“The Rookie”

“The Rookie”

by Tommy Goudge (May 16, 2008), London, Ontario -

So, tonight I officially begin announcing at Ohsweken Speedway. To be honest, I’m probably not nearly as nervous as I am supposed to be. I think the nervousness is being overrun by my excitement to see Ohsweken’s new weekly sprint car division in action for the first time. TJ Slideways told me the other day that he was so nervous the first time he got on the mic that he did everything he hated and almost felt like he forgot everything he knew (which is a lot!!), so if I only forget half of what I know tonight, I think I’ll be ok! Having Greg up in the booth will probably help a lot too…I might get nervous if we fill all of those new seats in the grandstand though!

It has already been an interesting season for me, doing the media officer duties for the Southern Ontario Sprints, and a few behind the scenes things for Ohsweken. Leading up to the season, I did a few driver preview articles for the SOS and was very surprised when Bob Crawford told me last Saturday at Brighton that unbeknownst to both of us, the article I did on him ended up in the Sutton paper! He found out when somebody pointed to it and said “isn’t this you?” while he was out shopping one day. We both had a bit of a laugh over that one. Bob is such a soft-spoken, unassuming and friendly guy that I can just picture the situation in my head and it gives me a chuckle.

If this entire season is as much fun as Brighton was last Saturday, it’s going to be a great year. Some of the teams had a less than fun night unfortunately, as there were a few bent race cars and some mechanical gremlins, but it was great to meet everyone, and fun to be more involved than simply sitting in the stands watching (although I still like to do that on occasion, and will continue to do so). April Wilson’s car got the most bent up as she went for a wild ride after a meeting with one of the tractor tire barriers in turn 1 at Brighton. April went to the hospital but thankfully was released with a clean bill of health. I am sure those who know me are sick of hearing me rail away about my hatred of tractor tires, but I keep seeing more and more examples to back up my opinion! There are much better ways to keep cars out of the infield that are much less dangerous.

It might come as a surprise to those who know me, but in some ways I think I am actually more looking forward to the Mini-Stock and Thunder Stock divisions at Ohsweken this year than I am the sprint cars. Sprint Cars are my background and I can rhyme off driver names, numbers, and sponsors with ease. Getting to know the drivers in those divisions will be a challenge for me, but one that I am looking forward to. I also hope the Thunderstock division especially can grow over the next year or two because the cars and drivers that run in that division put on a great show each week at Ohsweken, and the show would be even better if there were as many Thunderstocks as there are Mini-Stocks. I hope one day I can say the words “Thunder Stock B-Main” at Ohsweken. I’m also really looking forward to seeing what all the new sprint car drivers are going to do this year…Mikey Kruchka, Dave Dykstra, and John Burbridge Jr, are just 3 of many drivers who moved up to sprints this year from other divisions. The Rookie of the Year battle at Ohsweken is going to be very good this season!

I’ll leave it there for now…I’m sure I will have a lot of things to say after tonight so I’ll keep this instalment at least somewhat brief. I will finish by saying that if you are interested in getting involved in local racing in any form, I highly recommend it – if I can do it, anyone can! If you have comments or questios, drop me a line at tommygoudge@hotmail.com. See you at the track!