Delaware Meeting

Howdy all. I did make it out to the meeting tonight so just passing along a few notes.

It was pretty well attended by most. The was a brief moment where the politics of the ownership change came up. I'm choosing not to get into that, and am kind of amazed that they did.

- Basically the current politics of it are that the Spivak side of the ownership group will be handling anything on the fan side of the fence, and the deMelos will be handling everything on the track side of the fence.

-Looks like the Powerade Modifieds as a regular division are done at Delaware, aside from a few invitationals. So we're at 3 weekly divisions, being the Late Models, Super Stock and Truck divisions. Many of the Friday night cards will be rounded out by Enduro challenges, a Bone Stock challenge, the usual King of the Hill events, as well as some touring series such as OSS, Vintage Mods, ISMA and that they seem to put some emphasis on wanting to have a relationship with OSCAAR.

-No plans for facility renewal. This was emphasized repeatedly...except that on occasion they teased that "if we get a lot of registrations....maybe." etc etc.

- The Summer Shootout is still on "tentatively", as in they are still in negotiation as to who will be on the card.

- A new Race Director will not likely be decided on until March. (Ron Sheridan was in attendance and appeared to be there in a driver capacity.)

- It was emphasised that this was not a tech meeting. Meetings for the individual divisions will be in mid-January. Dates were given (sorry didn't write them down) and will be on the Delaware website. It will be a seperate meeting/date for each division.

- The closest we got to tech talk is that they are looking at tweaking the weight limits (in all divisions) for certain modifications, with a focus on slowing things down a little. It sounds like there may be some changes in the future, but it will be in such a way that cars built before 2011 will be "grandfathered in", and anyone wanting to build a new car should contact the speedway....whatever that means.

- The feeling was that in cutting each division's number of race nights should help as far as cost and equipment factors, and each Friday division is slated to run approx 12 nights. Mr deMelo emphasised repeatedly that the goal was to make racing fun and exciting again.

- NASCAR sanctioning is still up in the air.

John said a piece about drivers connecting with fans of "generation text" and offered a few ideas on how to use Facebook, Twitter etc to create excitement for the racing. Our main competition is not other race tracks, but movies, xbox games etc. Those are the things we need to try and drag the younger generation away from, and get them to the track.

Q and A

There were a few things put forward, nothing really profound but were worth repeating.

- One person opined that the tech crew has often created an adversarial relationship with the competitors in the past, and that it needs to change.

- There was another who felt that double file restarts were the way to create more excitement, which led to a discussion about why we do the 1-2-3 double file restart in the first place. Another suggested the was we did it for some of the specials the year we were a WWS track, where the 2nd place guy decides if he wants outside pole or inside 2nd row, and so on down the line. Then one guy suggested double file restarts with the leader on the outside rather than the inside...and was pretty much laughed out of the room.

- Someone suggested the Truck and SS going back to radial tires.

- Quite a number suggested ways of funding the improvements that most feel are needed.

- Another suggested a more affordable alternative in laying down some concrete strips coming out of 2 and 4.

- And apparently JR Fitzpatrick made a little speech which, unfortunately, I was out of the room for....and I'm still wondering what he said.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line that I got here tonight is that what they are really needing now, is feedback and dialogue. How to reduce the cost of racing and make it more affordable. (and if you're a driver and weren't there, send an email to info@delawarespeedway.com so they can get you on the right email list. They'll be sending out questionairres about your individual divisions. They kept stressing that email list tonight.)

They're offering help in putting together sponsorship packages, and I beleive John said he'd even give advice on setting up a Twitter or Facebook page for drivers if they wanted.

If you need help they are there as a resource. Use it.

Anyone notice anything I missed, by all means, feel free.

Shadow out