While some lucky folks get to follow the big boys from week to week, most
of us grab the occasional opportunity to make the big show, then fill in the
interim weekends at the local short track. If your local short track has had
the same stable owner - promoter for a number of years and puts on a
consistently good program while keeping the owner - drivers happy and coming
back, you, my friend, live in race fan paradise.
Here in southwest Florida,[the Old Coast], we are gifted with a couple of
paved short tracks run by folks with the enthusiasm, if not the capital, of
Humpy Wheeler.
These guys know that it takes more than a standard weekly program to draw the
kind of crowd that fills the seats and provides much needed purse money and
the incentive for a prospective sponsor to plunk down some much needed cash
for the racers.
DeSoto Speedway lies out in the boonies about 9 miles east of Bradenton.
The facilities include the Dragway, a straight liners dream, and the
HighBanks of DeSoto Speedway, The South's fastest short track. After seeing
this venue rise and fall like the Gulf tides for 25 years that I've been
here, I'm happy to report that stability finally has found the home town
track. Knowing that not everyone can go to the 500, opening night at DeSoto,
Feb.16, will include SchoolBus figure 8's, [don't laugh, this is good stuff],
outlaw mods, and of course the pure stock, and mini stocks, and if this isn't
enough to get your racin mojo on, they'll bring out the winged sprints for
the feature. Combining a program like this with great food, reasonable
prices, and Southern hospitality is what makes this a model of what local
tracks should strive for.
Down the road about 50 miles is a track with less history, but no less
character and enthusiasm for giving race fans what they crave. Charlotte
County Speedway is a 1/3 mile low banked paved track that gets the jump on
everybody with the Hangover Enduro on New Years day. Now that we are entering
race season proper, Robby has insured me that CCS is pumped and ready for a
summer full of racing.
As in big time racing, the smaller short tracks need to realize that they
are the center of balance between the necessary ingredients to success. The
fans come to see the racers, and their dollars provide the purses which, in
turn, provide the incentive for the racers. While we have to agree that a
bunch of beat up Pintos slamming each other around the track is technically
racing, and provides some big fun and opportunity for low budget outfits,
there is no doubt that fans also want to see the sprints, outlaws, and mods
that cost bucks to build and maintain and expect bucks in return for the
show.
Updated facilities are another draw. Just as the pro football stadiums of
25 years ago are considered dinosaurs by today's standards, the rickety old
bleachers and stinky portolets that used to suffice as local short track
venues are giving way to up to date comfortable facilities where no one has to
worry about bringing the wife and kids. Long time fans at Berlin Raceway
outside Grand Rapids, Michigan have seen a transition since the track was
bought by a group including Berlin alumni Johnny Benson. Sure, the place
oozed history and produced legions, as did countless other tracks all over
America, but it took some spiffin up and some new facilities to bring back
the crowds of yesteryear.
If your home track is doing something right, either in it's program or
treatment of it's racers, give me a holler and I'll pass it along in a future
column.
Meanwhile,
Happy Racin Danny Zeeff
DannyZ@insidethepitbox.com
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