Forum: Northern California Sprint Car (go)
Moderators: StuDeedooo

Having attended the first and last ASCS winged 360 show at SM last year at which four cars appeared, I was not surprised when new promoter Ruben Munoz announced on this forum about ten days ago and then at last week's USAC WC 360 non-wing show that the Rebel 360s couldn't pull enough cars together to make it worthwhile.

When he elected to try to put together his own deal, I wondered, "Does this guy know what he is actually up against?" Having seen the general trend line over the past decade in both winged and non-winged, 360 and 410 car counts in central and southern Cal, as well as the situation at Santa Maria under several different operators, I decided to take a look at the possibilities.

I thought I was being conservative in suggesting he might get 15 cars for this show; I was waaaay wrong. Bud Kaeding, Cory Eliason and D. J. Netto towed down to (seriously) go after the $3K, with Steven Kent, Anthony Simone, Lucca Romanazzi tagging along. Everyone (save for Bud, of course) is from Fresno and points southward. And four of the six are Rebel 360 regulars.

My suggestion -- however much it may be railed against by those who think with their emotions rather than the facts -- is that Santa Maria is not really on the map as a 360 winged track anymore. Because if you can't draw from the mob that was 175 miles away at Watsonville last night for the first Johnny Key qualifier with a guaranteed $200-to-start feature -- plus the extra incentives -- on a night when everyone in the Watsonville or Fresno areas with a 410 had to tow to Placerville to race, you really ought to sit back and think about it before trying this again.

We can all applaud Ruben's efforts, but for his own sake -- and ours -- insofar as realistically investing in the non-winged sprint shows that still get 15 cars or more at SMS, it seems like it's time to move on.

Raj; you are to be complimented for your research, extra effort and attempt to make something out of this SMS mess. There were a lot of unhappy people at SMS last night, including myself, but I told my wife when I left the house I did not expect more than nine cars to show. When the rebel group last ran on June 15th on their own track in Hanford, they only had 12 cars. Plus it was a long dragged out evening to compound the problem of only six cars showing up. On the bright side, the weather was perfect and the tri-tip sandwiches were great.