The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

London, Ontario (August 25, 2008) -

Friday night at Ohsweken was one of the most fun nights at a race I've had in a long time. We couldn't have asked for better weather, and with a 0% chance of rain in the forecast, a nice crowd turned up to watch the action. They looked a little lost out there in those big 7,500+ seat grandstands, but the fact remains that a lot of people were there on Friday night. It's interesting to note too that at the same time, Delaware Speedway had a packed house on their Two for One night - There's a lot of doom and gloom in short track racing these days, and it's nice to see and hear some positivity. The fans are out there...They just need to be cultivated.

The racing action at Ohsweken on Friday was great as usual...except my foray into the world of the Fun Stocks, but we won't go there. I didn't finish dead last, I didn't lose a limb, the car was still running when I parked it after the race, and I made $10, so I consider it a success. Heck, I might even do it again...The REAL racers put on a good show, including the Thunder Stock drivers, who are consistently the best race of the night these days. The addition of some of the Niagara-area drivers has been good for the class. I hope it's something that continues next season, but I have a feeling that a lot of the younger ones like Michael Bosse and Billy Bleich, Jr. are destined for bigger things, and we already know this is Cody McPherson's last year in the division before he moves up to Sportsman Modifieds.

Speaking of drivers moving up, fans at Ohsweken on Friday heard dominant Mod-Lite driver Paul Klager mention that he and his team are looking at moving up to the Sprint Car division in the future. Could we see a "Ripley's Believe it or Not" sprinter at Ohsweken next season?

People like Paul are obviously aware of how well a lot of drivers from their area have done after moving up to sprints; The latest addition to the list of Niagara-area drivers who have won a sprint car race is Brad Malloy, who outlasted Glenn Styres to take the Corr/Pak feature win on Friday night. Malloy made the middle groove work better than most seem able to at Ohsweken, and battled back each time Styres nosed ahead. It was a great race to watch, and it was fun to see people like Malloy and his team get rewarded for a lot of hard work and perseverance.

As great as Friday night was, the rest of the weekend was a bit of a downer. Sunny skies were overhead for most of our 150 mile jaunt to Owendale Speedway in Michigan's "Thumb" on Saturday for a SOD event...Owendale being one of the only dirt tracks within that distance of home I had yet to visit. Mother Nature didn't co-operate once we arrived, and seemed to concentrate most of her precipitation directly over the track, washing out the event. Owendale is a bit of a step back in time in terms of fan amenities, but the track surface itself looks like a lot of fun. Hopefully I'll have a chance to get back there next season.

Almost the same thing happened on Sunday night when I decided at the last minute to head for Humberstone, where the Patriot sprints were scheduled to run the last sprint car show of Humberstone's season. A storm went through the area around 4:00 and washed out the show, diverting me from Jordan Station back towards Hamilton and more specifically Flamboro, where I knew the Can-Am Midgets were holding an open invitational. A decent field of 20 TQ Midgets were on hand with some ATQMRA and Lancaster cars in attendance.

The open race was a bit of a test for Can-Am to see what to do about engines going forward, as their current Kawasakis are getting hard to find. It was obvious right from the get-go that whatever engine formula the ATQMRA group uses is faster than what the locals have, as the New Jersey drivers dominated. I'd be interested to know some opinions on what effect their larger wings had on how fast they got around Flamboro as well though. Although it was hard to tell with a rather quiet PA system and nobody bothering to interview the winner, I am pretty sure that Don Adams of Robbinsville, NJ took the feature win after barely holding off one of his fellow AQTMRA drivers in a #46 car for the win in lapped traffic.

Adams started near the front and quickly got out front, opening a huge gap, but behind him the #46 was slicing through the field. Over the last 10 laps, he erased a 3 second gap and nearly snuck by Adams for the win. The fact that the winner wasn't interviewed got even more frustrating when Flamboro's announcer immediately went down to the frontstretch to do out-of-car driver interductions for the Late Model race with a flawless-sounding wireless mic once the midgets had gone back to the pits. These guys (and a gal too) came all the way from New Jersey to support Flamboro Speedway and the Can-Am club, and nobody talks to them on the mic so the fans can show their appreciation and find out a bit about them? Why does the Can-Am club even have a travelling announcer? Incidentally, that caution-filled Late Model feature is the closest I have ever come to leaving a track before a race was over. In the end, I stuck it out and watched as the 2nd place car nudged the leader out of the way with under 5 laps to go and went on for the win. Thankfully, the "Bump and Run" is not part of open wheel racing 90% of the time (Fred Rahmer might say different). The stock car folks can keep that tactic to themselves.

So now that I've emptied my bucket of discontent, hate-mail can be sent to tommygoudge@hotmail.com. One of the interesting things for me at Flamboro was getting to see some of the drivers who run on the dirt at Ohsweken every Friday racing on Flamboro's pavement. The most successful of these is Dave Bailey, who started 17th in the Mini-Stock race and still won the race - his 10th of the Flamboro season - by a huge margin. Other drivers I've seen on the dirt at Ohsweken earlier this year in action at Flamboro included Ron Larkin, Jr., Mike Taylor, Erinn Bailey, Nick Roth, Mark Czuba, and maybe more...it was hard to hear names on the PA at times.

Next weekend is a big one, with the Ontario Dirt Late Models joining the Sprints, Thunder Stocks, Mini-Stocks, and Fun Stocks at Ohsweken on Friday night, and the Southern Ontario Sprints Labour Day Classic weekend at Brighton on Saturday and Sunday. Joining the SOS on Sunday will be a $1,000 to win Duel on the Dirt street stock race featuring visiting drivers from Merrittville versus the Brighton regulars. It'll be interesting to watch how some of the drivers from Niagara fare at a different track. I've seen a handful of Brighton teams go to Merrittville, with little success.

With 3 features for the SOS to run in the 2 days, I'm sure the points battle between Glenn Styres and Warren Mahoney is going to come right down to the wire, and it should be a fun weekend...It'll almost make me forget that I'm not watching the Classic at Oswego...speaking of which, there are already 39 names on that pre-entry list. So much for all the negativity about not having a full field for Classic!