Hello Everyone,

Now that we have had some time since the event on Saturday I wanted to take a moment to jump back on the boards and thank the entire racing community for their support of the program.

Words cannot describe the sincerity with which I wish to personally express a thank-you to everyone involved in the program.  From the racers, to the staff, the volunteers, and the fans up in the cold -- thank-you is simply not enough.  To a very great extent you have re-energized my enthusiasm for grass-roots racing events, and shown me the great potential when the community comes to bat with the speedway to work together on events.  I hope to see more collaboration like this in the future, in all racing divisions.

It was such a refreshing day all around - - everywhere we looked there were new faces, new cars, and new energy.  Even when things didn’t go perfectly, the support from everyone was above and beyond what I could have expected.  Even when the going got tough at times (I seem to recall teams having to remount every transponder on every car at one point), you were all a pleasure to work with!

It will take some time to process the day - both in its successes and areas which needed improvement (some are more obvious than others, such as the number of red flags early in the event, the likely need for a better numbering system on the vehicles, and improved obstacle placement).  Admittedly, I am spending a great deal of time cleaning up from the event and touching base with drivers to find some of these areas of improvement.

I have been told, by those at the event, that I am quite a bit harder on myself on this event than others are being.  I see many things that went well, but many, many areas for improvement that I feel will help this and events like it.  With your help it is my belief that these can become future destination events at Delaware Speedway (especially in better weather!).  I have read with great interest many of the comments on here already, and am glad to see that on the balance people are happy with the event.  I will continue to do m

I would like to do an exercise with everyone who wishes to participate called “Start, Stop, Continue”.  This of course applies to everyone - - drivers in the Open Ontario, Bone Stocks, Derby, King of the Hill and fans / crew.  Send me an e-mail at john@delawarespeedway.com with things you would like to see the event / speedway “start doing”, “stop doing”, and “continue doing”.  I’ll take this feedback and put it together into the final report for the event, which will greatly help in planning for the upcoming season.

That’s all for this post.  I may share a few more thoughts in the coming days as this post seems to leave out so many of the things I wish to make note of, so I will simply conclude with a sincere thank-you to everyone once again.  It would not have been possible without you.

-John Houghton
Pumpkin Smash
Delaware Speedway
(519) 652-5068 Ext 201

Thankyou to John and all the volenteers that made this event possible. Was a blast running the half mile in the Open Ontario challenge. Hopefully this event will happen again. Here is my incar footage of the feature. Fastest lap i ran was 23.210 http://www.youtube.com/user/phast31#p/a/u/0/-wo8uJyaJK4

Thanks John Great job

I had an absolute blast driving "Player 2"!!! This event rocked and would do it again in a heartbeat!
Thanks John and all the Volunteers for setting it up!

Where else can you build a car for $500 cash investment and sell it for $300 after you kick the shit out of it 🙂