Around the Track with Jalopy Jack
This week we start the action with a retraction. On 2 counts. First we’ll get to the 4 Cylinder cars. Then we’ll get to the Enduros. Same case with both, Saturday night 5/30 wasn’t the first time for either. Just to test my limited knowledge the 4 Cylinders were tried when they were known as foreign compacts in the late 60’s. There was another attempt at 4 Cylinders as Mini-Modifieds and as I understand it, there were few too cars. The Enduro attempt was made earlier in this decade. I’ve no idea as to the outcome of that event.
Quite a few tracks in the area threw in the wet towel early on this past Saturday 6/13. Wall Stadium tried harder. They tried harder against a soft rain that was on and off and annoying in nature. I had to believe that the reason the extra attempt was made, was because the visiting tour type Modified were on the card. Some Heat racing was attempted and over a prolonged period of time, the towel just got too wet to dry things off anymore. Originally, there was no rain date for the tour type Modifieds during the regular season. It was announced by Earl Krause that there’ll be a strong attempt to reschedule this Twin 50 event. Their car counts were very descent in all divisions.
This included 19 Modifieds. Among the names we missed seeing were “Showtime” Jimmy Blewett, Kevin Wooley, Reggie Ruggiero, Steven Reed and Matt Hirschman. It’d be great to have them all back next time. I thought that the track was very generous with their rain check policy concerning this event. Admission was $22, but the rain check will be good for any Stock car race during the regular season. This includes the Garden State Classic which takes place on 7/18 and I’m sure admission will be more that night. This coming Saturday 6/20, we come as close to a regular show as we’ve had so far this season. All 5 regular divisions are on hand plus it’ll be “Fan Appreciation Night”. Admission will be down $5 to $15 and before the show, all the cars and drivers will be on the track and fans are welcomed to come on the track, greet the drivers, snap photos and get autographs. The following week 6/27, is going to be the very first “Fenders Only Night”. Three regular divisions, the Street Stocks, Factory Stocks and Legend cars will be racing. The special attraction will be Late Models. This is a “Race of Champions” qualifier for Oswego which takes place at Oswego on the weekend of 9/11, 12 and 13. The Late Model feature at Wall’s scheduled for 100 laps, with an expected fuel break at 50 laps. It sounds like a good one to check out.
Last week, I commented on a columnist in Area Auto Racing News named John Snyder. Mr. Snyder’s 1 of the columnists that I never miss reading when the paper comes. There’re other columnists that I put in the same boat as him. There’re other columnists that I hardly ever read because their writing style just doesn’t suit me.
There’re those that come between, that a lot will depend on subject matter. Very few I consider controversial because I feel they’re saying what needs to be said. Their ideas, just like me, need to be heard and if nothing else can be entertaining. However, there’s 1 columnist that’s an exception to all of the above mentioned. This is a fella that I’ve longed envied. I envy him because he goes to more races and more tracks then just about anybody else anywhere, anytime. I’ve been dying to meet this guy for years and found out I was just missing him at quite a few tracks. Part of this reason was a common friend just failed to introduce us. But I’ll get to the other reasons as we go along. His column is 1 that I never miss; however for enjoyment of it, is not always the case. You astute readers probably know that I’m referring to Guy Smith. Not to confuse him with the other Guy Smith who races Open Wheel cars on road courses. The Guy Smith who writes “Roaming The Race Ways” for AARN just doesn’t make sense to me sometimes. A better mind that understands the racing scene both locally and nationally is hard to find. In life, however, there’s something we all put up daily called “attitude”.
On this aspect of life Guy Smith is lacking. My personal example, for instance, goes back to when I first met him. I was in about my second year of doing my hotline WLAR [We Love Auto Racing] at the time. I couldn’t go without giving him my hotline card and asking him to check it out and inviting him on for an interview. The very next week I’ve seen Guy at another track. This time I was almost totally ignored. I was only approached when he had a dumb question about the track which was asked to me in a sarcastic manner, because he was probably too embarrassed to ask anybody else. A lot of his track count which numbers over 1,200 now are made up of races that he went to just to up the count. He knew that he wouldn’t even enjoy the show that this track would present. Just wants to brag that he’s been there.
With my limited resources I have not been to a fraction of the tracks that Guy Smith’s has. I can tell you though that I’ve gotten a lot of enjoyment out of almost every race at every track that I’ve been to. Guy Smith thinks he’s something special because he’s a “Hot T. Tot college professor”. In other words he don’t have to have the respect that we all have for somebody who’s brave enough to open a track for business. Or somebody who thinks enough of the sport to sacrifice some of their time and enjoyment to be a racing official. Or for the majority of those putting on the show, the racers themselves, many who sacrificed just about everything short of life itself to get a car to the track either each and every week or at least as often as they can due to finances. Finances seems to be a thing Guy Smith never has to worry about, although he gripes about every nickel and dime he might have to spend at a speedway. Here’s a guy that’s passing up some great racing at a variety of tracks within 50 to 75 miles from his home base somewhere in the Poconos. He’ll go to a track and walk out on the Street Stocks, but then turn around and travel 1,200 miles to see Street Stocks somewhere else.
Guy Smith’s a charter member of a group I’m certainly not knocking called “Track Chasers”. Their rules can be a little strange concerning “countable tracks”. They’ll count and go to pains to see something called “Champ Karts”. These are nothing but Go Karts with cages. Otherwise a Go Kart track doesn’t count. Drag racing, even if they’re going 300 miles per hour doesn’t count. And what really gets me is that motorcycle racing also doesn’t count. I thought auto racing was about guts. Or at least a big aspect of it. And I’ll always prefer 4 wheels over 2. But when I see a good motorcycle race and I know those guys “put it on the line”, I know that I’ve seen something. And I’ll count that as a motorsports thrill right along with the auto racing pilots who I’ve also seen leaving their best on the track.
Now you might be wondering why all this should be about Guy Smith. I’ll need to quote something he said in a latest issue of AARN. He was talking about a track that he went to that was only a temporary track and the show didn’t go right. And if I was at this same show I wouldn’t have been happy either. The quote is “never trust a promoter to do what he tells you he is going to do” ARE YOU KIDDING? I’d like to see Guy Smith say this to the late Larry Mendohlson, or to Hilly Rife, or to Jim Morton, who many of us know is keeping Wall Stadium alive. Or maybe Guy Smith has never been to Thunder Road because he knows he might have to say something nice to Tom Curley.
Hey Guy, Mr. Tom Curley has been on WLAR twice and is willing to come on again. Hey Mr. Smith, why don’t you use some of your money, buy a lot of land, build your own track and we can all see how good you’ll be at it? No, no, no, uh, uh, uh! Because this is what Guy Smith really lives for. His thing is leaving a show early with his nose up in the air because he thinks he’s the best thing on the grounds and all else is beneath him. This is probably the other reason I never met him. Hey Guy, you’re not running into the best promoters? What do you expect with some of these dives that you attend? Hey, I’m not putting them down, you are! Like I said before, I go where the racing’s enjoyable. I get nothing out of bragging that I wasted my weekend and 600 mile trips going to where there’re 3 cars in a division. I love a guy like Bruce Rogers who can run Grandview Speedway every week successfully. But if there’s a guy like John Rocket who can bring Bethel Motor Speedway back from the grave and even though he’s averaging about 7 cars per division for his weekly Stock car classes, hey, he’s giving people a place to race. What are you giving Mr. Smith? You’re giving us a lot of gripes and a stuck up attitude every week in AARN and that’s only for those of us who can get close enough to read you. Thank goodness the rest of us all have love and respect for each other around the speedways of America.
I believe it was in my opening column for Yankee Racer that I said I was expecting to be visiting different tracks this season. It started off that way but now due to different circumstances and not having the salary of a college professor to draw on and mainly due to the fact that the part time schedule for Wall Stadium’s now going to be every Saturday night thru at least 9/5, fewer tracks are going to be visited by this columnist this year. I’ve always been on the fence about going to 1 track every week vs. a different track every week. I enjoy it either way. Right now, I’m having a lot of fun at Wall and nobody’s saying anything about next year, if you know what I mean. A reminder that you can hear my voice all the time on WLAR’s 718-707-1052 hotline and once again, I want to thank Nick Teto for the chance to express my opinions, whatever they may be. So it has become that time again…..keeping the fans in the stands and the cars on the track, this has been Jalopy Jack.