Thayne you make some good points. We bring our own food as well I just don't want to pay high prices and when you have to feed your crew it makes sense. With the on track incidence, I think some thing will get better over time, we now have a new flag man(not to sure how long he has been doing this), so I thought the first night went the way I expected it to. All winter long we have been couped up in doors with an itchy right foot and some of us wanted to go hard, I know because I was spun by one of those cars in my second heat. With track cleanup, it did suck. I'm glad it took so long for the first run for thunders to start because it let me get my car started. They do need to get track prep under control, but I think that will come with time. Maybe they should buy a sweeper or have on hand to help with the big spills, I'm sure fans don't like to get covered in speedy dry all night.
I am a little biased as I am on the Shepherd crew, so of course I am going to say we had a good night. But there are some things I am concerned about. A problem which dates back to the old owners & has carried over is the line up of haulers to get in to the pits. I know there was an incident with propane & the ambulance holding things up but that sucked. If the pits open at 3 then open them, if they see a line up let the people in (even if it is before 3), all we want to do is get there & unload the car & get everything ready. We are not asking for the food booth to be open or the track to be ready for practice we just want to get in & set up. The food booth's are now run by the company that does the Barrie Colts games & when they get it together the service will be better. However they are still charging us like we are at a Leaf game & the food was the biggest complaint of the night by many. The biggest concern for our fun loving crew is the rumour that the track is going to be checking trailers for alcohol before you enter. The track has a stadium liquor licence as they are going to serve beer anywhere in the stands, with servers carrying around cups of draft like we are at the skydome. Therefore no outside alcohol can be on the premise & there will be no post race beverages. If this is true the track has made a BIG mistake. Our crew loves the racing & the competition, but we also are there for the social aspect after the race. Just like last night as we were there until 2:30am talking with many friends. I hope the owners think this through before they go ahead. Other than that I see allot of good things at the track & I am excited for the year.
RRRcrew where did you hear about the track checking your trailer. I have nothing to hide but if they do this at the gate its just going to take longer to get in plus after the race its nice to sit back and hang out with some of the other crews its a good way to end the night. They should open up the other gate to the pits put in a new ticket booth and get traffic of the 8th line, because we are blocking the road from both ends.
They haven't starting checking trailers yet, but they also were not serving beer yet. Who knows they may not check but we have heard this rumour from a few people. Another thing is the clean up crew needs radios, someone had to tell them that there was a piece of exhaust on the track in corner one & as they tried to run out & grab it, the late models were taking the green. Yikes!
The trailer checking deal is retarded...if they do that and disallow alcohol into the track they will be opening a can of worms they may not be able to close...I think many people there are fans of the social aspect just like RRRcrew said. I know we are as well...I think the "If it aint broke, don't fix it" credo should be reviewed by the new owners....jmo
