I'm back at the keyboard after a couple of days off. Saturday night was a double rain out and I managed to get soaked to the skin for no good reason. Sunday, the best race of Speedweeks was held so far at Bubba Raceway Park but since I was on no one's "list" for that one, I just sat and enjoyed. It was a nice comeback for Bubba's, as their 2016 race was the worst of the entire Speedweeks and they made a complete turn around for this year.
Volusia Speedway Park started out their portion of the Late Model racing on Monday, February 20th with the first of three consecutive nights of UMP sanctioned racing to be followed up by three nights of World of Outlaws points racing. It was a spectacular weather day and I think the best that we have had so far in Florida. Along with the Late Models, it was the big night for the UMP Modifieds with their most prestigious and highest paying event of the entire long week plus they have been racing at VSP. The Mods started out racing way back when the All Star Sprints started their run here, and they have been racing every night since. Following up their big night on Friday, which was set up through duel qualifying sessions on Sunday, they will wrap up their time in Florida with a "features only" format for Tuesday.
Of course, much of the prerace talk on Monday centered on the events on Sunday night with the bad wreck that saw a Sprint Car get into the pit area and hit three people injuring them. When I walked into the pits, the track crew was very busy replacing the fence that had been knocked down and setting up new barriers to establish a "safe zone" outside the first and second turn. A set of bleachers used by pit personal outside turn two had also been removed.
Looking at the fence in question, it is not a spectacularly strong or especially high one, but is also similar to many others seen at race tracks all across America. The triple guard rail that rings the outside of turn one and two is also not near as high as some retaining fences but again doesn't strike one as especially dangerous either. However, the race cars at VSP really get up a look of speed and with the way that Sprint Cars tend to vault into the air when they run over each other, the distance that the wrecking car traveled is not surprising. Certainly some changes will have to be made for 2018 with some kind of fence like Knoxville's the likely answer.
It was sickening the amount of TV coverage that this incident received. Camera crews from TV stations all over the area were swarming the grounds and helicopters hovering over the track all after noon. Camera crews roamed the grounds, looking for people to interview. I was asked by two different crews to offer my thoughts but when they found out that I wasn't at the track on Sunday, they were no longer interested in my thoughts. Someone close to me let one of the crews "have it" when she asked if they would have been at the track to interview people if the race had a spectacularly close finish, but when the camera crew admitted they would not be there if not for the accident, she told them to come back and interview her when they had something positive to say about the races. I'm a bit surprised with the attitude taken by the TV people as with Daytona so close, I would have thought that the racing might be looked a little more favorably on and that TV might have taken a little more forgiving attitude toward the accident, given that NASCAR and Daytona are the "straw that stirs the drink" in and around Daytona Beach. Apparently I'm wrong in that belief.
To me, the biggest news was the large number of racers that were missing for one reason or another as their absence was almost as large as the number of drivers in the Late Model class that were on hand to race. With the Bowyer cars of Lanigan and O'Neal, along with Steve Casebolt, Dennis Franklin, Austin Hubbard, Kenny Pettyjohn, Colton Flinner and a car provided for Ray Cook all sitting parked on Monday, along with the four suspended drivers(Bloomquist, Satterlee, Owens and the Best Motorsports Team), there were as many good racers missing as there were on hand. Certainly the field wasn't near as powerful as some seen at VSP in other years. By the way, the "smart money" in the pits is being wagered that the lawsuit against World Racing Group by the four racers will be refiled soon in another state.
As another example of how humbling motorsports can be, look no farther than Donny Schatz. Less than twenty four hours after he had one of his greatest days ever, winning both ends of a WoO Sprint Car doubleheader at this same track, he qualified terribly in his Late Model as was no where near able to make the main event, even though he had his highest hopes ever of really running competitively in the Late Model.
At a track that if anything is too fast for a regular show to begin with, for some reason track officials continue to prep a track that is extremely tacky and blinding fast. It produces some awesome speeds but I think fans are here to see passing and that is very difficult to do with the tremendous speeds that these "Indy Cars of the Dirt" can produce. The cars are bolted down so hard to the tracks now and create such a force of air around them that they are really hard to pass, especially on a track like VSP that doesn't offer up particularly wide straightaways and has walls and barriers close by that offer no margins for error.
Brian Shirley was fast right at the start of the main event and opened up a nice early margin. Chris Madden, who has been impressive in early season runs also, worked his way past Tyler Erb and closed on the leaders and when Chub Frank had bad luck and shredded a tire, Madden used the outside lane to power around Shirley and take the lead. Shirley then adjusted his line and started to close back up, but Madden had the field covered by then and with no yellow flags over the last seventeen laps, Madden drove on for the win. Shane Clanton probably passed as many cars as anyone as he came from tenth to fourth at the finish with Dennis Erb also gaining a number of positions. My hope is that they will slow down the track some for the rest of the week.
Fifty two Modifieds were left out of a field that numbered nearly seventy in total over the course of their long stand here at VSP. Two last chance races set the final field and then twenty eight cars went thirty laps for their five grand to win "Gator" title race.
Jacob Hawkins took the lead on lap eight and built up a nice advantage but then Nick Hoffman, as he has been doing here all week, came charging to the front. He gradually caught Hawkins, and with the last half of the race running nonstop, he drove under Hawkins and took over the lead as the top side started to give out just a little.
As with the Late Models, the Modifieds were flying around the track at high speed and with the low groove holding much moisture, most of the field lined up on the bottom groove with Hawkins one of the very few able to keep up using the long way around the track.
Hoffman pulled away in the late going as he stretched his advantage over Hawkins but Jacob held off Will Krup for second with a remarkably consistent Kenny Wallace and Tyler Nicely completing the top five. The race had only three yellow flags and only a half dozen cars failed to finish the race distance.
VSP had been closed for the later half of 2016 and it is showing that it could use just a little bit of sprucing up. Compared to the other tracks that I have visited so far in Florida, it is slipping behind some of the others just a bit. Track lighting for both the racers themselves and in the grandstands could use some updating and the scoreboards at VSP are really quite second class compared to any of the others I've seen so far with the ones here being out more often than they work. And the one really unique aspect of VSP, the "Gator Pond", has failed to produce so far with no reptiles being spotted to this point.
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