THR Press Release

[NickHolt]

Thunder Hill Raceway announces new Competition Director

 

By J M Hallas

 

Kyle, Texas - Thunder Hill Raceway, a paved, 3/8-mile, D-shaped track south of Austin, Texas, announced that Nick Holt will be taking over as Competition Director for 2004 during a drivers meeting on Saturday night, December 13th. According to Holt, this will allow, track owners Brian Callaway and Jim Lynch an opportunity to dedicate themselves to improving the business side of THR. Other THR officials will continue in their current roles, Jack Sandefur as Chief Technical Inspector, David Mackey as Track Manager, Randy Hubbard as Head Flagman and Kathy Tieman as Head Scorer.

 

Mr. Holt comes to the track with a pocket full of credentials having held the position of Competition Director and NASCAR Chief Steward at San Antonio Speedway from 93-95, serving as a rules consultant for the Texas International Drivers Association, and more recently as the Chief Tech Inspector for the Pro Sedan Series. He is also well-known as a pavement set-up guru, with suspension engineering articles in Stock Car Racing Magazine, Short Track Racing Magazine, Late Model Digest, National Speed Sport News and various regional racing papers. He was also the Motorsports writer for the San Antonio Light for a number of years. Currently he is holding suspension seminars in San Antonio and Houston.

 

Mr. Holt outlined some of his priorities during the meeting stating, "From my perspective, all that racers really want, besides huge purses, a magical suspension set-up or hitting the lottery, is a level playing field and honest, fair calls. I am committed to that concept. I'm positive I will be making some mistakes, however, but those mistakes won't be because I favor one team over another. At this point, I don't know any of the teams

competing in the weekly program at the track and have no vested interest in any of them. Every THR team is starting off with a clean sheet with me."

 

"Secondly, I will be very accessible. I am providing my home phone number, email address and mailing address to everyone here. No one has all the answers, but I am committed to listening to reasonable input from anyone taking the time to contact me."

 

"Thirdly, the 'buck' will stop with me. I work for Jim and Brian, but I will be making the decisions that have to do with the racing program at THR. Of course, I will not be telling the owners how to run their business, but they have agreed that they will not be telling me how to conduct the racing program either. Sure, we'll talk things over, but ultimately the decisions having to do with the racing program will be mine. So, if someone has something nice to say about the racing program, tell me about it. Likewise, if someone has a complaint about the racing program it's my job to deal with it. And if it's something that needs the owners attention, I will bring it up with them. In other words, Brian and Jim want to concentrate on the business end of the deal and leave the competition headaches up to me -- and vice versa."

 

His first order of business was to announce a rule change regarding race procedures. From here on out, THR will be using the so-called "all-involved rule" when deciding how to handle on-track racing incidents. This is a major departure from the "at-fault rule" where track officials attempted to determine who was at fault in racing incidents in the past. Basically, if a car is involved in a racing incident that causes a yellow or red flag, all the cars involved in bringing out that flag will have to start from the rear of the pack, not just the "guilty" party. As Mr. Holt put it, "The machine I have been working on that would automatically assess the drivers' guilt in all racing incidents has not yet been perfected, so in the meantime the "all involved rule" will be used at THR."

 

THR will soon start work on widening the back straight, providing a safer run-off area just before turn four and adding some paved area towards the inside of the track at both ends. Hopefully these improvements will help provide more racing grooves, provide another measure of safety for the drivers and help keep rocks and debris from the infield off the racing surface. There are also improvements coming for the grandstand seating, some paved parking lot access roads and better roadside signage.