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East Bay 2007…
Could I have your attention please: “Would Jackie Boggs please return his
Raceiever”
WOW, OH MY GOODNESS...
Hey folks it’s me again, I know who cares right, well unfortunately for you guys
Dirtfans.com gives me a place to put my thoughts even if nobody wants to read’em!!!
As some of you know the Dirty One made his first ever trip to Eastbay Raceway
Park down in Tampa, Florida for the 2007 Winternationals. It was a great
experience, I had a blast spending a week in February watching some of the best dirt
late model racers in the country do their thing, oh yeah, not to mention it was like 70+
degrees everyday, which was nice! Anyway, after spending a week in Florida and in
the pits I came away with a few things I needed to get off my chest, so if you’ll
indulge me I’d appreciate it!
For starters, Eastbay Raceway Park is a fantastic place to watch Late Model racing,
it’s an action packed track that when prepped right is as good as I’ve seen. Now that
might have had something to do with the talent level of the drivers on hand, but I also
think the track prep has a lot to do with it. The sight lines were great; we sat from
middle of the bleachers on down and had NO problems seeing the entire track. Well
maybe I shouldn’t say NO problems, I mean the sand that you get pelted with can be
tough at times, but for the most part it’s very bearable! It’s kind of expensive down
there if you ask me, there is NO possible way they didn’t absolutely rake in the
dough for the week we were down there. For starters we paid $30 for a $5,000 to win
30 lap feature, and $45 for a 75 lap $12,000 to win show, that is a bit high if you ask
me (of course that won’t stop me from going back-call me a sucker I guess), their
concession prices were a bit high as well, $4.00 for a Cheeseburger is a lot to cough
up, but MAN that was one damn good burger, hell everything I had from the Hall of
Fame Café was awesome. I think they put crack in their strawberries or something,
because I’ve never seen anyone sell that many Strawberry Shortcakes in a week in
my life, I was beginning to wonder if there was a naked picture of the Revenge of the
Nerds girl in the bottom of that bowl (OK, if you get that one you’re old like me)!!!
All in all the Eastbay experience was very good and like I said I cannot wait to get
back there in 2008.
Attention please: “Jackie Boggs please return your raceiever”
WOW, OH MY GOODNESS....
There were over 90 different drivers on hand pretty much every night, they didn’t all
race every night, but I can’t blame them as much stuff was getting tore up. Speaking
of tearing up stuff, I’ve got a few drivers to comment on...here goes-
Terry Casey had a great week in Tampa, the man was BAD fast, but I doubt he made
many friends, I don’t think he left one inch of that place or any other driver
UNTOUCHED. I wouldn’t have wanted to be a member of his race team; I’ll bet
they were completely worn out by the end of the Winternationals. Casey’s car
looked like a derby car every night, mostly due to his rough driving.
Are there any drivers out there with more money and less talent than Eric Jacobson
and John Blankenship? How these two get sponsors like Busch and Well-pict is
beyond me, well I know how, but it still doesn’t make sense!
Timmy McCreadie for all the hype was NOT impressive to me at all. Maybe it was
just a bad week for T-Mac, but I hadn’t seen him race much and was there to be
impressed by him and to see if it was just HYPE and at this time to me, it is!!
Matt Miller’s car has the color poop brown on it and is ugly has hell. Earl Pearsons
car isn’t as bad as it looks on the internet pics.
I was saddened by the fact that Doug Horton wasn’t able to repeat his great 2006
Winternationals performance, the #46 struggled mightily in 2007 and left with bad
taste of Florida sand in his mouth and only a strawberry dash win added to his list of
accomplishments..
Announcement: “Jackie Boggs, we still need your raceiver”...
WOW, OH MY GOODNESS....
Are there any drivers out there that have worse luck than Jackie Boggs and Scott
James?? Jackie’s line of the week was great, he told a group of us that “if it were
raining pussy, he’d get hit in the head with a big black dick”, now if that ain’t bad
luck I don’t know what bad luck is!! James had a rough week as well, first off him
and Earl Pearson, jr. couldn’t stop wrecking each other, then his week culminated
with engine problems halfway thru a race he was winning...
A few guys that turned my head this week..
Kid Rocket Josh Richards-the dirty one has NEVER been a fan of the “Kid”, but he
truly impressed me at Eastbay. I may be a little late getting on the Josh Richards
fan bus and I might not be ready to jump on with 2 feet, but I think the kid can drive
and will NEVER live down is last name as long as he’s racing on Dirt.
Terry English impressed me with how smooth he was all week and how he was able
handle all the different styles of track the Eastbay prep folks threw at him.
Adam Hensel- this 19 year old from Wissota was impressive and had a very good
showing in Florida. Hey Adam, sorry about those drunken fools yelling your name on
Friday night.. Haha
DJ Wells and Brian Collins had good weeks, even though these two guys didn’t make
every show, they both proved to be solid drivers who can hold their own with some
top notch competition.
Ricky Arms also is a guy that had a decent week, although his car is as ugly as
Darren Millers’s new wrap is..
Damon Eller had a pretty strong week, he rebounded well from Bloomquist taking
him out at Golden Isles’ last night of racing. He made most of the shows and showed
maybe it was a bad idea giving Don O’Neal any money last year...
Cannot forget Tim Dohm, a guy who NOBODY in our group would put a Dollar on to
win a race even though he was sitting on the Pole of the feature (proved us wrong and
won the darn thing). This may have been a track that suits “the Showstopper’s”
style of driving, or he may be getting better, either way it was a good week for the
West Virginia native.
Two guys I had a hard time watching in their new rides were Mike Marlar and Steve
Casebolt, I watched these two guys all week and still couldn’t, at least in my simple
mind put their names with the cars they were driving. Neither guy had what you’d
call a good week either, so maybe they were having as much trouble as I was.
There were other guys that had good and bad weekends but these are the ones that
stand out most in my mind. I have another thing on my mind and it has to do with
Rocket Chassis and the people in charge of it...I wrote this as soon as I got back
from Florida, it’s something that has bothered me since about the middle of the week
long Winternationals, it goes like this:
Why Buy A Rocket?
Yes I said it, why buy a rocket chassis?? I know to some folks that may be
blasphemous, but if you witnessed or overheard what I did over a weeklong trip to
Eastbay’s Winternationals, you might wonder the same thing. It was sickening and
was enough to sour an otherwise optimistic persons view on the direction of the Sport
I love so much. For a long time now I have been a fan of Dirt Track racing, but it’s
only in the past 5-7 years that I have had a what you might call a “behind the
scenes” type look at what goes on at the tracks and most importantly in the pits and
garages. For the most part I have watched and listened and in a lot of cases turned a
blind eye to what was going on, why you ask, well I’ll tell you, I didn’t wanna believe
what I was seeing and hearing. I didn’t want to believe that a couple of people could
manipulate the sport as much as I was hearing might be happening. Heck, it was
happening and I was seeing it too, but like I said I didn’t want to believe it.
In a day and age when knowledge is power, Rocket Chassis Management appears to
have all the POWER they need to decide who runs well and who doesn’t. Stop
shaking your head, it’s true, I witnessed it with my own two eyes and ears this week
and if you know me well enough or have read anything I’ve written, you know I’m not
or hadn’t been anti-rocket or anti-anything like a few of my counterparts on the
Dirtfans.com writers list. As a matter of fact we’ve had knock down drag out
arguments about different things, and mostly because of my blind eye! Back to my
point, the folks at Rocket have all the information in hand to help each and every
Rocket chassis on the Eastbay track and chose not to, and for the life of me I cannot
figure out why they would do that? Why would they choose to give certain guys good
information, certain other guys no information and worse than that, some folks
WRONG information? Aren’t all Rocket chassis drivers deserving of Rocket
Managements help, if not then let’s go back to my original question WHY BUY A
ROCKET CHASSIS??
In my Dirty eyes, if driver A is suppose to be better than driver B, then why give
driver A better information than driver B, why not give them the same support and if
A is in fact better than B, he will still win the race. Or is it that maybe driver A isn’t
as good as some folks think and Driver B is actually better or at least as good but
maybe a bit underfunded or doesn’t have the NAME driver A carries or maybe he
didn’t buy his chassis directly from Rocket, so screw him, literally? I can’t be right
can I, or is it possible that I am being stubborn and again turning a blind eye to
something else that is obvious, what else could it be, someone fill me in, help a
brother out?
Look I 100% understand that these chassis builders are in the business to make
money, and the best way to do it is to win races, but why do it like this? Why not let
the cream rise to the top, why not, and this is a novel concept, why not PLAY FAIR?
Why not share the same information with Driver B-Z that Driver A gets, why not help
the local or regional racer out, isn’t he really the guy that is making your business
go? There are only so many Driver A’s, there are a lot of Drivers B-Z out there and
these guys don’t stand a chance if they are being treated like this? Not only are they
fighting the fact they have less dollars to spend, but it turns out they are fighting the
same chassis builder they gave their hard earned dollars to, trusted and believed
would help them out. It’s a damn shame, it’s sickening and it’s killing the sport!!!
Rocket Management should be ashamed of themselves and if I were Drivers B-Z, I’
d demand the same information as the Driver A’s get or I’d take my dollars
elsewhere.
That ends my ranting for this edition of The Dirty Thoughts, I want to thank
Maddbiscuit, the DRF, Bignuts Steve and Shannon Scott for allowing the Dirty one
to tag along for the trip to Eastbay, I had a great time and I hope you guys did to. I
hope the food I cooked was as good as you all said it was and that maybe next year
or next trip I can have that same job, I really enjoyed it!!! Thanks guys, you are all
the best!!
WOW, OH MY GOODNESS and Jackie Boggs could you please return your
raceiver are 3 phrases we heard over and over during the Winternationals...it
became a group joke and helped pass the time when there was no racing...what a
week!!
Keep in mind, the dirty ones comments are mine and mine alone. They are in no way
intended to offend or put down your favorite driver/brother/son or father. If you have
anything you’d like to add please feel free to email me at
bryant.scudder@insightbb.com and I will be glad to do so.
But until next time; keep your racing clean and your thoughts dirty!
The dirty one!!!!!
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