(TSRS) Joke of a Race

[Jason]

Tommy,

 

Perhaps I shouldn't have responded that way. You are right. I am not a supporter of TSRS. The race Saturday night did not help one bit either. My beliefs, which I have expressed many times, are that racing needs to have its tracks succeed and do well before you start a series. Why? Without tracks there is no racing. Simple as that. You hear about this type of stuff all the time with tracks closing down because lack of funds. In fact a dirt track in the Houston area closed down for this reason. It may have not been able to fight the other dirt track in Houston. At the time TSRS came about, car counts were and still are not all that great. Why is this? TSRS isn't the only reason. There are many factors to which I belief asphalt racing in Texas has lacked car counts and supporters. Take a look around at the dirt tracks. A lot of them are full of cars and run for about the same purse. Sometimes more and sometimes less. Why is this? IMCA, UMP, SIMS/ULMA, etc. These sanctions have made it easy for a guy to take his car to different tracks around the state. If a promoter pisses him off then he can just go to the next track. There are a lot of dirt cars and a lot of dirt tracks in Texas. You need the track as a foundation if you want asphalt racing to spread and grow. That is why I am such a believer in this new TTOPA. I know they can make it work. TSRS did hurt car count at THR. It does not help car count at other tracks if they have this traveling local class racing at their track. THR realized this. Now I hope CCMS can put together a latemodel class. Now if you take a look at the financial situation of TSRS. Last year they came out with a bang and spent a whole bunch of money. I suspect that the original plan was to have TSRS a huge series with tons of sponsors by this time. The money for the series is coming out of the same pockets. Nothing has changed. In fact even the drivers are paying the points fund this year. What will happen when that money stops coming out of those pockets? Where are all the sponsors? I know I am very opinionated. I may be a little extreme but I am just telling it like I see it. I am not trying to take away from the hard work all the drivers and teams are enduring to be competitive and win. All the money and time you guys have put into this should not be for waste. The beef isn’t with the drivers or teams. It’s with the series and its beliefs on what racing should be. I am not against the idea of a racing series. I just believe if you have a series, it should not hurt the tracks. I am a HUGE supporter of ROMCO and TAMS. Those series don’t try to make racing into some show. They are about racing and putting on a thrilling race for the fans. You don’t see them trying to invert the whole field penalizing the guys who are fast and did their homework. ROMCO inverts 4 and that is just about right. You guys should ask the #53 team how they felt about the invert. They ended up being towed back to the pits. How do you expect to make up all those spots on a tight quarter mile track with 50 out of the 75 laps under caution? Congrats on your 3rd place finish Tommy. Did you guys have a scratch on the car?

 

Jason

[TGural]

Jason,

 

Oops...I should have signed my post. It's not Tommy, but Teresa Gural #25. Although, we do share a lot of the same opinions about racing, I don't want to you to think he wrote the reply to you.

 

Appreciate your response and respect you have your opinions about TSRS. I will try not to get too long and defensive here, however I 'd like to share mine. Agree with you that the tracks need to be successful. Both Tommy and I have run at THR since it opened. Ran Longhorn before that. In fact, Tommy never missed a night of racing for 7 years, and that was the day we were married. We are die hard racers and have supported our local tracks for years, just like others we race with have done.

 

We try to run both TSRS and THR. From our observations, THR has some of the responsibility for the car count dwindling at their track in the past. As you even stated, the problem was there before TSRS started last year. A lot of it is economics, folks wanting to run late models, but just can't afford it. Then there are others, that have run a late model type of cars for years, who want more competitive racing than local race tracks can or have provided. (Without having to sell the farm and move to North Carolina/Florida. And, Romco is just too expensive for a lot of racers) We enjoy having the ability to race against drivers from all over the state. In the past, the tracks competed against each other so heavily with their rules, that you couldn't race at another track. The personal differences between promotors, has caused conflict in the racing community. As you also stated, it's important that tracks don't run their drivers off. However, sponsorship/money is hurting tracks and racers at all levels of the sport. Drivers have been paying our own purses or not getting them at all, when running at the local tracks for serveral years now. Dang, you can't even do a 50/50 fund anymore. And last...rule changes that cause the expense of running late model up, is also a critical reason for failure of a class or series. This includes tires!!!

 

I strongly believe there is a win/win situation that can co-exist with TSRS and all tracks. I'm excited to see changes at THR and hope it works to improve their spectator/car counts. We plan to race there opening night.

 

I'm not familure with the TTOPA that you speak of. Can you give me a website or a place to find more info?

 

To answer your question...Tommy did get a little rub damage on the left quarter during one of the restarts. He had a lot of fun racing at Corpus and was very happy to come out clean. He had horror memories of the track, it's condition and the slam fests from the past. I still think the TSRS racing was remarkably clean, considering all the factors and some races I've seen there.

 

Teresa

[supertx]

Jason

If you are talking about batteground speedway it wasn't for the reason that you say it is mostely about a noise ordance and new neighbors. As far as TSRS taking away cars correct me if im wrong didn't SA fold this class of cars and the car count wasn't there at THR if you call 12 to 18 cars a big car count on a very good night.