Thumbs Up:1) Great turn out of EDMs, 10 B-mods and 8 A-mods is amazing. Those two oval classes had more than 40% of the days total entries.
2) Audie’s cars are still super fast.
3) My cars worked really well.
4) Track was smooth after getting the bumps out of the backstretch.
5) Decent turnout for the day.
6) Willingness to separate the large EDM fields into multiple heats. There are so many advantages to this, it’s clearly the right choice. I bet the sprint car guys wouldn’t mind the same thing.
7) Great racing!
8) New people. Welcome Chase, Dan and Alissa to the EDM ranks. There’s always room for more!
9) Some new people stepped up and laid everything out. I think they learned a few things that many people “take for granted” and just show up and race.
Thumbs Down:1) I was hoping to see a better turnout in the road course classes. How many VTA’s were there?
2) Audie’s cars are still super fast.
3) No food. As a person with a medical condition that depends on eating in a somewhat routine schedule, I cannot go an entire day on snacks. I’ll come up with my own personal solution to this, but as said before, not allowing any food sales only hurts the club. PS – The club didn’t sell food last year, but it was available for a suggested donation. (hint hint – remember, selling food takes a health license)
4) Marshalling --- CHILDREN ARE NOT MARSHALLS. I have to ask myself every time I see a young one run on the track what the parents are thinking and where they are. I got hit by a truck early in the day and my foot is entirely black and blue… how would a child have taken that hit? Also, if that child is not a racer, they have not purchased insurance for the day and ABSOLUTELY should not be on, or near the track.
5) Marshalls setting cars backwards – I saw this happen multiple times. Without reverse, if your car gets set backwards, there is nothing you can do but sit there and wait for the big collision. With the money everyone has invested in the cars these days, this simply can’t happen.
6) Burned up motors… never good to see equipment wrecked.
7) “Minty smell” – A visitor that doesn’t attend many races didn’t notice the motor burning smells, but did complain about the minty smell. I thought we outlawed that at the Oaks in 2007. I would think someone could have purchased any of the smell-free solutions out there in the span of four years.
8) Long term counts? We started with 44 entries and that was just over whatever the magic “break even” number is. But traditionally entries drop after the first few weeks. Are other expenses such as tape, paper, ink, storage container figured into the break even number?
9) Sunday – I’ve beat this topic to death… everyone knows how I feel on racing Sundays.
This and That:It was great to be back at the track with good friends and great competitors. I look forward to racing on the 27th. I will say, I was highly critical of changing locations and to the Ramkota, but it was very nice to race there. We have plenty of room for pitting. The width of the track is tight and leaves me with concerns for when we can’t have the doors open, but overall, I’m done complaining. Let’s race!