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HOUSTONLM04

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Q: "By the way, what was Kurt Busch doing testing at Road America?"

 

A: Crashing into an ambulance

From Jaski's site:

 

Busch crashes into ambulance at Road America: During a mid-morning track

test session at Road America [4 mile road course, Elkhart Lake, WI],

#97-Kurt Busch drove through a tire barrier and hit an ambulance. Although

two ambulance personnel were taken to the hospital for minor injuries, Bush

was not hurt in the accident. According to Busch, a loose brake fitting

caused break failure as he went into turn five. The incident is under review

by the Road America Safety Team.(5-3-2005)

 

There's a typo in that release. It should be "caused brain failure" not "caused brake failure." LOL

 

Nick Holt

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LL is right about SAS - pave the pits and put in a real pit road and add more stands. If you poll most drivers they seem to like the 3/4 mile Richmond track alot. Find a south texas millionaire t build it and they will come. jmo

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The push for races...Craftsmen Truck/CART/IRL/Busch/ARCA...at TWS was halted because it was too lucrative to just rent out for testing and commercials.I know someone who races SCCA there and they barely get a few free weekends to run.All of the other weekends are booked.

 

It is a no-brainer that another shortrack race,especially in the central texas area would be huge.Why someone hasn't anounced that they have appraoched NASCAR about this is beyond me.If you build the grandstands the right way from the start,you can easily build for 250,000 at a half mile track,and have better visibility than Bristol does.All you have to do is double decker the stands.

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Penske ain't the money behind TWS. He'd never stand for anything he owned to be run that badly.

Andretti did test his Indycars there, but not with Penske, with Newman-Haas. They were too darn fast (well over 230mph) and that was 20 years ago.

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Turbo-Diesel-

They don't do anything else at TWS because they don't have to, and the facility is too run down to handle anything other than club-type events. Yes, they are booked solid, but it's because it's easy (and relatively cheap) to run there.

If the facility were up to snuff, it could handle NASCAR and so on, though the open-wheel guys would be way too fast and NASCAR might have to run restrictor plates. The fact that it is busy is immaterial; Texas Motor Speedway is booked about 500 days a year.

The problem with TWS has always been that it's the best-kept secret in Texas, but only because it's older and larger than other unknown race tracks.

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I was just going by what Dick Canole said in a press release after the last ARCA race there,and what friends say...second hand stuff you know...but the point still stands.These new tracks they are building are a success without Nextel Cup,because of the testing,commercials,concerts,car shows,boat and rv shows.......

 

TWS wasn't run down after the last ARCA race there...it just didn't have enough seats and the rest of the amenities that you need to host a race there...

 

It was way more profitable for Mr. Canole to not expand the track to host certain events.

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T-D-

You're right, it was way more profitable for Conole to do the minimum of everything as long as he has the Porsche Club, the Ferrari series, the SCCA, the CMRA and so on to rent the place.

The problem is that the track has been through a lot of hands, none of whom have ever successfully run a race track. Even those ARCA races (which were run in conjunction with the old Winston West series) were badly done, with all the money for advertising and promotion being spent in Houston, ignoring the other major sources of fans.

The handwriting was on the wall for me when the organizers announced the hiring of a ticket manager -- one month from the race date.

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RebelRacer-

 

That was from a quote from Eddie Gossage when the CART folks were talking about rescheduling their race, cancelled due to the cars generating higher G-forces than the drivers could stand. He was pointing out that they were not only booked for the next year, but often had more than one event or activity planned on the same day. That is, in fact, the way you make money on a race track: you use it all the time. Few, if any, tracks could make it on a few events a year, or even on one race a week.

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correct on useage TQ-i have worked at a race facility since november and have worked over 80 events already-when we're not doing our own weekly events, somebody else is using the facilities and we supply the track personnel to put on the races for them-whether its car clubs-corporations having a day at the races for customers-or traveling promotional groups putting on an event-or teams renting for testing when no events are booked- the tracks being used constantly-on days its not being used,it is being maintained and readied for the next event-we are open 52 weeks a year with something going on all the time-i have learned more than i ever thought i could about the inner workings of a racing venue-there's more to it than just showing up on saturday and swinging the gate open and saying theres the track go race and afterwards going damn,we aint making any $$$$

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i was making a joke to the comment about being booked 500 days a year when my calander only has 365 days in it................it was just a joke, i am sure they are double booked thru out the year and that is great, i was merely making a joke about the number of days quoted...............

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"Darlington's TV ratings super: If NASCAR is looking to delete storied Darlington Raceway from the 2006 Nextel Cup Series schedule, it won't have TV ratings as an excuse. Track officials released figures from Fox on Wednesday showing Saturday night's inaugural Dodge Charger 500 with a 5.6 rating and an 11 share. That made it the highest-rated primetime NASCAR event in the network's history.

 

The race had an average viewership of 9.3 million, up about 10 percent from Fox's other primetime TV race this season. The race's 11 share dwarfed programming of the other networks -- CBS and ABC had shares of 4.7 and NBC posted a 4.5. The share is the percentage of televisions in use tuned to a program. The rating is the percentage of all homes with televisions."

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I'd like to hear about other experiences at Darlington. I went for the first time last weekend and was disappointed. The "experience" was fantastic: you could just feel the history, etc. But I had what should have been good seats @ start/finish, 3/4 up, for both races, and couldn't see well at all. First, the seating is extremely tight, no room to breathe. But worse, the cars run right up on the wall down the front stretch, so all you can see is up until the middle of four, then follow the sound until you pick them up again around the middle of one. I snuck over to turn four seating during the busch race, and that was pretty cool; incredible how much speed is carried up against that wall. I know, overall I shouldn't b*#$%. But I just couldn't believe how bad the sight lines are.

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It is a no-brainer that another shortrack race,especially in the central texas area would be huge.Why someone hasn't anounced that they have appraoched NASCAR about this is beyond me.If you build the grandstands the right way from the start,you can easily build for 250,000 at a half mile track,and have better visibility than Bristol does.All you have to do is double decker the stands.

turbo, I dont think Larry could even figure out how to put 250,000 seats around a half mile track. I've been to Bristols night race the last 3 years and there is NO visiblity problem there. The Busch race I set in row 1, can see everything. For the Cup race I have set in row 21, 46, 53 in the turns. The stands are awesome BUT they only hold 164,000 I dont know where you'd put another 100,000 seats. You would not be able to see the cars(look like piss ants). The only bad thing about Bristol is walking up that damn hill to get to the track(cooler gets heavy). And the people dont party at Bristol. SO LARRY, when you build your Texas-Bristol Speedway, no hills and lots of gogo dancers, and maybe a valet to carry the coolers to your seats..........

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