First off - - thank-you to the OSCAAR Outlaw Late Model drivers for coming out in force last night.  While the race may have been a struggle at times, I know our fans appreciate you making the haul to come to our speedway.  The first race back after many years off can often be a challenge, in terms of setup and other factors.

I would just like to send out a quick appeal to the racing community across all touring series.  At Delaware, we love when you visit.  Our fans love when you visit.  We do everything we can to make the experience enjoyable and fun.  I know I took some of the ISMA & Oscaar fans on tours of the tower before the race in recent weeks.  We genuinely want you to enjoy yourselves.

One thing I appeal to all touring series to do to help out the tracks they visit, is to please help us keep our tracks clean.  It seems that visiting series, because the facility is not their home track, have differing attitudes about how to leave a facility.

I can tell you this: a clean pit following an event sends a strong positive message about the professionalism of your team and organization to the local drivers, fans, and track staff.  A messy pit, however, sends an equally strong message.  That message is also not received by the people you think it is.  To the minority who choose to leave piles of garbage across your area of the infield with garbage cans in clear sight - - it wasn’t just the speedway you embarrassed when the sports car rental came in this morning and asked “who left all this garbage here?”  It was the sport of stock-car racing as a whole.

To be clear, many teams do send the right kind of message.  The majority of the OSCAAR pits were very clean following the race (as clean or cleaner than the local drivers!).

While it is the speedway’s responsibility to ensure the facility is clean, all teams have the responsibility to help out with this.  Ultimately every dollar spent on clean up is a dollar not spent on racing.  From straight racing economics, resources spent on anything like this ultimately find their way into gate prices and payouts.  I know from personal experience as a garbage picker at Delaware for two years (gotta climb that ladder…) that it takes considerable resources time and energy to keep the track looking as good as it does. 

I love all our touring series.  On behalf of all the speedways, I simply ask that you help us the staff at your host tracks by letting us remember the excitement on the track - - and not the cleanup operation afterwords.

A sincere thank-you to the teams that cleaned up following the event.  I noticed.

-John Houghton
Delaware Speedway
(519) 652-5068 Ext 201
john@delawarespeedway.com

John ,

I do agree with you , however in some cases the track can help themselves by providing a garbage receptical for every one or two pits?
I am sorry for the water bottles on pit road, but we had a race to run and to be honest from our pit there was not a garbage can to be seen.. at at 12:15 with a 5 hour drive home all we wanted was to leave.

Cheers and i do hope we come back in 2012?

John ,

I do agree with you , however in some cases the track can help themselves by providing a garbage receptical for every one or two pits?
I am sorry for the water bottles on pit road, but we had a race to run and to be honest from our pit there was not a garbage can to be seen.. at at 12:15 with a 5 hour drive home all we wanted was to leave.

Cheers and i do hope we come back in 2012?

With regards to bins, absolutely - - the track plays a key role in facility cleanliness.  This is no means an attempt to turn total responsibility over.

What is at issue is that with touring series (from NCATS, to OSCARR) there seem to be a few teams that consistently simply dump the contents of their trailer wherever they are and leave - - even in spite of garbage bins that are right in their pit.  These teams are in the minority, but it reflects badly on everybody (from track to sanctioning body, to the sport as a whole).

The pit road area with the water bottles was not that bad at all, and I understand it was a very late night and may have been difficult to get things back the way they were.  I know I would have been in a hurry and it was also dark!  But what this is mainly in reference to is teams that clearly made no minimum effort at all throughout the evening to handle waste that their teams generated.

With your suggestion, I am going to work here to have a few garbage barrels added to pit road to help with the water bottles.

Do not take the wrong impression from this post: all in all the track's experience with OSCAAR was a positive one - - the race proved to be a challenge, but such things can happen to any series (local or touring).  It was great to see the drivers and their amazing machines at the track.

This post is simply a call for all teams (touring and local) to be conscious of simple little things that can have an effect on the sport, whether at Delaware or at their home track.

I hope to see the series back in the future and I am sure the track looks forward to talking in the off-season.  Best of luck with the remaining races on the schedule.

-John Houghton
john@delawarespeedway.com
Delaware Speedway
(519) 652-5068 Ext 201

John I"m not making comment here for the sake of commenting, but our Team had to search for garbage cans at the 3-4 corner as well. I think there is usally one under the light standard, but it may have been dragged off. I know my guys just chuck it in the trailer lol cause i clean it up!!!

John, we also end up throwing all of our garbage back in my truck for the same reason. Most tracks we travel to have a garbage bin for every two or three pit stalls. I do notice that there is a lack of respct for the facility as well, like you said. We have seen locals dump their trash on the ground when garbage cans are right there.