This message was edited on
June 27, 2010 at
03:35:06 PM by raj
Drove up last night to see the GSC show at the "new" Giant Chevrolet (formelry Kings) Speedway just off the 198 west of the 99. Tim Kaeding won the winged 410 feature after a prolonged red on lap 29 in front of a house that looked to be about 80% full.
Two 3/8s mile paperclip tracks within 10 miles of each other sounds like it might be economically challenging, but the new people at Hanford have definitely raised the bar on-track and off.
Hanford does not have a fence against the top of the track in any of the corners nor on the back straight. Like many of the older midwest tracks, if the driver overshoots the corners, he simply crosses the cushion berm and does whatever he can to get back onto the track surface (as one did at Manzanita's third mile). That happened six or seven times last night, and prevented a lot of race-ending damage for those drivers... and yellows for the fans.
Despite their almost identical lengths and layouts, the presence or lack of a fence three quarters of the way around makes Hanford and Tulare very different tracks, expecially for those like the Kaeding kids who like to run right up against the walls at Thunderbowl. (Bud runs most of the year with the GSC now; Tim is getting ready to go back to the Outlaws we were told.)
Likewise, Hanford's revamped public areas are about as "nice" as those at Ventura and Perris now, which is to say, "nicer" than Tulare's. If there's a comparative downside for the fans at Hanford, it's that most have to walk quite a ways from their cars to the ticket booth, much as it used to be at Perris a decade ago.
It may take a bit of experience and trial-and-error to figure out how to deal with that track surface during the summer. It was about 90 degrees at 6:00 pm and about 80 degrees at 9:00 pm. (We all got a nice coat of clay dust during the feature.) Tulare, btw, shuts down after their salute to Indy show, and stays dark until early October, while Hanford runs through the summer.
Both tracks have some very interesting sprint shows scheduled in the fall, including the Cotton Classic (with wingers and non-wingers) at Hanford October 16th, as well as the Trophy Cup for 360 wingers the following Friday and Saturday at Tulare, and the Pacific Coast Nationals with the USAC-National and CRA cars -- plus the USAC National and West Coast Midgets -- November 13th.
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