It was a great night for racing, that went from great to almost brutal! Starting with a line up almost all the way to highway 11 and to the ridge road the other way.Then new rules and regulations, that makes the LLM's and Thunders tech in every week. (this might eat up some important practice time!!) were sprung on the drivers of those divisions. almost everyone I talked to did not like this format. Then all the small bugs that still need to be ironed out started stacking up... Long waits for just about everything, from having a tire changed to getiing something to eat at the concession. It will take some time before the place becomes a well oiled machine again thats for sure..
On track and off track incidents kept adding to the stress, with some of the usual on track chaos of cars dumpin fluids and blowing up on the track, to some injuries in the pit area, that kept the ambulance crew on their feet. and slowed the action to a snails pace.(probably not too exciting for the fans!! but they stuck in there, Thank you!!) The racing seemed decent for the first night with heat wins going to almost everyone you would have expected towin them. In the charger show they seemed to run a fairly clean exciting show.
The purestocks were just as good.... The Thunders put on a great show, with many new cars and drivers. It was great to see so few cautions. the only thing that I think irked a few people was that it seemed to take the track quite a while to get the cars lined up if there was a bad start or a caution...
but it was good to see some of the older faces returnig to the show, the likes of #10 Ray Sheppard, #38 Dave melson and a slew of other drivers back from other tracks or that had taken some time off at barrie.
The LLM's were less then what I had hoped to see. The car count was great, with many of the popular drivers returning to the track. Baker, Baker Jr, A ingles, Mike Brown, Gordie Sheppard, Macleod, Robin Jongen, Brandon Watson, and many other cars all came back. There seemed to be a lot of fast cars out there last night. One set of heats featured The champ, baker and his son starting side by side, with mike brown and A Ingles right behind them. If kyle hadnt of over driven the car he might of beaten his old man in that first heat.
Also fast and rather quiet last night was the #8 of Dave Lewis. He ran two strong heats and kept his car together to set up for a good feature. (Showstopper diddnt show up it was Dave)
In The feature an Epic battle was set, or so it seemed. With The #2 of Mike Brown, on the pole, (Another car that was fast all night!!) and the 8, 48, 18, 69, 10, and many many other fast cars right there up front. but caution after caution killed the initial excitement, with the #2 of mike Brown still leading, it looked as though mike might take it in a series of short runs the a caution, and so on. When the green flag finally stuck Mike Brown took a small lead with everyone else fighting for position and trying to keep up. It seemed like the flag men were afraid of the black flag, and maybe even the keep down flag as. roughly half way through the race with the #2 still leading, he came upon traffic that was to go a lap down. the # 44 trying to drive the wheels of his car was in front of mike and was holding him up untill everyone else caught up. The #2 of Brown gave the 44 a couple small shots to say "hey im here let me by" But the 44 would not give, and The # 2 was forced to make a move. with the 10, 48, 69 and many other fast cars driving into the back of the #2. then as the #2 finally got the edge to pass the lapped cars. (rookie) The 44 seemed to come down out of nowhere and put the #2 into the inside pitwall. losing the #2 the lead and possibly the win!! from there the #10 of sheppard took the lead, as there was no caution for the incident with brown and the 44. from there about 5 laps after, the race soon became caution riddled with the 9, 18 and a few other cars getting involved in some minor frays.
All in all it was a decent start to the season!! some drivers need to keep woring on thier cars and they will too have an awesome night!! keep at it boys, hopefully the worst of your luck is over and it will be racing as usual for ya!!!
And some drivers should read some of the rules again, as far as getting passed by the leader of the race. if hes on your tail, (and it doesnt matter who it is) its time to move over as hes probably faster then you and has 5-6 fast cars on him pushing him around. dont try and race him!! it only makes you look like an ass in everyones eyes, and any respect you have or had, will go out the window. MOVE OVER, get out of the way and make your car faster!!!!! that gains RESPECT. and on the track having the respect of the other drivers is the most important thing! without it your car will be a mess every night, as everyone that gets near you, will not put up with any s__t and wall you. Or just simply drive through you!!!
Congrats to everyone last night and see ya soon
The Prices for food are retarded, there are going to have to redo the prices or something because having this loose change of pennies, Nickels and Dimes floating around isn't the greatest idea. But then again look at the food services, almost 5 bucks for a cheeseburger with slow slow service, that's the way I like to have my food services Expensive, Slow and Tasteless this coming from a guy that works there too....
Oh and by the way, I saw no onions up there what the hell is with that O.o
I think that Barrie better get a different Flagman before next week or he's going to get alot of cars wrecked "he hasn't got a clue how to flag a race, worst 1 I've seen yet".
The food booth has different people running it and the Express lane for pop, coffee etc. had the window open but didn't serve anyone & line-up was so long never got a drink all night + prices went up & service "stunk"; don't think I'm bashing Barrie cause I've always put this track at the top of my list for Racing but things need to be changed & soon "maybe Brad Moran should be brought back as the new owners don't seem to know how to run races and also have people who know what the "H" they are supposed to be doing.
I was so disgusted after the # 44 got involved with the #2 (who btw had the race in the bag & # 44 was lapped) I could have jumped in the Flag box OR gone to the Tower, but I just went home so disgusted and won't be going back to Track till I hear there is some greatly needed improvement ....... please come back Brad we need you !
it was a racing deal between the 2 and 44, maybe the 2 should of went to the outside?instead of hitting him through the coners?i think when brown punted him comming out of 2 rick tried to get to the inside and brown was there..and ya the food was crap 9.oo for a hard slice of cold pizza and pemale on a bun..i think they trying to make up for letting the kids in for free!lol
I just have to say that has got to be one of the worst overall shows i have ever seen. I have been coming to the track since 1983-84. Was talking to my dad and he says worst since he started going to Barrie and that was back in 1969. Dad had a word with Dave Simpson regarding track conditions and not having a pit steward during the races. So if there is an issue it wasn't going to be heard until the end of the night. it's better to solve these issues as quickly as possible. As for the food prices, I was so hungry but didn't want to pay that kind of money for food. How ridicculous is 2.50 for a bottle of water. I think you can get a thing of 12 bottles of water for $2 and change at grocery stores. And the quality of food i heard wasn't very good.
Getting onto the track conditions, how ridiculous is putting speedy dry all around the track and setting the Thunders free for the very first heat? As they went into corner 3 I could see nothing but dust and not one car. Every driver was in a 4 way drift the entire heat race. It wasn't who was faster, it was who could hang onto their car till the end that would prevail. The thunders nor Late models should run on that amount of dirt. Every other year they would have had the cars run a bunch of hot laps until it was gone, but not last night. Then Driver Jim Belesky (mind you he's a decent guy) hammers my Dad #38 after the checkers and wrecks his rear bumper. That last year would have been a black flag, this year no. It happened right in front of the new backstretch flagman who appeared to be sleeping all evening long.
Belesky came on to the track in the 2nd heat after an incident with a rear bumper cover dragging and they allowed him to take the restart only 2 laps later causing a caution for his bumper cover falling off. Last year he would have been forced to remove the bumper cover before re entering the race. Seems like I am bad talking Jim but that is not my intention as he has never been an issue before. Just putting the track down not Jim. 84 of Slavish dumped tranny fluid on the track in every race he was in. After the 2nd time they should have parked him because he layed down some fluid in corner 2 with a few laps to go in the feature......which i add was not even cleaned up, no speedy dry and right in the groove. After the restart coming around corner 2 for the first time dad slipped in the fluid hit the wall, broke trailing arms and his drive shaft and possiblly more, not sure what else yet. All because the track let the conditions go out of hand. Had some speedy dry been added, i think my dad was running 6th or 7th at the time with 2 laps remaining. would have been a decent finish. So much for dads pretty car! lol.....those are my beefs with the thunders...The #44 car of Rick Meyer should have given some room to the leaders as he was a lapped car. The track should have thrown the black on 2 occasions for him....had the black been thrown justice would have been done....but because the track did nothing about it there was almost a good fight with a large crowd at the pit of Meyer......were we not told if we entered the pit of an opponent in a rage we would be parked or disqualified for the night???? just another thing the track needs to keep going. but it was there fault cause there was no black thrown.
on the + side of things, great run for Desi Walt, in the chargers as well as Jeff Heighington who I believe picked up his 1st top 10 finish ever. good job! I felt bad for Chrissy Doucette getting dumped while leading. The 77 car should know better to be patient. Another plus, thayne ran well, good job buddy......
Worst overall night at Barrie Speedway will go down in the books as being held on May 10th, 2008!!!