Bobby

Forum protocol question - When we see something like this which has yet to be posted, should we post in the Announcements, Track Schedules, or Texas Auto Racing section? Or message Nick, Reb, or someone else ? I really like the structure that comes with the addition of the Track Schedules forum, and don't want to disrupt that by working against how things might be envisioned.

Yes, I saw the rumors and suspected things were shaky. Not being able to carry off a booking says a lot between the lines.

I haven't seen this posted elsewhere on this site, so I want to alert anyone planning on this weekend's ASCS show in Corpus. ASCS has cancelled. See the track's web site, FB page, or Revved Up Sports to confirm. My sympathies to Owen.

Allstar offers "unwelded, cut-to-fit" arms. Perhaps they have something that would save some of the fabbing.

I'll chime in with thanks, too. I'm finding this extremely helpful.

At Cotton Bowl. Be There!!!! Announced as part of their '24 schedule on Facebook

Comment deleted.

Yes, the one formerly owned by the Tankersleys.

Good to hear. Thanks for thinking of us on SpeedZone!

Great to hear! He deserves it - he's disciplined, works hard and is talented.

I'm a long-time FB user and have nothing against the platform. But it's an absolutely horrible outlet if you want to do a quick skim of multiple tracks to get a feel for what is going on. Track management likes it because it's a one-stop place to put information for all their audiences (racers, track workers, sponsors, fans). They don't have to segment their communications. That works for someone who is mostly dedicated to one track and hangs on the edge of their seat for every scrap of information from that track. But if you are a fan who has disconnected from, or never wanted to be connected to all the minutia, and wants to skim the tracks within driving range for high level info, it's highly inefficient. A friend asked me the source of the news about Cotton Bowl. It took me a long time to find it. People might say "Well, if you were a real fan......blah, blah". You know what? There are hundreds of messages competing for my eyeballs. There are maybe six tracks I would like to monitor. But if they want my eyeballs, the info has to be easy to find. It is hard enough to screen out the crap I don't want from people looking for me without taking additional time to look for what should be looking for me but isn't. Let me turn this around - What about "Well, if you were a promoter.....". The word promoter used to have a meaning that related to promotion. The only promoters I can recall off the top of my head have been Mandelbach and Gina. Now it is a glorified term for Track Operator. The attitude seems to be that people will beat a path to their track (when they haven't before) just because they are now the operator. How hard would it be to also paste some of the big picture items from the FB page onto Speedzone at the same time it's put on FB? Here, the format makes it very easy to focus on what you care about vs. what you do not.

I've about taken the stance - If they don't care if I know, I don't care if I go. Call me jaded, I don't care. It is what it is.

https://www.race-monitor.com/Results/Race/137934

Am I correct in assuming the intent of the claim is to get parts which violate the spirit of the rules (i.e. high dollar ones) to filter down to lesser-funded racers? Would it be correct to assume that NO racer, even lesser funded ones, would EVER run a part which blatantly violates the rules? They are just paying to get illegal parts off the track for the benefit of the class? Because the track would then be implicitly forced to let the illegal parts continue to run, since they were the backers of the process.

The ability and time available for any track's Saturday night tech will always be overshadowed by the ability and motivation of entire cottage industries to provide parts to defeat it. How, for instance, will you detect a cheater cam in a "sealed" 602? A lightweight rotating assembly in the same engine? Or would you have a heads-off inspection, like we did in San Antonio fifty years ago? If you had a rule mandating parts-store replacement shocks, would you have the track buy a shock dyno to verify? Tech, as circumscribed by the time and skill available, pretty well indicates what can and can not be checked. And a roadmap for where to cheat.

To reiterate an idea I wrote about at length a few years ago - If you were to stagger start times according to driver-chosen dial-ins, the class rule book could be similar to the following - "All cars in the class must have a roll cage and safety harness which pass safety inspection. All cars in the class will be of at least size x. Any car passing safety inspection and meeting the size requirement is considered a valid race car for the class. End of discussion." It would require some serious thought to determine an effective set of rules for managing the race, and probably some small scale tests in order to reveal areas for improvement. For instance - how would timing and photo finishes work? Would timers, spotters and radios be allowed? How granular would the classes/dial-ins be? Would you encourage or discourage mirrors and blocking?On the other hand, you wouldn't have to solicit, and risk pissing off, a new batch of car builders to test the concept. I believe this would provide a far more interesting format for both racers and fans than a RWD eco class, and be much more sensible and less subject to creative interpretation. If someone wanted to run a Crown Vic with a supercharger and a wing on junkyard tires or donut spares, running on half of the cylinders, they could. Whatever suits their pocketbook, fab skills, imagination, or is most readily available to them ("Hey, I saw an old race car in a driveway last week. We could be real racers next week with no garage or fabrication! We'll keep it in the parking at your apartment"). They might be running against an Outlaw, Pro Mod or truck, that had to drop out of the feature for a minor problem, or just had just won their class feature and wasn't ready to make a long trip home yet. But to me, this would make WAY more sense than the fruitless mental masturbation that periodically goes into developing some miracle set of rules that somehow reconciles contradictory objectives - i.e. simultaneously: draws entrants, provides visual contrast, minimizes obvious mechanical differences and opportunities for cheating, is affordable, is practically achievable, is easily tech-able, doesn't cause conflict between racers/racers/track, etc, etc, etc. In summary - Car class rules are the main impediment to racer participation. Whether it be from making the dollar and time investment inaffordable or unrealistic relative to purses, making the car fabrication difficult and exclusive, requiring sophisticated tuning knowledge, or, during the past several years, making suitable platforms and parts difficult to even obtain. If the central premise (lots of people want to race) has actually been true, then logically the imprediment is that they don't want to race what (or how) the track wants them to race. Especially given that two classes have been summarily obsoleted at HMP by the stroke of a promoter's pen. And don't forget how many promoters HMP has had in the last eight years. So - Stop telling them what to race (with the ever implicit threat of the effort being wasted if the class or promoter doesn't last)...., and give them another option on how....

The flyer for this weekend's race says that pit passes and entry fees are to be paid differently, so it may be more than that.

Interesting. VERY interesting!

Southern Premier Racing Series has the To-Start and To-Win numbers on their Facebook page. I've not seen the paydowns but I assume if you emailed them at info@southernpremierracingseries.com they would provide it.

I understand he started in karts. He drove modifieds a few years back for Raymond Delahoussaye at Kyle and possibly HMP. He was at HMP again last year, although I don't remember what class. Trucks, possibly.

Here's one on one of the Minnesota Max montages. Most of these are from other states but you'll occasionally catch a South Texas car. Marvin is at 1:19 on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXQiA8LF0V8. S.A. racers will recognize the 77 of Todd Ford at 1:55. And.....is that Freddy Fryar at 5:17? These are a rabbit hole, but rewarding. It's amazing to see how the respective time periods make the cars look familiar, no matter which part of the country. The picture at 4:45, however, is a first!

I thought it was interesting that the Bandit name came from buying a T-shirt from Ed "Big Daddy" Roth at the Autorama.

Checking in to give a tap on an imaginary "Like" button for the posts above. Best wishes to all, especially those of us in the elder category, or who are the support.

Same here, Nick. My interest is from being in the A&M sports car club in the seventies, as was Oldtimer (the new Oldtimer). I don't remember the club knowing much about track ownership matters, all we knew was whether or not they were "in business", so to speak. The club had put on at least one AggieCross in the early seventies (which I believe Oldtimer was involved with) but for most of us that was folklore handed down from our elders. But about my third year we heard the track, which had been inactive, would let us hold club days if we would contribute labor for facility cleanup and staffing their events again, so of course we jumped on that. I found it interesting in retrospect to see how the break in activity we saw was explained by and correlated directly with the behind the scenes factors (the death of Dan Jr., and the subsequent opening with new management).