Yes it was a pretty good night overall, albeit a little bit chilly in the infield I must say & my son had to contend with someone standing on the seat row just below him & to his left videotaping the Sprints, his favorite races, effectively blocking his view of most of the backstretch & turns 1 & 2 - I told him that he should have said something to him but he wouldn't lol. Got some fairly decent pics from turns 1 & 2 for the hot laps & heats & went to turn 3 for the feature & now have them on my photobucket page for those interested.
I think that 60 cars for a weekly show is a little bit much myself, seeing as 1 of their biggest shows of the year draws just over 70 Sprints & expect that on a regular basis they will have in the low to mid-range 20's with the realistic number being like Tommy says, low 20's but that's still a pretty good draw for a weekly Sprint show I think. When I was out west a number of years back, the track in Edmonton would have on the average 16-19 cars for their weekly show, but they still put on a pretty decent run most nights - still got some videotape from there lol. Not knocking your wishful thinking wrench & while it would be great to see that many Sprints on a regular basis, I could just imagine how long the night would be with 60 cars battling it out for a 20 or 22 car field, as they only started 20 cars - is that going to be the standard number for a feature Tommy? When I was at Williams Grove last year, they had 36 410 Sprints & 36-38 LM (Outlaw type) & with just those 2 divisions it turned out to be a very long & cold night - yes they did hold off an extra 1/2 hour from starting to wait for some LM's to haul in from a rained out Hagerstown but still started at around 7:30 & I didn't get out of there until almost 11:30 if memory serves me correct, if not close to 12. They also had very few stoppages in the heats & features with no red flags & there they keep the show moving as I am pretty sure they were pushing off the next Sprint heat as the previous 1 finished - same for the LM's, they were heading onto the track when the checker flew for the heat previous to theirs.
Anyways, was a fairly good night overall & enjoyed it & will be back, just not every week & the same with my son - much better than the show they put on at Flamboro I think, pricewise especially & that is what will keep me from that track this year & quite possibly for many years to come I think lol.
they were pretty darn close to that on sprint nights in the past few years. It will be an adjustment year for many as you will have to make show every week and some might get discouraged fi they don't make show but this much growth and interest isn't going to just stop. There aren't very many divisions in ontario that have to run a b main just to get down to the required number of cars (a few ministock classes as well i think).
The highest car count for sprints that Ohsweken has ever had for a "regular" sprint car event (i.e. not the Nationals) was 43 at an SOS race on June 9, 2006. Chuck Hebing was the winner. http://www.southernontariosprints.com/history/2006/060906.htm I remember it really well because I live about 14 miles from Delaware (where they had AVSS running) but decided to go to Ohsweken that night instead...As it turned out, Ryan Litt won the feature and made all kinds of fun of me for not being there...lol
A couple of the SOD races have challenged that total, but never surpassed it...I think this year we might have 50+ for the big co-sanctioned ASCS SOD/Patriot show on July 4/5.
20 car features are going to be the standard...it's been in the rulebook since the rules for the class were announced. I know in PA that's not how it is, but SOD, AVSS, Attica, and Fremont all have 20 car features (except when SOD came to Ohsweken Glenn paid for the extra 4 spots)...whether that's right or wrong is not for me to decide. I do think it will be fun to see heat races that mean something every week - drivers will want to finish in the top 4.
racingwrench - yes we do both seem to end up at a lot of the same races...I always went to SOD and AVSS and other things instead of Brighton as well (from London, Brighton is closer to 4 hours...many things are closer)...until I became the SOS media officer this year. 😉 Come say hello next time you are at Ohsweken...Greg Calnan (SOS announcer) and I are the new Ohsweken announcers.
I didn't think that they got that far up there in car counts, with the exception of the Sept race, but did see some fairly large counts up in the mid to high 30 count range a couple of times I think.
I think that a 20 car starting field is actually better, as there will be 4 cars less than on the nights when the traveling show is in town, so I would think that there would be a little more room to move around & less chance of something happening to bring out the yellow or red flags, as we saw on Fri night with their feature going from start to finish caution-free. I believe that they had the same number to start their features in Edm., when they did get 20+ cars in the pits & they did on occasion get several more during the summer months as some would come up from Lethbridge when they could & when they had their 2 big races in July & Aug & the Americans were hauling up from Montana, Wash. & Oregon they had on occasion around 45 cars show up, yet only started 22 for the A Main & not 24 like most places would. Yes, they started 24 in PA, but they are a larger track & they run under the Outlaw rules there I think, as several were semi-regulars with the Outlaws when they would come east & they had the time to travel with them.
Anyways, with it only being a 20 car starting field I agree that the teams will have to actually race to qualify for the feature - especially when the car counts being up in the high 20 to low 30 count - & not just get in them on the sole reasoning that all cars qualify based on that is all the cars that are there in the pits, like at Flamboro & places like that. Makes for much better racing in the heats & features in my opinion.