Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

Wayne Johnson holds off a huge charge from TMac to win the first NSL race at Burlington. McCarl had the field covered by a mile and spun on his own but kept going in third place on about Lap 17. One lap later, Davey Heskin spun for a restart with Johnson leading Bryan Clauson, McCarl and Brad Loyet. McCarl took a few laps before disposing of Clauson and set his sights on Johnson, getting even in 3/4 on the final lap but missing the bottom and settling for second. Loyet took third in front of Clauson and Tim Kaeding (who started back further after winning B). Brown, Swindell, Kinser all in the back half of top ten.

Pretty awesome feature and overall a good night, but man, the delays on a night this chilly were pretty unnecessary. There was a short delay for an injury in the crowd so the trucks were sent out to iron in the top side of the track. One four-cylinder heat and two midget heats later, there was an intermission to farm the track and iron it back in. Left me scratching my head for sure. Good decision to run the 410s before the four cylinder A but the front stretch lineup thing was kind of a waste considering it was after 10 p.m. and as I said, pretty cold. A lot of people traveled a long ways for this show and the stands were pretty full (I'd estimate at 80%). Getting out at 11ish wasn't terrible but it just could have been better. 

Good start for the NSL and I am eager to attend more events this year. 

Looking from the pit area the stands looked about 50% full. Running the 4cyl A last was the plan from the start. Always a long delay for track work whenever I have been at 34. Don't understand why they did not work the track during the first delay. Two 4cyl  heats and 2 midget heats would not have worn out the track any sooner.

The NSL show on the track was good.

Getting out of the parking lot was hell, as always, there

Great show, should be an awesome season. Have to agree though with the down time they had, no need for some of that.

Can assure you--stands FELT 75-80% full-but you probably had a better vantage point from pits.  I thought crowd was excellent.  I usually like the line up in the front stretch--however, with a 3 hour drive home, I was not pumped!   Delays  and lining cars up were a little bit of a buzz kill but overall, I thought for an early season race, things moved along ok.  Felt like we could have gotten out of there by 10:00 with a little more urgency.  Racing was pretty good too.  As far as the trip out of the parking lot--positioned ourselves by the gate and full sprint to the truck!  Made it out in 3 minutes--last time I was there it was 45 minutes so I planned accordingly this time!    

I've been to a number of races where I viewed the same event from both sides of the fence. It always appeared to me to be more fans in the stands when I was there than when I went pitside. The difference was sometimes quite startling.

I think 75% to 80 % full is closer than 50%.  The pits had a good crowd.  To iron out track did make a better racing surface.  Except for the car flipping out of ball park you could not have run time trials for 40 cars any quicker.  There were not many delays between races at all.  Sprint car fans in general do not like to watch stock cars but those guys are at the track every week and I did not see a big problem.  It was a good show and they do a good job at that track.  I would like to have everything go perfect every day but that seldom happens.

WELL THE FIRST N S L RACE HAS BEEN RUN AND WON. CONGRATS TO WAYNE JOHNSON AND HIS GUYS .THEY DID A GREAT JOB AND TOOK HOME THE BIG BUCKS.

Ditto........nuff said....going to be a great year for NSL

Was there a reason for it only being 25 laps? 

What did it pay to win?

The race was just getting good and it was over!

Should have been 30 laps. There was alot of waiting around for itto be over that quick.

Outlaws do 30 laps there.

I do not care how long I have to sit in the stands to watch a sprint car race, any lengh of time is worth it. As for the laps, I thought 25 was good, beacause if it would have been any longer, T Mac would have pulled away and it would have been a single file race from then on. I liked everything about this race! 34 Raceway and sprint cars are a good combo!

Wayne Johnson won? 

I was very impressed with the event. There were some delays but that is to be expected for the first race. Sather's mic was cutting out when she was doing interviews but when they brought the kids out to do the redraw that was cool. There was a kid in front of me that drew for McCarl. 

I have attached a link from the 4 wide salute to the fans. 

https://twitter.com/jdmcgaugh/status/587109051265327104

While I did'nt expect the kind of pomp and circumstance I am used to with Johnny Gibson it would be cool for Bill Wright to come up with a tag line for the NSL. My thoughts were the only sports league where the athletes have balls! Thats probably not family friendly though. 

Some of the loudest cheers during intros came for Doug Clark. I thought that was pretty cool too. 

Looking forward to big things. 

I thought the same thing. It should have been 30 laps minimum. The Outlaws last year anyway did 34 laps at 34 speedway. I liked that and thought this race might follow suit! All in all though a good night!

The NSL is arguably the biggest thing that has happened to sprint car racing in the last 8-10 years, they have ran one race and you guys are already bitching! Well done!

When someone says "When I go to a race... I want..." you sound like an eight year old. Hell my eight year old is smart enough to say " When I go to the races I would like to see... But I understand that it might not work out because of many reasons."   Reasons like its April and farming the track to what we want is though. Or the race track has no control if the door smashing hornets went seven wide into turn one and got hooked together in a daisy chain and it takes 45 minutes to get them apart. I thought the NSL did a great job for what they were up against on the first night ever. Yeah It took a few minutes longer than I thought but I didnt bitch about it because it isnt exactly what I wanted? come on!

They would have never needed to farm the track if they didn't iron the thing in during the delay for injury. It was completely self-inflicted. There were three races in between the injury and the time they started farming and they were one four-cylinder and two midget races. The four-cylinders were running higher up but the midgets were mainly down below the cushion.

And what were they up against? Beautiful weather all day Friday and Saturday? They had about the best conditions you can ask for this time of year. There was a little rain mid-week but it's not like they were dealt a bad hand. 

The problem with discussing on this board is that you're dealing with people who are heavily invested in sprint cars. These are the types that are likely to be OK with longer delays and higher ticket prices because of their existing passion for sprint cars. Trying to grow the future fan base is where these things matter - I had talked to a few of my buddies about attending Saturday night and they were interested until the $28 figure came up. Not being race fans, they just looked at the website and said "Why don't I go to the one next week that pays $10,000 to win and only costs $20 to enter?" They don't understand the difference between 410s and late models but from a casual, uninformed dirt fan, it's not hard to see why they would have that line of thinking.

High prices and long shows are fine if you want to keep crowds where they're at. To grow though, is going to require some changes. Keeping people around longer to pad the concessions on a cold night isn't going to help out with that. 

Iis that 80% full? Stands hold 3800 per website where track is advertised for sale. People park along the road cause it is hard to get out of the parking lot. I was in line 55 min and I left after the sprint A main.

It was more full towards the right where your pic doesnt see. And this looks a little early. It wasnt WoO full but way more people that the MOWA shows. I would guess they were happy.