds race at East Bay in Tampa, and Volusia County in February.  Why can’t some of those shows be televised? NASCAR has stated there will be no testing, including at Daytona, so are the next two months just going to be dead for fans?  OK-I know, I know, don’t forget the Chili Bowl.  I just want more races than that televised.  Even PPV would be OK.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

The Economy, NASCAR, and Las Vegas

An Associated Press article in the Omaha World-Herald today speculated on a NASCAR without GM or Ford.  That is almost impossible to believe, but GM running out of cash would have been impossible to believe a few years ago.  NASCAR says it can survive without the two automotive giants participating in the sport, but I wonder how different the sport would look without them.

 

My timing could have been better, writing about NASCAR needs a woman driver.  The NASCAR diversity programs are an expense for the teams, and teams are laying off employees and even combining operations.  NASCAR does need a woman driver-look at all the excitement caused by a woman running for Vice-President, but with the economy suffering as it is now, I doubt that diversity will be a number one priority in the sport.

 

There have already been empty seats at NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events, something that would have been laughed at several years ago.  With the near certainty that things are going to get worse before they get better, I wonder if there will be more empty seats in 2009.  Running races on Sprint Cup Series races on Saturday nights is not a win/win for NASCAR and local tracks.  It is a win for NASCAR.  If the big tracks now need to get creative to fill seats, will that further damage grass roots tracks, especially asphalt racing where the product is so similar?

 

Promoters will be attending meetings in Reno and Daytona in the coming months.  I hope dirt track owners come home with valuable new ideas that they will actually try.  People may not be able to afford big ticket entertainment such as MLB, NFL, or NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, but they still want to be entertained.  Local dirt tracks are reasonably priced venues, and if promoters don’t have a bury their heads in the sand attitude, maybe they can benefit from the down economy, or at least not take some giant steps backward.

 

I wish the Blog World Expo people would schedule their conference for November.  It would be great to go to the conference in the day, and head out to the speedway to take in the Dual In The Desert which starts tonight. I am not much of a gambler, and dirt track racing sounds like one sure winner in Las Vegas.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

 

 

NASCAR-Check out America’s dirt ovals for talent

Earlier this month I wrote an article on IMCA Modified National Rookie of the Year Nick Deal.  The article on the young Iowan will appear in an upcoming issue of Dirt Modified magazine-you should subscribe, it is a great racing magazine.  For part of the article I talked with chassis manufacturer Bob Harris about Nick.  Harris made some interesting comments about Nick, but he also shared an observation on a driver that attended one of his seminars back in 1998.  The driver was Clint Bowyer, and yes it was the Clint Bowyer who is now a star in the NASCAR Sprint Cup and Nationwide Series.

 

One thing drivers who attend a Harris seminar learn is how to communicate with crew members about what a car is doing.  With modifieds having more horsepower than tire, it is also important for drivers to learn to drive a loose car.  To win, they need to take the loose car and race on the edge.  Bowyer has talked with Harris about how learning to race an IMCA modified contributed to his success on the two famous NASCAR circuits. 

 

There are other NASCAR drivers with dirt track racing on their resumes.  Jeff Gordon raced midgets, as did Kasey Kahne.  Tony Stewart can race anything on any kind of surface, and of course Carl Edwards raced modifieds in Missouri prior to becoming the celebrity racer he is today.

 

To me, the success of drivers like Bowyer totally disproves the theory that you have to have an asphalt pedigree to race in NASCAR.  If you can race and win on dirt, it shows that you can adapt to any situation, including racing a loose car on asphalt.  I think it is time for NASCAR owners to take a longer look at proven winners who race dirt ovals.

 

This brings up another point Bob Harris made with me.  He said that to get into NASCAR, drivers have to be in the right place at the right time, and meet the right people.  Those of you who think Carl Edwards was the best modified driver around when he signed with Roush Racing are sadly mistaken.  He wasn’t even the best modified driver in Missouri.  For that matter, Bowyer was not the best modified driver in Kansas.  But they were in the right place at the right time and met the people that helped them become what they are today.

 

I try to keep politics out of this blog, but electing Barack Obama as President shows how receptive Americans are to change.  It is time for NASCAR to change as well.  I am sure that NASCAR officials would argue their diversity program is a step in the right direction, but to many it seems like a baby step.  In the not distant future, minorities will become the majority in America.  They need to be heard from in racing.  Young people played an important role in the election of Obama.  Racing dads isn’t just a political term anymore.  There are hundreds of youngsters barely old enough to get a license that are now taking to dirt ovals around the country.  Many have the NASCAR dream, and certainly two I have talked with deserve a shot-Nick Deal, the young Iowa modified driver, and Jase Kaser, a Nebraska late model driver would be good additions to any NASCAR team.  Both have showed at an early age that they have the talent to be successful in racing, and both are hands on drivers.

 

If Barack Obama can be elected President of the United States, I think it is time that a woman drove in one of the Big Three NASCAR series.  Julie McDermid of Wisconsin ought to be given a chance.  Julie is old in comparison with Deal and Kaser, but to suggest that at age 26 Julie is too old to start in NASCAR deserves a resounding boo.  She is a seasoned dirt modified driver, and happens to be intelligent, articulate, and attractive.  Do you think any sponsor might want a driver like that?  Especially one that is already a role model for many young women.  Oh, I forgot.  Julie is also an on track success.  She won 17 modified A features this season, and with the car counts modifieds bring at most tracks, no A feature win in a modified is easy.  Julie raced three nights a week this season, but only two nights were under IMCA sanction.  Had Julie ran the third night with IMCA, she might have stepped to the stage at the IMCA awards banquet in Lincoln, and accepted the National Championship trophy. She was IMCA’s Lady Eagle champion, a competition that involved the hundred or so women drivers who race in various IMCA classes.

 

Come on NASCAR, start looking to the dirt ovals of America for talent.  Drivers like Julie McDermid, Nick Deal, and Jase Kaser could be the next generation of NASCAR star.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

NASCAR, NASCAR, NASCAR, And IMCA

I watched more of the NASCAR Sprint Cup race from Phoenix yesterday than I have watched any NSCS race in quite sometime.  I watched a little less than 100 laps, though it seemed like much more than that.  It appeared as though several drivers thought it was important to prove that a “big one,” a multi-car crash, could occur on a track other than Talladega or Daytona.  I would say it looked like a B feature in a beginner’s class at a ¼ mile dirt oval, but that would be insulting to the drivers at the dirt oval.  That was disappointing.

 

My son Matt insists that the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is the best racing of NASCAR’s big three series, and if a close points battle is indicative of the quality of racing, he must be right.  Johnny Benson is only three points ahead of Ron Hornaday.  While the Sprint Cup championship trophy already has Jimmy Johnson’s name engraved-well, maybe not, but I think he will finish better than 36^th, meaning the championship is his-the truck championship is likely to go down to the final lap. That is exciting, even if I don’t quite get pick-up trucks racing.

 

In the Nationwide Series, Clint Bowyer is 56 points ahead of Carl Edwards.  If he weren’t already mathematically eliminated, I would be cheering for Brad Keselowski.  If I watch the race instead of football, which is very unlikely, I will still cheer for Keselowski.  I know, I know.  I am from the Midwest, and so are Bowyer and Edwards, so I should be rooting for them.  Both came from dirt tracks, and raced modifieds.  I should be flashing their success in a big, loud font, but I am not.  And won’t be.  I guess to the victor go the spoils.

 

I am hoping to attend the IMCA Awards Banquet in Lincoln, but it doesn’t look like my race going son will be able to attend.  Hopefully I will still make it, sans a date.  Heck, seeing Tom Gutowski in a tux is almost worth the price of admission.  I’m sure he will look “niftier” than he used to when we played golf.

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

 

Dan Titus-Someone You Should Know

To say Dan Titus loves to race is like saying Deadwood, SD got a little snow this week.  The 47 year old Norfolk driver started racing in 1976, and has missed only two seasons since-one in 1987 when he moved his family to California, and one in 1994 when he moved back to Nebraska. 

 

The 30 season veteran has raced everything from a 1927 Model T to a late model to a sprint car.  Dan’s father and cousin raced, and Dan and his brother bought the ’27 Model T from his cousin.  In 1986 Dan won a track championship at Stuart, NE.  Like many other racers, when asked how many features he was won, Dan could only answer “a bunch.” 

 

After sitting out the 1987 season, Dan raced at Bakersfield, CA for six seasons, running a street stock, and a late model.  Back in Nebraska in 1995, Dan joined the Good Ol’ Time Racing Association (GOTRA).  In 2008, Dan owned three cars racing with GOTRA-a ’36 Dodge driven by Mike Gutschall; his first race car, the ’27 Model T, driven mostly by his 18 year old daughter Ashley; and, a 1959 Chevy that Dan drove.

 

The ’59 Chevy was raced at Norfolk’s Riviera Raceway in the 70’s, and according to Dan he “found it sitting in some trees.”  Even though it was rusting away, the owner did not want to sell it, and it took several years for Dan to convince him otherwise.

 

In 2009, Dan will have four cars racing with GOTRA.  Another ’27 Model T is in the works, and will be driven by Dan’s 16 year old son Brian.  Still, GOTRA races only about 10-12 weekends a year, and someone with the Titus passion for the sport needs more activity.

 

In addition to running GOTRA, Titus ran a street stock or a sprint car for 10 seasons, and is seriously thinking of adding a B Mod to his fleet, and racing it in the Sioux City area. Titus owns Dan’s Diesel, a semi repair shop in Norfolk, which enables him to race often.

 

When asked about retirement, Titus simply said “never. Driving the old cars is too much fun.”  He added, “Racing is a rush but being with the family is the best part. The highlight for me is watching my daughter drive.” 

 

I admit to a total bias for the old coupes in GOTRA type series.  Walking through the pits at the Vintage Car Nationals a few weeks ago was like stepping back to a time that seemed so much simpler.  I had a smile on my face the entire afternoon, and really enjoyed talking with Dan and other drivers, and watching their on track performance.  If I had an ounce of mechanical ability, and extra dollar in my pocket, and a wife who would say “sure honey,” I would experience my middle age crisis in the seat of a coupe, racing with GOTRA.  These guys race because they like to race.  It isn’t a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series win or be fired scenario.  All you have to do is have fun.

 

Thanks Dan, and thank you for stopping by.