The Hoosier Race Report: Short Track Racing Is…

By Danny Burton

Danny Burton’s Hoosier Race Report appears courtesy of OpenWheelRacers.com

At this holiday season, it’s time to be even more thankful than we normally are. One of many ways to express that is to list a few reasons why. And here are just a few.

Short track racing is… meeting all sorts of new and interesting people. If you’re lucky, many will become friends and your blessings will abound… listening to one of those friends, one Dick Leach, describe how good he had a car set up for the recent race at Salem. Dick went on and on about how he and the guys had worked to get the car running. I resisted the urge to say, “But Dick, the car crashed on the third lap.” How could I interrupt him? The man was on a roll, and loving it. At that moment, whether he knew it or not, Dick was a rich man, in my terms anyway… watching parents and their kids working together in the pits before and during the races. Not all of these kids will grow up to be Tony Stewart and/or Jeff Gordon, but if they grow up to be Kent Christian or Kevin Briscoe and maybe that is even better… and parents with their kids in the bleachers. Rewind this scene back about 40 years and that could be my dad and me. There I was, with my cars all lined up on the bleachers. Or there I was in the back of the big Pontiac, racing an old popcorn box in the back seat of the car on our way home from Louisville; the boxes looked a lot like the big ‘64 Pontiacs that Andy Hampton and Jesse Baird drove in those long lost days. At a short track, kids still play with their assembled cars in the bleachers… racers helping racers. Often when a racer crashes and really needs to get back into the B Main, don’t be shocked if lots and lots of people pitch in, if the car is repairable. It says a lot about all involved. And when a racer is hurt, watch the drivers circulate the stands, helmets in hand, asking for donations for an injured competitor… hurry up and wait, or is it the other way around? There has been many a time when I’ve become engaged in conversation during support class heats and/or B Mains, only to find that I’ve yet to write down lineups for sprint B Mains and/or the feature itself. It’s the same way for race teams; lots of downtime between races, and then invariably something will be discovered and a major thrashing will commence… short track operators are usually better than they used to be, but too often there is still too much unaccounted for downtime. Perhaps hot dogs need to be sold? Some tracks do offer between race entertainment; giving away t-shirts are popular and a good idea, especially for younger fans… some features end with a near photo-finish, others are romps for the winner. When that happens, watch for races back in the pack. Remember, those guys are racing just as hard as the guys at the front… alphabet main events, at special events where the car count is huge. There is an upside and downside to these. The best part is watching people work their way through the alphabet, transferring to the next race and passing lots of lots of cars. The worst part is the endless yellow flags that eat up the time and one’s patience. This is like life; you must take the bad with the good… I, for one, appreciate racers who continue to compete at short tracks, even though, for whatever reasons, they chose or choose to stay where they are rather than move on to a larger arena. Here is a small list of lifetime short trackers who stayed home, as it were; add your own. Mike Eddy, Dave Darland, Larry Phillips, Rollie Beale, Tony Elliott, Kent Christian, Rick Ferkel, Jack Hewitt, and Bobby Gill, are just a few who come to mind… think Seagrams, if you are ever at the Lawrenceburg Speedway. The old Bob Dylan song said it best: you don’t need a weather vane to know which way the wind blows. If you can smell the agreeable fumes from the Seagrams plant just southwest of the ‘burg, you know which way the wind is coming from. You can’t beat it… rain delays. People get bored or restless during inevitable rain delays; they should not. I end up talking with a friend or reading, or entertaining my grandson if he’s along. I’ve spent many a good time trying to keep dry at the back of Keith’s SUV, or in John’s van, or under the bleachers at O’Reilly’s Raceway Park, or even in the little old truck reading a book, magazine, or newspaper. Not much in tangible accomplishments is done, but a good time is had by all. And hopefully, the rain stops… what a great escape a short track is. We all have trials and tribulations in our daily lives. They will not go away and we must deal with them, even if we do nothing. It seems that we need an escape, even if temporary, from so-called real life. A short track is a preferred escape by many of us who don’t care to stay home on a weekend’s summer night and who are still able to get out and about. There are all kinds of escapes; you know the obvious. Alcohol and other drugs are out there for us all, and at the other end of having a diversion are such activities as church, serving our communities, or donating time and/or money to a worthy cause. So, too, racing is an escape. For a few hours one can forget the issues, be they on the job or at home, or even both, that can wear us down. Racing, especially at a short track, is a good, though temporary, solution to those problems… maybe we are fated to have a disease, affliction, addiction, or whatever you wish to call it. If so, we can take that addiction and choose to make it positive or negative. With short track racing, we can easily make it a positive experience, whether we’re a fan, a track worker, or part of a race team. Perhaps another way to look at it is as a love, pure and simple. Among other things, love is defined as having a great affection for something/someone. To sum up, maybe it would be accurate to say that you and I are addicted by and to racing, short track style… and we love it.

Calling Jimmie Johnson for a loan, I’m…

Danny Burton

Visit OpenWheelRacers.com for all of the latest open wheel racing news, results, and information.