Forum: Minnesota Dirt Track Racing Forum (go)
Moderators: StanM

ya ya, Im just trying to be radical as some posters on here, everybody has thier day,week, whatever? Im just a little detured as to the lack of 360 races held up here in the Dakotas I was hopeing the Northern Plains would hit a little closer to home seems our local (state teams ) travel a bit just to race a 360 show , I like the ASCS outline, I just dont like the miles nessessary to run them, maybe im the only one who see's it this way ? after Wissota pulled the 360 plug , the cars virtualy disapeared in our neck of the woods , A few quit , but,would they have , if a 360 was still a part of a weekly program close to the borders? Hey im just being optamistic and hopeing for a future in 360's up here, nothing wrong with that!

Chuck I did not respond to your post to challange you to a pissing match! All I was stating is that maybe you could post some more info for any interested parties.

This post isn't directed specifically at you dirtdevil but it will address some of your concerns so don't take offense.

"ya ya, Im just trying to be radical as some posters on here, everybody has their day,week"

We all have those days. Everyone knows that I had a bad day at work when they see that I deleted posts. I might delete some posts now and then to keep things on subject but I have never banned anybody from my board. My goal is to keep things on subject and from deteriorating into the bashing sessions I see on some of the other boards. Anybody who has ever sat around the campfire with us knows that I'm not bashful about reverting back to talking like a sailor or doing a little bashing between friends. I'm just trying to keep the discussion about this new series positive on the board.

"Im just a little detured as to the lack of 360 races held up here in the Dakotas I was hoping the Northern Plains would hit a little closer to home"..."I like the ASCS outline, I just dont like the miles nessessary to run them, maybe im the only one who see's it this way ?"

Whether you know it or not you just hit on the reason they're trying to get the UMSS going. The first thing that came up when this idea was announced was outrage from people who are located far from what's going to be the UMSS base of operation. Like one of the organizers said to me, "we've got 3 million people 45 minutes away and a dozen Sprint Cars. Something is wrong with that picture and we want to try and do something about that."

There were only 3 ASCS shows within a reasonable distance from the Metro and western Wisconsin. Many of the promoters at the smaller tracks like Kopellah can't afford the ASCS sanction fee and would never book one of their shows. The ones around here that can afford it are already booking the IRA and WoO and don't see any reason to pay a sanction fee for a 360 show. For example, Cedar Lake has been hosting the unsanctioned 360 Billy Anderson Memorial in late April and drawing 30-35 cars without paying the ASCS sanction. Why pay an ASCS sanction fee so they can get 30 cars when the same 30 cars will show up if it's an unsanctioned race? ASCS doesn't have the leverage with their drivers ito prevent them from running an unsanctioned show so a promoter around here would be better of putting that money into the purse. Maybe if we lived in Texas or Oklahoma things would be different but the ASCS has not resulted in more 360 racing than we had with Wissota or the MSS.

I'll give you one example from last year. I work in downtown St. Paul and decided to attend the ASCS National tour date at Brainerd. I had to take off early on Wednesday afternoon to get there and all day Thursday because I knew I'd be out too late to get up for work. So I burn up a day and a half of vacation, make a 300 mile round trip and there were only something like 18 or 19 cars. There were only a half dozen touring cars and the rest were familiar cars that would have been there for an unsanctioned show. No offense to Brainerd or Cliff but it wasn't anything special. They didn't book another ASCS National date this year so they must not have been pleased with the turnout either. The ASCS needs to put more than that on the table before I ever travel to see them again.

ASCS offers three shows in Minnesota, a couple in the Dakotas, a few probably in Nebraska and anywhere else they run in the Midwest. Why travel to see that when the IRA comes to Cedar Lake, Rice Lake and Arlington? Weekly racing is a different story, I'm already going to be there to cover the other classes for the papers so if Sprints are on the card too that's just icing on the cake. We've got a dozen 360's sitting in garages around the Twin Cities area gathering dust because they don't have deep enough pockets to follow the ASCS shows. Compare that to the other classes like Super Stocks or Midwest Modifieds and their weekly racers run within a 150 mile radius of home, many only run their weekly track. Knoxville, Jackson and Arlington are examples of that too where you have guys that don't travel.

I think more will be said at the meeting and who knows, maybe I'll be corrected on some of these points. If someone decides to tow down here from North Dakota they aren't going to turn them away but as calloused as this might sound the long term goal of the UMSS isn't to become a competing touring group. Again drawing a comparison of the IMCA cars at Arlington, most are based in the southwest Metro or Mankato, St. Peter, and down around that area. When Cedar Lake runs a 360 special we see very few of the IMCA cars tow up here because they have their own deal. Maybe a couple of them might decide to come and run with the UMSS if it's closer for them or they like the smaller tracks. They're not putting this deal together to throw a monkey wrench into what they're doing at Grand Forks, Arlington, Jackson, Knoxville, Husets or anywhere else.

Some won't like this no matter what their goals are or how it's explained to them and they'll continue to post their trash on here whenever they get a chance. And I'll continue to delete it until a light bulb goes off in their heads and they get it or they take their sour dispositions to another forum.

I make zero $$$ for doing this whether there's 10,000 strangers posting on here or my son and a dozen of my friends. If the instigators don't come back then I won't have to work as hard baby sitting their posts every night when I get home from work. ;)

Stan Meissner

I agree with Stan on this one- Arlington probably will only lose 1 or 2 cars, if any at all. This is a great thing you guys are trying to put together. Good luck with it! Just be patient with it and give this series some time to work and it will be successful.

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After I read your post I thought I'd take a look at the Arlington website and see where some of the Sprint Car drivers are racing out of. I saw the following towns all in Minnesota: Bingham Lake, Redwood Falls, Mankato, Burnsville, Gaylord, Litchfield, Cleveland, Saint Peter, Dassel and Lakeville.

I took a quick look at the final point standings from Jackson. The only drivers from around our neck of the woods on the list were Jerry Richert Jr. and Joseph Kouba. Jerry raced down there two times, once in his own car and once in the 1w, Joseph made one start. Brooke Tatnell ran Ron Olson's car there back in May and Brad Barickman ran it I once later in the season. That car is out of Stillwater. The vast majority of drivers racing there are from southwest Minnesota, Iowa and South Dakota. My hunch based on some preliminary conversations is that the UMSS isn't going to run against the big 360 shows at Jackson and Knoxville or against the WoO or IRA when they're in our area.

The only drivers I know of from up this way that have raced at Arlington are Tony Hargrave (North Branch) and Erik Steinkraus (Stillwater). I don't know what's up with Tony but I haven't seen him race since the Kasson JJ IMCA show but maybe he'll be at the meeting next Saturday. Steiny has been without a motor for a couple years but they'd like to race again.

Stan Meissner

Now that I think of it, I really don't think this UMSS will be a damper on IMCA sprints in Arlington.
A lot of guys like to run for state and national IMCA points, along with Arlington track points, and also running the Jackpot Junction Tour events and going for that points title. How similar are these UMSS cars going to be to IMCA cars? I was thinking that if the UMSS series gets rained out for a night, could they come down to Arlington and race without many changes? Then they could also race in Redwood if they felt like a little traveling. And also vice-versa, could IMCA cars go up and run say a Friday night show so some of the IMCA guys could get more events in per season?

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If the UMSS doesn't have plans to stretch out, then why call it a series?

Again, I'm not their spokesman and "series" was my choice of words. Maybe I should have said group or club instead but I didn't know anybody was going to dissect my post. I heard Cedar Lake and Kopellah mentioned but beyond that I don't know where else they would run or how many races. I'm sure they'll cover all of this at the meeting next weekend.

Stan Meissner

Stan, sorry for the delay on somewhat of a responce, things can easily be taken wrong when a guy is sitting behind a keyboard ,(understood) My post is simply for the racers wishing to race locally and I think majority 360 drivers will agree the costs to run a ASCS show are pricey the payout to compete in one is almost unworthy (with travel costs) I guess the majority of us proubly dont do it for the money, but, taking a beating in the wallet is something everybody would avoid, again, I do like ASCS format,(engine rules mainly) and just wish there was more closer to home I believe the theory of "build it and they will come"will be popular in this situation, good luck

Cristy,

If you put half the energy you have used to bash this idea into promoting ASCS ruled racing at Cedar Lake, Rice Lake, Kophella and other Western Wisconsin tracks and actually did something to help book shows that draw 25-30 cars, then you would prove that the rules for ASCS are good and people can afford to run those cars and it could be successful. If you did the same for promoting IMCA ruled sprint cars, you would prove that also. However, there has not been a single 360 sprint car race at Rice Lake in years. Nobody tries to get them in because no 360 ASCS rule cars would show up. Can't run a show on 15 cars. Arlington IMCA cars won't show up because they are both on Saturday night. IMCA guys, in my opinion, run IMCA sprints at Arlington because they don't want, or can't affford to travel. That being said, they a probably not going to show anyway. So there is a void. This series hopes to fill that. At least they are doing something. But wasted breath I guess.

HOW MANY ASCS LEGAL CARS are within 150 miles of Cedar Lake? Anyone know?

I'm sure Chuck or Joe would know. When CLS runs 360 shows I know a lot of people bust their ass to make sure enough cars show up because most of them come from a long ways away.

Reminder, meeting is tomorrow morning.

Stan Meissner