The Good, The Bad & The Ugly
The Good
- All in all great job goes out to Dale Thomas and the staff at Hill Valley Speedway for putting on a successful event and stepping up to have the first event of this kind 2 years in a row. I believe it will, or already has had a trickle down effect to where we will see more events like this. Or at least more events paying more money.
- Congratulations to Ryan Greth on his win. He absolutely dominated the show after his heat race to win the Dash and lead every lap of the feature. If you read my last column you should have put your money on him for the W. Can’t say I didn’t tell you.
- Also great run by Stan Yockey, don’t believe there was a ‘Hard Charger’ Award, but he certainly let his presence be known by starting 15th and finishing 2nd. Only one of two guys from out of the area to make the show.
- Good job by Dale and the staff for getting the show done by 10:45pm (See later comments).
- Hyper cars were four of the top-5 finishers, including the winner.
The Bad
- I believe the event could have started later in the afternoon and still been completed at a reasonable hour. They can do away with the 2 hour break and just keep racing.
- By starting later the track would have been in better condition for the earlier races and we may have seen better racing; As opposed to the whole day coming down to the first 2 laps of the heat race meaning everything.
- Although the fan draw was good, it may have been better with a later start also. Can’t imagine too many fans want to sit through an all day affair.
- I like the format because there is no qualifying, you have to race your way in. However, it is ridiculous that a heat race winner does not automatically transfer to the A-Main. You should not be penalized because you started on the pole of your heat and won it. You don’t transfer because you did not pass any cars and still won due to a pill draw?
The Ugly
- Little bit of advice for Jonathan Hendrick, if I were him I would not return to race in PA anytime soon. There was more than one, a lot more than one, person who expressed their displeasure with him after the feature. Maybe he just had a bad night. I don’t know. He was not a popular person in the pit area afterward, I can tell you that
- The incident in the stands involving the pageant contestants. For those of you who were there, I should not have to say anything more.
- The feature was absolutely terrible. There were 2 fuel stops, one on lap 20 and a second on lap 40. There were more laps run under caution than what the race actually consisted of. Only 13 cars finished, enough said. If I were race director the black flag would have been used pretty liberally on Saturday night.
- How can you have electronic scoring and still not know where cars/drivers are supposed to be lined up. I would have been flipping out if I were the race director.
As I tell everyone, I like to hear from you, good, bad or indifferent. Email your comments to me at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .
Thanks and I hope to see you at the track.
