A Huge Move Backwards & The Death To Saturday Night Tracks. July 30, 2014 at 1:40pm A couple of things have been bothering me this season. One of which is plain and simple; the shutting down or completely closing of what was thriving Kart Tracks all across the country. I had blamed it at first on the economy; as thats the first place anyone would look. And though the economy is weak, it is in an upswing and has been for a little while. Still the price of most everything continues to rise. But this is about the Mom and Pop, locally owned, Saturday Night Kart Tracks. Ive been in this sport since the late eighties. I have seen tracks come and go for obvious reasons. But all of a sudden I am seeing tracks that have done fairly well in the past gasps for a last breath, and succumb to, in my opinion, a totally new threat; one that has been here all along but in no way has it been more prevalent than the last year or so; The Money Race Dont get me wrong, there has always been The Money Races, and some are still going on that were, at one time and even now, called the classic money races. I am not here to name any race in particular. Why you ask?...I dont have the time. All you got to do is look around you. A good place to look is over at 4-cycle and you will see listings, after listings, after listings, of events full of dollars being waved around like treats to a room full of puppies all wagging their tails wanting a piece of the prizes. It is amazing to me that a weak economy can produce such money, but it is there for all to see. And a lot of racers make plans on travelling to where ever to grab a piece of these sometimes huge purses. Again please dont get me wrong, it is a great thing if you can afford to travel, and if you dont mind the hardest contacting events in our sport being the norm. Because when the money is waved before some people, their driving smarts sometimes vanishes in the clouds of the beating and banging on the track no matter what. And that is understandable, sad, but understandable. But the increasing number of these events has had a devastating effect on those mom and pop tracks I mentioned earlier. I do want to stipulate one thing here. I do not put any Memorial races of any kind in this group. We just had a very special memorial race in Cody Burks name. It is done once a year. I do not put it in a class with what this topic is all about. That being said, there still was some over the top hard hitting in the money classes, but again that is expected. But when you have more and more and more money races the average racer has to make some tough decisions. Does he or she take a chance of tearing up equipment at a local Saturday night track for a local race, or do they save, because they have to, for the travel and other expenses to be able to go race at the dollar events. Looking at it and thinking about it you realize it is a no-brainer. And in a lot of places, the local Saturday night tracks count goes lower and lower. But you are going to say thats not the only reason for low kart count!!! Your track sucks. Yeah...everyone says that at one time or another for whatever reason, and some reasons are valid, when some are just asinine. No track is perfect. No track is run without errors, and no track anywhere will make each racer there happy. After all, only one racer, per class, per night, is really happy after a night of racing no matter where they race. All I am saying is tracks all around the country are shutting down and closing up because they simply cannot survive with the low kart counts they are experiencing and a lot of those are caused indirectly by a new direction of an ever changing landscape of kart racing. And in my opinion, one of the biggest reasons for this is the choice racers must make about attending one of the MANY huge funded races, week after week, after week. So, dont be surprised when a track you frequent or use to frequent a lot, falls into this group of what was once the place to be and hang out with friends and family on a Saturday night. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I will be short on the second reason for this note. I am totally appalled at what direction I am seeing from some racers and tracks this year. That is the total lack of concern for driver safety. Back in the late eighties, it was not uncommon for you to visit some tracks where safety was less than what it should be. Short sleeves were common and bare hands were the norm. I even remember seeing short pants here and there; and most of these observations were on the DRIVERS on the track. Maybe it was a time of laid back racing or whatever they called it back then, but there were drivers, some of them children getting hurt, or burned, or scraped and bruised up badly just because of, again in my opinion, some dangerous and insane policies of either the track or the teams. Bottom line the track is at fault in my opinion. If a facility lets a driver on the track in less than minimum safety equipment, there is a huge law suit just waiting to happen. But this season, I am seeing evidence of this happening again. It is almost to a point that at some facilities they have adopted a new attitude; run what ya brung, any way you want, any how you want just show up and we will let you race.....Outlaw Style. This is totally unacceptable in my opinion. If a team or parent can not afford the basic safety equipment to keep the driver as safe as possible, then that team has no business racing anywhere at all. I have even witnessed no neck brace on young drivers, this year. It only takes a very short time to suit up your driver, and much, much, less time to get a life ending injury, because you just didnt see the need for it. It is a step backwards racers. A step backwards concerning the safety of the driver. And motorsports of any kind should NEVER take a step backwards when it concerns a drivers safety. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Finally, this note or post or whatever you want to call it is just my view on two topics that I have serious concerns over. You can comment if you wish. You can bash Atoka Raceway apart if you wish, I cant stop that. But I hope you choose not to just because you dont like our track, or as some I have heard call it recently, ajoka.....Bash if you wish, and if its bad enough I will delete it, one of my fading powers. But, know this; I am telling you a fact here.....we are gasping for every breath to stay afloat. I know there are those out there for whatever reason would love to see us close down. We are hated in some circles that much. And you very well may get your wish sooner than you can even imagine. But in my opinion, we have done our best with what we have had to deal with concerning mother nature, equipment problems, and with fighting the haters off as much as we can. We have tried different options; some working better than others. This season adding more money races and thats not working well either. The kart count of the early 2000s is not happening anywhere. We understand that. We never claimed to be perfect. But for the most part, I am proud of what we did and more importantly, for what we did not do. We were one of the first in this area to create a track website; still going strong, maybe not much longer tho. And we tried to teach sportsmanship, and fairness. I have lots of proof that indeed we did; names like Cody Burks and Ricky Stenhouse Jr and MANY MANY more that have shown exemplary sportsmanship and some have moved on to bigger and more elite forms of motorsports. Over half of the racers racing at Riverside started out right here. They got their start at a track sometimes called ajoka. And thats good enough for me to say I was proud to be a part of that. Danny DavisAtoka Raceway Park1998-2014
Posted on: Wed, 30 Jul 2014 20:04:09 +0000
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