|
I didn't attend any of their shows up here around Minnesota and Wiscosin. Too many other things to use vacation for and I'm operating at a reduced schedule so those long trips aren't on the agenda. Any thoughts of following them next season were nixed by their car counts and performance. Thomas comes from a racing family and I have seen his dad win many times. If somebody would have told me a Kennedy was going to beat the All Starts at BRRP my first guess would have been Lou Jr.
Travis Whitney is one of the good guys in Sprint Car racing, just a real pleasant person to visit with. He'll be the first to admit that he doesn't race much and they spent a couple years trying to gel as a team after he started driving the #16. I'm not sure of the number of races he's running but I'd guess around twelve shows a summer. So I guss from my vantage point here in Forest Lake, Minnesota, 25 miles north of St. Paul it's going to take a lot more than 8 cars to lure me to take off work in the Cities to see what amounts to a Heat race at Hibbing. Likewise Jackson or BRRP. We had 25 UMSS 360's a half hour from the end of my driveway last Friday night and would have had about the same at Cedar Lake on Saturday had it not been for the rain. A 30 minute drive, no vacation required, about three gallons of gas, vs a full tank and motel room for any of the All Star races.
I understand that the All Stars have some talented drivers following them up and down the road but they have to do something to beef up the show. Most of Minnesota's Sprint Car fans are concentrated near the Twin Cities so how about finding at least one venue for a stop closer to the Metro? Get on the phone with the IRA for example and see if they can coincide their trips up into this area to increase car counts and the quality of the show. Last Saturday for example saw the All Stars in Jackson and it would have been up against the IRA at Ashland and UMSS at Cedar Lake. I understand racing politics and all but if someone could find a way to add those All Star teams to the IRA and run the UMSS 360's and Traditionals as support classes at a venue closer to the center of population I think we'd be onto something.
In the meantime I'll always opt for the best bang for my buck and a full field of cars which in this case would have been the UMSS.
Stan Meissner
|
