As for Shadow Racer and Voice I am a big man and I can tell when there is a tag team on and it does not bug me.Can I say one thing Shadow Racer you made a statement at Delaware first special ( Part Source 140) sayiny that Flammy drivers were (weenies) for not showing up not to bright calling drivers that (Do not blame them for not coming tothis track ).
Well, I'd guess using the term tag-teaming might indicate that there's some kind of fight happening. I'm personally not actually arguing with anyone...just having a discussion. (Remember a page or 2 back I was agreeing with you racer44) My goal, as always and forever will be, is to see great racing.
ANyway, as far as the "weenies" comment...come on. I went back and checked and its pretty obvious I was teasing. I've nothing against Flam drivers, and in fact, I go to watch them race quite frequently. They're the best LM show going right now.
If I am not mistaken this track had 24-28 cars for a regular feature 2 Yrs ago and this year
they (Delaware) are fighting to get 14 - 17 for a regular feature.
If you go back from, lets say 2000 onward, Delaware averaged around 20-21 cars for the weekly 35-lappers and around 24-25 for the 100-lap Carquest races. During the Carquest era, I think the biggest car count was 38 for the 150-lapper on one of the Labor Day weekends (to make up for the Super Series being in Vancouver.) I think car counts shifted to closer to 20 cars during 2005 with the rules changes, and have been around 16-17 (+/-3 on any random night) since then. The past two weeks have had weaker car counts, sure, but I would estimate the average car count for the season to still be about 17-18 cars per night. It's something to work on, but right now it's still a higher average car count than most tracks in Ontario (specifically, Flamboro and Sunset seem to be outdrawing them, while Barrie appears to have had approximately the same counts and count trends all season).
Remember this track has lost alot of Late Model drivers in the Last couple of years( Robblee, McGlynn,Patrick, Sheridan ( Part Time ),Weber,etc) for some reason.
Delaware has lost quite a few drivers over the past 4 seasons. I'd argue a lot of that has been natural progression up through the ranks, with guys moving from the weekly shows to the Sportsman tour (ie. Weber, McGlynn, M. Patrick, Merrifield, Robblee, Wood, Hryanuk, Lebert) or up to the Super Series ranks (ie. Hathaway, D. Brown, Nuhn). Of course hindsight is 20/20, but in retrospect the track also lost guys due to their rush to eliminate the CASCAR-style LMs from the rules (such as Abe Harner, Tony Bawden, Al Lebert). You've also had guys lose sponsors (such as Jim Patrick and Dale Timmermans) and who subsequently have been unable to continue. Granted, some guys have got fed up and left for their own reasons, but most of the turnover over the past few seasons was by design as a feeder program to CASCAR. It's only now that it has become a large issue, as less and less guys are coming in to take their places on a full-time basis. Depending on what NCATS/OSS do )or don't do) over the coming years, one would hope that the track would be courting the aforementioned teams and preparing the upgrades necessary to bring these drivers back, or to at least have their foot in the door for seasons down the road.
There has to be a reason Flamboro draws 20 plus cars for a regular feature.
There's plenty of reasons.
a) Race date - Saturdays are usually much easier to get people out both to compete and to watch.
b) Location - There has to be easily several million people to draw from (both fans and competitors) within a 90-minute drive from Flamboro.
c) Tradition - Flamboro has had the LM-spec longer than Delaware.
Out of those three main reasons, I'd argue that the second one is the most important...
This is a bit off topic but Its just my opinion, With the NCTS making all the changes to the cars and with trying to be a bit more competative the teams are always building new cars, plus many drivers have old Cascar sportmans cars in there garage including many of the drivers that used to race weekly at Delaware. Meaning there is hundreds of Cascar style cars just sitting in garages in the area. I know The OSS is making a series with these cars but for some guys the traveling is way to expensive to Run the OSS. If Delaware started to run sportmans cars again not even every week maybe 6 weeks (off weeks from the OSS) I'm sure they would have a huge car count and it would alow guys like myself to run at delaware that have sportmans cars but can't afford to by a new car to run at delaware.
Al Lebert
#36
I know some of the OSS/NCATS cars are pretty new, but aren't most of them getting to be long in the tooth? You'd know better than I would, but what's the average age of the cars in an OSS field? I'm guessing around 7-10 years old....As neat as it would be for Delaware to have a semi-weekly Sportsman class, I think it'd end up screwing up their late model counts, as it wouldn't give guys incentive to move up to the Late Model division...
I know some of the OSS/NCATS cars are pretty new, but aren't most of them getting to be long in the tooth? You'd know better than I would, but what's the average age of the cars in an OSS field? I'm guessing around 7-10 years old....As neat as it would be for Delaware to have a semi-weekly Sportsman class, I think it'd end up screwing up their late model counts, as it wouldn't give guys incentive to move up to the Late Model division...
I don't think age is a factor with the OSS,,,Steve Robblee's 28 was built in 1991.