Statement from Mary Ann Naumann

[NickHolt]

MAN's Prospective, as Terry Dickerson said to me when he first came into the Central Texas Racing community, "If you can't beat em, copy em" well, as the TSRS Series Owner/Director, I have enjoyed reading his "Promoters Perspective" and so I am going to copy his approach and give you my perspective of this past Saturday night.

 

What a weekend, there is no way to address everyone's concerns and opinions and no way to overcome the objections to what took place on Saturday evening at San Antonio Speedway. There was an incredible crowd of racing fans in attendance. The pit area was a site to be seen. TSRS was chosen to go first in the night of racing, we tested first, we qualified first and we were the first to start the night off with racing action and action we gave! We, TSRS and USRA Series Directors and the SAS Track Officials worked very hard throughout the entire day to work together to assure that we stayed on schedule for the race fans. It was looking great, then unfortunately for the #61 in the qualifying of the USRA Super Late Model Series, there was a major oil spill which made for a very long and hard clean up. TSRS was to grid prior to the scheduled 6:45 opening ceremony, we were well past that time and that was OK, as we say in racing, this schedule is subject to change, by the time we took to the track, the crowd seemed to be getting a little restless, we rushed our introductions by having our cars come onto the track with Drivers buckled in and ready to go race. Then it got real exciting when our pole sitter Brandon Bendele rolled a one in our trademark dice roll causing a complete field inversion! First time in the three years of TSRS! That put Robert Elizondo # 98 on the pole. After battling Hal Collins # 59 around turn one, Elizondo rolled out of turn three with the lead. The first wreck occurred on lap one when David Sevilla # 8 and Brian Moczygemba # 50 touched on the back stretch, sending Moczygemba hard into the turn three wall with a cut tire and bringing out the first of three red flags. That called for a total restart, as Elizondo brought the field around for the restart the field quickly spread out and it looked like the Drivers were going to settle in for a long run. But then on lap three, Beau Bukowski # 00 and Henry Guerra # 55 got together coming out of turn four starting a chain reaction that collected Brandon Bendele in the David White # 6, Lloyd Alexander # 5, Mike Balzer # 77, Brian Schild # 11, Ronny New # 1, and David Sevilla # 8, this bringing out the second red flag of the race. This second delay caused me to cut the race to 53 laps, there were 3 laps that were counted as complete and then looking to run 50 additional laps, the spotters were informed. My thoughts were, get this cleaned up, cut the laps we still got a lot of racing for these race fans to see. So, once again, we go green, then just two laps later Ryan Engelhardt in the # 53 and Hal Collins # 59 mixed it up and with the trading of some paint between these two cars that which brought out the third and final red flag which was when I announced to the teams that we were going to go off the track and to meet at the Series trailer, I was headed across the track when SAS track announcer Milton asked me to address the fans, my statement was this, “We are going to give these drivers a chance to get their cars back in racing order and bring them back out for a ten lap shoot out. We are going to let the fans see some good racing and give these guys another opportunity. They are all driving with their hearts and wanting to win. Thank God that no one has been hurt. These are some incredible Drivers and you have just seen Talladega right here at San Antonio Speedway. This can happen on any race track and with any series; unfortunately it was the Texas Super Racing Series. I still think those are some of the finest Drivers out there and I know they will show you a great ten lap shoot out.” And from there, we were headed to the Series trailer, bringing in our Officials followed later by the Drivers. There were only a handful of the original 17 starters able to continue. It was a hard Saturday night for the Series, as well as for the race teams. We as Officials spent a lot of time going over and over that catastrophe that took place from the competition between 53 and the 59. This is how we all finally came to agree and to make the final decision, we saw the 59 leading the pack, we saw the 53 at times with both tires below the white line, coming up into the 59, had he spun, we would have gone yellow and the 53 would have been sent to the back, although he held on and he fought back, at times very aggressively, I had already came across the radio to the spotter of the 53 car & then to the spotter of 59, at that time the incident took place, had it not caused the end result of the race, I would have sent 53 and the 59 to the back, with the 53 behind the 59. Being that the end result was so horrible for many, we decided to call the race, we went back to the last completed green flag lap, which was with 11 cars from the original 17, we put the 53 to the rear of the 11 remaining cars, the 59 to the rear in front of the 53 and called the finishing of that race. We then brought all drivers to the Series trailer talked about what had taken place and took a count of who could compete in a 10 lap Shootout, there were 8, they drew for starting positions and all went to work on their cars, they each had to go through safety tech again and to had to reweigh. An additional purse of 1200.00 was put up for those 10 laps and the purse was paid for the original race. None of what took place was easy calls for anyone, is it going to please everyone, certainly not, and it may please no one. I think this series has some of the finest Officials around, no one in the series makes or gives their input based on anything personal, we, TSRS have to put this event behind us, pick our heads back up and move on, I hope those involved can do the same thing. Some of you reading this may not agree and I can appreciate that. I hope those involved will take some responsibility, as well. I cannot open it up for discussion, at least discussion with the possibility to change our final ruling on this race event. We must move on and hopefully all will learn something from such a mess of what could have been an incredible event. I have made the decision to do away with the total possibility to roll an entire inversion. We will roll one dice and the 1 will be a heads up. Do I think this is what caused this mess? No! We are looking at some other options for next season to keep it exciting, as the race fans were pretty excited when Brandon rolled a one, we could have been the heroes as well as a zero. None of the Officials can take the blame for how the race turned out, at least with the driving, none of us had our hands on a wheel. Will this event and decisions that were made change or have an impact on the series? Absolutely, it was a no win situation and I am certain there will be consequences to come, but I feel we did the best with what we had to work with.

 

Now, that 10 lap Shootout was one to be seen, although there was an incident between the 53 and the 97, after gathering input, I was about to send the 97 to the rear when the flagman was showing the Drivers one to go, I felt the safe thing to do was go green and penalize the 97 one position. There is not a lot of time to make decisions as there is not a lot of time for Drivers to make decisions, we make them, commit to them and we must move on. And that's my perspective.

 

Thank you all and hope to see you each at the Texas Stock Car Spectacular on October 22nd @ Thunder Hill Raceway and November 19th @ Texas Motor Speedway, with the exciting road course. The Race results are below.

 

Sincerely,

Mary Ann Naumann

TEXAS SUPER RACING SERIES - The Late Models!

 

San Antonio Speedway OktoberFAST Results

Finishing Order:

Car # Driver Payout

1 79 Joe Aramendia 1000.00

2 5 Lloyd Alexander 700.00

3 98 Robert Elizondo 500.00

4 55 Henry Guerra 300.00

5 28 Leland Waddell 250.00

6 6 Brandon Bendele 200.00

7 97 Danny Garcia 150.00

8 00 Beau Bukowski 125.00

9 80 Allen Alexander 100.00

10 59 Hal Collins 100.00

11 53 Ryan Engelhardt 100.00

12 77 Mike Balzer 100.00

13 8 David Sevilla 100.00

14 1 Ronny New 100.00

15 11 Brian Schild 100.00

16 50 Brian Moczygemba DCL

17 1 Casey Smith DNS

18 3 Mike Reininger DNS

 

10 Lap Shootout

Car # Driver Payout

1 79 Joe Aramendia 250.00

2 53 Ryan Engelhardt 175.00

3 28 Leland Waddell 150.00

4 97 Danny Garcia 125.00

5 00 Beau Bukowski 125.00

6 55 Henry Guerra 125.00

7 98 Robert Elizondo 125.00

8 80 Allen Alexander 125.00