MikePeters95

Figured this would be a good place to learn some. I am making this topic to the limited community at Lone Star Speed Zone and not to be plastered all over social media where every Tom, Dick, and Harry as well as the kids who rent cars or have their parents pay for everything can chime in. So I still identify as new to asphalt short track stuff, but I've done off-road racing, road course, drifting, and some other stuff, and I'm good friends with some guys who still run Trans-Am, IMSA, and get to tag along to the occasional NASCAR race every once in a while. I've had the opportunity to do a lot of instructing in arenas all over the country as well, Anyways, over the last 20 years I've become quite accustomed to showing up, and drivers meetings, as well as being in many venues where anyone new is really given all the information to succeed and not kill someone. I own all my equipment outright, and I make about double the average American households income. I make enough to race, but I don't make enough to constantly repair a racecar, and I don't have the time and money to replace the entire nose and bumper on my Pro Truck every single race. The tire bill every race is also stupid, but that's part of it I guess, even though the Cobra Tires have been proven to last an entire season, but we're on American Racer kool-aid at this time still. Anyways, I feel like I am at a point in life where I can be able to campaign a mid-level for fun racecar I can go play with in the circle track community. But I have some major concerns and I'd like to lay it all out and get some feedback on it. I post this hoping not to have a bunch of random negative feedback, or the typical character assassination and name calling and behind-the-back-beta-male-bullshit that so often happens with motorsports and folks with low self esteem. Anyhow, a while back I sold my Dad's truck he impulse bought off Facebook to my friend Archie. Archie I feel like is a guy a track would want there. He is a successful business owner, has a family, and he's an all around good guy. Pretty sharp too. Anyways, he buys this Pro Truck after getting the itch after on a random impulse applying and getting accepted to run Cleetus Mc Farland's Danger Ranger 9000, which I got to tag along to. Anyways, let's talk about Archie's experiences and I am trying to figure out if this is normal or not as I feel like it's a pretty big problem. I want to stop here and say that I greatly appreciated what Owen, Karl, Terry and their team are doing at HMP. I do not want to detract from that, and they're doing an excellent job with the extremely limited resources they have. This is not a negative jab at them in any ways but an inquisition to constructive forward progress at HMP. I went to HMP Saturday night like I do most the time, but I left my truck at my shop where it's been since the first race of the season. I heard from several of my friends that I've made in the last year that Terry was asking for feedback from folks like me who have parked our racecars and aren't coming out so Terry can understand why and fix it. Which is why I want to circle back to Archie. Archie went and tested a few times, and got where he could turn laps and wanted to go race. Archie was out of town first race so had Corey Winnie run the truck, which was fine, but the truck was scored under Archie. Fast forward to the next race in the story. Archie shows up still super green. During the race Rick Pollaro and Ryder Wells break away to a 4 second lead for Pollaro and about 3 seconds ahead of third for Wells. It's a rare Pro Truck race that isn't a destruction derby. Not yet. Archie gets into a 4 or so lap side by side battle with Doug Gibson in the old Boyd / Boyette owned 9 and neither of them can get around each other. The blue flag is waved at them 3-4 laps in a row as Pollaro closes in to lap them as they battle for last place. Eventually Archie's truck has a brake line blow off, he blows the corner, spins the 9, and the 96 of Pollaro and 24 of Wells pile in absolutely destroying the front of both their trucks. For a few days this agitated me to no end. My buddy Archie, who isn't dumb and doesn't have a lick of stupid in his body, did one of the dumbest things I've ever seen on a track. The passing flag is displayed, and him and the 9 just keep battling, for literally, last position, and then destroy the two guys leading the race. How could someone as intelligent as Archie do something so...dumb? I talked to Archie about it, knowing that he was embarrassed and upset about it, and rightfully so. "Why didn't you move" was my biggest question. I couldn't comprehend it. After talking to Archie I realized that the only preparation he received to get on track was signing the sign sheet to get into the back gate. I talked to some buddies about this, and thought back to the first time I ran. I really never got a crash course on anything, and after asking some other folks, I realized that at HMP this seems pretty normal. When I go to a drift event, there is a mandatory drivers meeting. It's about 30 minutes to an hour even at a practice day. The flags are gone over, track direction is gone over, literally anything that could cause damage or kill someone is gone over in detail. This is a non-competition drift event. It's us being idiots destroying tires for fun. The drivers meeting is several orders of magnitude greater than anything I've seen at HMP. If I go attempt to race SCCA or NASA, first I have to go to competition school, and get a license, unless I have references. Then I have to potentially have an instructor ride along (this was a long time ago, obviously, but still there is a very steep barrier to entry). Off-Road and desert racing, you can easily kill someone out there, they're pretty in depth too.. ......So this is where I'd like to get to my question. Again, I am not being negative, but I am genuinely asking. At HMP it seems you pay your gate fee, hop in the competition vehicle you own, or are leasing for the day, or your parents leased for you, strap in, and fly out on track. So far this season I've seen things that just blow my mind. Jim Teague ducking into the pits from the top of the track under green. Brandon Leonard pick up the rear tires on a truck leading and almost turn them into the pace car, then turn them into the inside wall on a restart. I've seen competition vehicles going counter race on a hot track. Last weekend I watched several vehicles going different directions on track, including safety. I saw the safety truck even cut off a car being pushed in the pits with zero situational awareness. I've seen zero situational awareness with trucks wrecking 10 seconds after a caution is out. It appears that based on Archie's story, and in hind sight what I've seen as well, that there is little to no training, vehicle egress training, making sure people understand the flags, when to give and take, why you shouldn't dive three wide on an apron after you've been running in the back 50% of the field all night and total one of the most contributing members of HMP's community (when the 9 truck was totalled by someone that I understand was in a rental truck), or the repeated nonsense of certain people just wrecking everyone every race like pissed off teenagers. What sucks the most is the folks I've met are cool off track, but you see them do some things off the track, tear up $50,000 of other folk's stuff, then just joke about it. That's really not cool at all. Anyways, I'm sure you're thinking, ''there is a question there'' if you even bothered to read all that. There is. What's the normal way for someone to get on track? Everywhere else it seems there are age restrictions, a dedicated youth class instead of random kids under the age to buy alcohol or cigarette's, who's parents are paying a damage clause on a piece of equipment and their kid is driving like it's Mario Kart, and they're distributed in every class instead of just one. Then you realize that to get on track, the only barrier to entry is buying a wrist-band at the gate. There is no attendance taken at drivers meeting, there is no verifying the person understands basic flags, motorsports etiquette, even how to safely get on and off the track, and then you have folks who have been doing this for a quarter of a century who can't figure out how to safely enter the pits, or not wreck someone before the green flag even comes out. The drivers at HMP have to take some serious responsibility here. They can't go to Owen, Karl, and Terry and expect them to do everything. It's unreasonable to have them babysit the entire group. That is not sustainable. I feel like the drivers need to step up, which as Nick and some other folks know I tried to structure something like this when SPRS started but Alverson dropped the ball on it (like he has done on anything he's touched) where classes had 3 or so drivers to help with some these issues, but at the same time, what have you seen some the other tracks doing historically that worked? Again keep it constructive. We can make fun of Alverson because nobody likes that guy, but I'm genuinely asking what you more experienced oval track folks have seen here in Texas and around the country. I know the typical "That's just how the community works sometimes" but if any of you have been in communities outside circle track community, which are absolutely flourishing btw, they don't put up with some the nonsense I've seen, but at the same time, they also have a lot of volunteers, most of which are active drivers, and a lot of processes, structure, and drivers meetings and accountability systems. I'm sure there are some systems that have been in place previously, and again, Owen, Karl, and Terry are doing a great job, but they're only three people. I feel like some folks need to take some initiative and help them with this here, but I am not sure what that looks like and would like to hear some of y'alls opinions on this. Again I'm posting this in what I feel is a public area that is off-the-radar to most fans, or anyone who may see this as detrimental or harmful to HMP. The few of you I've met know I'm not capable of wishing or doing harm to HMP or motorsports in general, so if you somehow read it as malicious, I do apologize but the intent of that just isn't there. If I haven't really met you or talked to you in person much and you just need me to be an asshole that won't shut up, that's fine too, whatever you need to make you happy. I've heard that's a thing apparently, I apologize I care enough to share opinions to try to improve something I think is cool, and that I truly believe that in an area that 7.21 million Americans live within an hour of, that we can get more than 1 in million of those folks to start coming and racing in each class, which numerically would be an improvement from where we are currently. Again, to be fair, where we are is much better than 0 in a million, which is where the track was in June of 2022. I truly believe with some work from the driver pool, HMP can build itself up huge with Owen, Karl, Terry and crew in charge, and we can reverse the trend of 20 trucks running on Dirt that used to run at HMP until people got tired of the BS and destruction which everyone says has been just accepted and 'the way it is' for a while now. The first race of the season I was in California with family. My father-in-law watched the first race with me on Race on Texas. He straight up asked me "This is fun to you?" which sadly, I had to reply no. There was probably $100k of time and money torn up race 1 of 2023. The last race before summer, I was at the track, and I had to go hang with the legends guys because I literally couldn't watch the destruction after the 9 truck got killed. This last race was...it was better, but still some interesting stuff, the Legacy race was scary though. I was there with quite a few friends, one of which had a foreign exchange student from Germany at his first oval race. He had been hanging out at the shop and seen my truck, and was asking why I wasn't racing, told him I can't afford to wreck it. About halfway through the truck race, this 13 year old German kid asks me "is there another race without all the rookies? Is that why you don't want to race with them?". It was kinda humorous at first, but after realizing what he said, it really made me start thinking about this. I was told by several of my friends I need to talk to Terry, who again, seems like a great guy. But I didn't see him flying around the track with a cape, he's not superman, and can't do everything, and asked me to put an email and some ideas together with the other drivers, so here we are. I think HMP can do better than tearing up so much stuff every night. I think the caliber of driver in the pool can put on a better show than a kid who's never been to America thinking Pro-Trucks is a rookie class. I think we can do better than destroying so much equipment for no reason every time the track is open...I think....Maybe... Anyways, thanks for reading. Probably a lot to unpack there, hopefully this can lead to some of your knowledge and experience helping out here. I have some ideas I'll post in the replies. I got to talk to Terry about some of this at the track Saturday night, and he really seems like a great dude. He asked me to email him some of this as this is some the stuff we talked about, and out of respect for his time I feel like running this through some of you guys, I may get something much more purposeful and thought out, maybe even something turn-key I can email him.

The bootlegger and factory stock speed was very similar. This weekend was interesting date and I know Owen was stuck with the schedule Alverson left him, but I think competing with fans at TMS, and another Factory Stock race literally 35 minutes away was tough. But I think this race did what needed to be done, demonstrated this would work great. Some friends and I are looking at Factory Stocks to get them on track and I know some the dirt guys didn't want to participate in the science project but were absolutely watching it. Good news is though that it is now known that Factory Stock cars and Bootleggers work just fine with each other. Several cars broke and didn't make the feature but class has 10-12 cars if everyone had showed up.

I went to the first Coliseum race because I was in LA that weekend anyways, and I'm a huge fan of it. The in person acoustics alone are worth it, and I've been to a lot of race tracks and even at a local short track I don't feel as close to the track as I did at the Coliseum. I know it's not for everyone but the location is also dead center in the middle of Los Angeles. There are a lot of folks who didn't realize they'd like NASCAR / Cars in general that seemed to be at that event from the random folks I talked to that were there. That is a wildly fun in-person event. Hate on it all you want. Bristol Dirt Race was something I wanted to go to before it expired. If they keep running races on Easter they'll realize it wasn't the dirt that was hindering attendance. I'm not sure how in a sport where the demographic is mostly Christians with a functional family unit that is important to them why you'd take one of the more remote located tracks and compete against Easter, but I'm just a dude with a keyboard and internet access so what do I know.

All the info can be found here, should be visible even if you don't have a Facebook account. https://www.facebook.com/events/1176335063246580

They're the same page. SPRS was rebranded HMP Oval so folks wouldn't have to hunt stuff down after Alverson was removed. Hopefully some cars turn out.

I know the internet has all the "NaScAr iS dUMb" and "ThE dIrT rAcE iS JuSt A CiRcUs" crowd but I thought that was awesome. I miss the Trucks at Eldora too. Something fun about big heavy high horsepower cars fighting hard to try to hook up and race that was super fun about those. Hopefully we get something in one of the series to keep it going.

105 is always pretty active and healthy. They don't put up with a lot of nonsense behind the back gate, and a lot of folks have made that their community after the track has consistently shown that. They market and try to promote it and have a good class rotation. If you are in Houston and haven't been lately 105 is always a good time.

Jack Jr has been running things behind the scenes but is more interested in road racing and trying to drive. His daughter is also into motorsports stuff and actually lives in Austin. There is still some Roush bloodline that runs things behind the scenes and will be for a long time, but he has delegated a lot of things. With that said, the delegation, RFK and Roush aren't really as intertwined as one would think.

This is just Xfinity. Keep in mind NASCAR is one of the only sports that televises tier 2 and tier 3. I don't see the Sugarland Skeeters or Round Rock Express on TV, although the WNBA is somehow on TV. Not knocking Trucks/Xfinity but the way the series are viewed does matter. What's encouraging is if someone won the bidding war for that with Xfinity, I'd imagine the Cup deal will be solid. I'm curious what happens with Trucks or if they're going to try to pair it with Cup.

We're all going to miss Denny when he is gone. I'm just personally not a fan of his off-track antics, racing and non racing related. The whole JGR crew is just cringe with how fake they all are.

I thought it was fun to watch even with the dude checking out. The lapped traffic made it fun to watch everyone cut through it. The wreck near the end was a bummer taking out a lot of the folks I was interested in.

I can't believe I'm having to clarify, but if you're trying to claim (shocks) from both John Hiel trucks so you can copy them, that's not what the rule is for. I thought what I was typing was pretty obvious. Obviously you can't claim a whole truck. _____________________________________________________________________ The idea on the claim rule is, that while it would be W-O-N-D-E-R-F-U-L to tech, scrutinize, impound, tear down, verify legality of every nut, bolt, shock, engine, differential, etc, that is not a real-world possibility. However, if tech can do the best they can , AND there is an claim rule for the items that are just not reasonably able to be torn down in an amateur Saturday night show, shocks, engines, etc, in theory the items that tech simply does not have enough hours in the day to really dive into, the class itself can discourage items outside the scope of the rules or costs by claiming them. However, one guy who does truck setup, claiming a competitor shops shocks is pretty outside the scope of the intention of the process. You can learn a lot from claiming someone's shocks and looking back on what they did versus what you're doing in a 'spec' class where shocks are one of the biggest adjustments you can have....even though they're 'non adjustable' (just carry 20 of them instead!) Side note: I know they cost more, but I am 100% for adjustable shocks. Carrying 20 different shocks to the track is just stupid and doesn't save any money. Let me turn a knob and be done with it. Put a cost cap on it, have the claim rule at the cost cap. If folks want to run $2000 shocks with a $400 cost cap, then in a few months all the guys like me will have a nice set of $2000 used shocks, that we got for $400, and the teams that want to spend $10k a year on shocks they keep getting claimed can absolutely do that, and the economy gets stimulated in the process. I also think a tire impound rule would be nice. I've heard people complain "How am I supposed to race somewhere else if you stamp my tires, and what about the guy that only races 2x a year". You're already buying two sets of tires every time you unload your truck, so the first argument really is invalid, but the second deal, I am not sure how to police the part time folks that will get new tires when they show up. Do I get brand new tires the first time I decide to go back out if I ever decide it's safe to take my truck out and it wont' get totaled for no reason? How's that fair to the other dudes that have been out there. Nice rule in theory but how does it really work?

Yeah there aren't enough hours in the day and staff budgets to really run a NASCAR style tech program, although it'd be ambitious and nice. Claim rules allow the guys at the track who likely know who-has-what to self police supplementing tech. If you don't want your stuff claimed because it's over budget, stop going over budget. However, if you're trying to sell setup services and claim both John Heil trucks so you can copy their setups, and have someone else do the claim for you, that's BS and hats off to Owen and Karl for calling it like it is.

Strong disagree. Nobody wants to play in the sandbox with special treatment. There are 16 million people within 3 hours of Houston. Seeing some the stuff that used to be allowed and how much money some these dudes spend to cheat up their stuff, I understand why the take rate on participation is less than one in a million. I'm glad something is getting done to clamp down on it and all this backdoor nonsense is coming to an end.

Yep, it's been a while. It was so long ago I'm pretty sure I was in grade school trying to grow a mustache, lol. Top 4 had to park on the front straight, anyone who finished on lead lap could claim their stuff. Didn't happen often, but it did every once in a while which was good for the class to be honest, because it kept people from getting out of control. Every once in a while someone would check out, and rest assured that motor wasn't going home with them. This was back when Lone Star was the big 1/2 mile high banked setup where power mattered too. Cool track, always wanted to race there but that place is long gone, just like $500 running driving cars with SBC, and long blocks getting claimed for a few hundred bucks. While that specific rule set won't work, the fundamental idea still will and does.

I screwed up the quote tags and don't feel like fixing it.

This is mostly how the rule is written now. The previous promoter copy pasted this and Gina's rulebook from Mobile and did some partial unproofread editing and cuts in there. I would appreaciate a reasonable claim rule for adjustable shocks. It's kinda frustrating to have to change the entire shock when you want to make a change. I can adjust them on my own by myself, I've been doing that for a long time, but buliding/swapping them anytime I want to change, and all the guys having 10 sets of front shocks because we're "saving costs" by not having an adjustment knob isn't saving anyone money. Claim rule, adjustable shocks instead of 10 shocks, seems sensible to me. But what do I know.

Scotty if you're in Houston I can probably get you some hand-me-downs pretty easily if they don't have to come directly from the track. If you need any feel free to DM me.

My dad ran IMCA cars at Lone Star, Rose Bowl and Thunder Hill in Jacksonville with the claim rule, and it really did police things a lot. I remember he'd go to the used car auction and bring all these $500 trucks home to steal the motors out of them for that class, haha. There are 16 million folks within an hour of HMP, the take rate on participation shows the costs involved need to be re-evaluated. I think the shock claim rule is a good idea, but some fine tuning. Didn't help that the rulebook hasn't been updated yet since the hastily copy-pasted one that has some parts that aren't fully written or developed in it, Owen and Karl are great but they're rebuilding what was never really built in the first place. I think it's pretty reasonable to give them props for saying "hey we made an error here, let's make it right".

From what they were saying on TV and a couple my buddies who work on the 9 JRM team were saying, they had contingencies to run on Monday *or* lay over and run on Tuesday, but decided since it was literally 2 to go until the race was *official* for xfinity, and there was no doubt they could get Cup in if the weather cleared, they decided to just call the Xfinity race and move to Cup, 2 laps wasn't worth keeping everyone on staff, and asking spectators to come back Monday or Tuesday, for, literally , 2 laps to make it official. While it was pretty wild on paper, all things considered, I think it was the right call.

I like this and looked at it, but wanted to open it up beyond panther chassis as I'm not sure how long the supply of those will last, and feel like there are several other cheap platforms that would work as well, the Lexus LS400/460 and some other cars in there. Good news, Owen did say let's bring the current crown vic guys out on the 28th, and I'm waiting on some safety requirement feedback (just messaged him about it, wanted to let this weekend play out and not distract from it) and will probably throw the rulebook out and see what comes out. If you're wanting to run this, please DM me and let me know what platform you're looking at. Did get some feedback I thought was sensible about listing 2-3 platforms, and having a line in there about "other platforms may be allowed, please email a track official" instead of just overwhelming people with options, but then giving the option to folks if they find or have something that may work but is strange, Kia K900, Jaguar XJ, Cadillac Catera, etc etc etc. Literally, who knows what someone might find for $0-1000 that could run this class and fit in. Whoever mentioned the breakout rule, I am all about that. Run a 16.9999999 and you're promoted to bootleggers, 100%.

That's spectator drags. If current promotional staff can work out the insurance (NHTSA Crash standards for 2003+ and a roll bar for not 2003+ vehicles, and a helmet seem to do the trick at most tracks who sell this to their insurance from my first hand knowledge of talking to those tracks because they also do drifting, which is where I come from, which also has pretty relaxed safety for wheel to wheel compared to short track racing)

Jeremy Mayfield has been running the Grand National Super Series quite often. Pretty cool series growing. Funded by the ECC guys that were very active in Trans Am for a while, basically Gen 4 pre COT cup cars on short tracks. Pretty cool. https://www.grandnationalsuperseries.com/ I was excited to see him on the CARS roster but those are completely different than what he's been racing and was just a field filler team. Still cool to see him out there.

I thought it was awesome. I was VERY skeptical about the course layout and boy was I wrong, and happy to be wrong. That race was absolutely awesome. And Chicago is an awesome city. Def want to go next year.