by: Candice Martin
Fan appreciation night was a success. It makes me happy to say that. As is the case with us, there’s always something negative lurking. Sometimes we just shoot ourselves in the foot when we’re about to have a good moment, but sometimes it’s just stuff that happens behind the scenes.
While the show was going on, we had power outages, Wade lost a good microphone in the power surge. Food got spoiled because we couldn’t keep it refrigerated. So there was a negative undercurrent.
However, we’re taking the win here. I think we probably tripled our average crowd. Ron Brown gathered together some amazing sponsors, and I wish I could point them out here. Everybody that chipped in scored this win. People got to watch a race for $5 and that meant people seeing racing for the first time and others who hadn’t been here in a while.
We also had bikes going to some lucky kids. All kinds of goodies were available for the kids, coupons for skating and bowling, Hot Wheels, candy, racers hero cards. There was live music. So much was going on. It wasn’t just a race, it was an event. The downside, in a way, was we overbooked the program. That meant we were rushed.
I had invested a little bit of money in special Main Event winners awards for the seven divisions. What frustrated me and Katrina, our photographer, was we weren’t able to take the winners pictures right after each race and had to wait until later. Because of that, the winner of our Spec Sprint Main Event left before we could get his picture. His win was truly amazing the way he did it.
That’s the thing, the racing was very enjoyable from start to finish, and I think the fans got a good show. We didn’t leave them upset that something didn’t quite go right, and that special memory may translate into people coming back to see another show. I wish it would be this week, but scheduling was such that we turned the next race into a playday. So much for momentum. We’ll try on the 19th.
Laina Bales came to me in regards to wanting to raise money for a Mini Stock race, and I liked the idea. We already had the race booked, and she just wanted to enhance the purse as a way to thank the drivers. $1,000 more is going into the purse thanks to her efforts, and I’m throwing in an additional Top 3 Main Event finishers trophies. I’m doing that for the West Coast Sport Compact race the next week as well. Little things to try to make it better.
To that end, we have a race on the 23rd of September, our final point race for the 25th Wingless Spec Sprint championship season. I’ve ordered a cup trophy in memory of Rick Panfili. I’m going to try to see if I can get a little bit of sponsorship money to increase the purse, but we’ll be paying tribute to one of the people who made this class possible.
When Ron Brown came in here to do what he did for Fan Appreciation Night last Saturday, he stepped up in a meaningful way to help this track. He didn’t do it for glory, he did it so that more people would come watch, and he succeeded. That’s the thing about our racing community. We’re all stepping up to make things better.
With race tracks closing all the time, the point isn’t lost on us that we’re lucky that we even have this track. The people who do come out and watch a night of racing know how special it is. It’s a lot of fun, and in many cases this is a place where families come together on the driver side and the fan side to bond with each other. You can’t really put a price on that.
