The Midwestern racing season opened up on Friday, March 3rd at William Scogin's Clarksville Speedway in Tennessee with the opening weekend of the MARS Late Model Series in a weekend doubleheader. Along with the MARS Late Models, the UMP Modifieds, UMP Pro/Crate Late Models and the local class of Mini Mods also raced on Friday.
Scogin and his associates recently purchased the MARS Series and split it into a West and East division with this race being one that both divisions would be completing at. Of course, this race weekend is one that races under the unique title of the Tuckesee Toilet Bowl with feature winners receiving special plunger trophies on Friday with the "big thrones" wheeled out to the winners on Saturday night. Certainly these mementos are among the most unique winner's trophies anywhere in the world of racing.
Forty Late Models signed in to race on opening night with a wide range of hometowns represented. Drivers were on hand from Illinois, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, plus the home state to race for the big prize. The Modified field was not huge at twenty three but there were a large number of really excellent open wheel racers on hand and one must remember that they were only racing for six hundred bucks to win on Friday, so you would not expect too many travels from far away. However, with the strength of the drivers on hand, an intense open wheel race was expected. The Crate Late Models also had over twenty entries including defending UMP National Champion A.J. May along with several other Illinois entries, anxious to get their racing season started early.
I would love to be able to expand on a lot of great things experienced during the program on Friday, keeping with the theme of this website. However, it was not a night that will go down in memory as one of the great nights of racing seen. Actually, in many regards, it was a night that I hope that I don't have to experience again in quite some time.
First of all there was the weather. Of course the track has absolutely nothing that they can do about the temperatures, but there are certain things that they can do to attempt to mitigate the weather conditions. These would include starting anywhere close to the advertised starting time, running a prompt show and trying to expedite the race program as much as possible. None of these were done as far as I could see. Friday night's weather made me realize how much more pleasant things were in Florida, only one week ago.
The scheduled warm up time for the race cars didn't start too much after the posted time but after that, things went rapidly down hill. And of course, they had to qualify all three of the top classes, which put the spectators huddled on hand in a state of metamorphosis before the first green flag ever flew. In reality, the first race took the green at 9:04 p.m., not a race schedule that would excite anyone. And to make matters worse, for some reason, even with low twenties in the Modifieds and Crate Lates, they decided to run four heats which meant we were treated to four and five car heats in the Crates, and five or six cars in the Modified heats. Unbelievable!
They did only run one race for their Mini Mods(of course there were only four of them), and the Mod Lites also ran just a feature race so sometime well after 11 p.m., the first feature finally hit the track while many of the spectators were already packing up their propane heaters and heading for the gates.
I have been at Clarksville several times over the years and the racing surface, while looking interesting to the eye, has had a record of being on the spotty side. It is a bright red clay surface, about a quarter mile in length and does have pretty good banking. The cars do fly around this track but sometimes the racing can get one grooved too. Friday night the track started off a little bit wet and during the hot laps the drivers were trying many grooves. As it dried out though, the drivers started to migrate toward the bottom of the track. Of course, eighty to ninety cars taking multiple timed laps where they all use the same groove doesn't help that situation either.
By race time, everyone was fighting for the low groove and passing was at an extreme premium. Here are the gruesome facts. Eighteen races were contested counting all four classes(minus Mod Lites where I didn't pay any attention and instead, tried to warm up!). Of those eighteen races, fifteen were won right off the pole and three were won from the outside pole. In other words, not a single race winner started farther back in the field than the outside pole! Now, you tell me, does that make for interesting racing or what? The races went smoothly enough, with not a lot of yellow flags except for the Crate feature where they goofed around and spun their way into eight yellow flags. Otherwise, it was basically follow the leader in everything else with anyone foolish enough to try the outside quickly dropping like a rock.
Twenty four cars started the Late Model feature with Rodney Sanders on the pole. He had to fight off a couple of challenges from Tony Jackson Jr and once, things got a little tight when he caught the back of the field and was having trouble with the lapped traffic. A fortuitous yellow got them out of his way right at the halfway point and from then on, it was smooth sailing. Terry English was able to get past Jackson Jr on a double file file restart (called a "Dover Delaware" style restart by the knowledgeable local announcer"), and he did apply as much pressure as he could but as long as Sanders didn't get too hot into the corners, he was in no trouble on the one lane track.
Actually, "Randy" Sanders (as he was called several times during the night by that same crack announcer") best move was when he got past fast qualifier Kent Robinson in his heat. This gave him the pole for the feature and put him on easy street.
In the Modified and Crate features, there were no challenges either as Clayton Miller and Michael Zimmerman dominated their main events. Both these races were a little long in yellows and by then most of the crowd had heading for their vehicles and some warmth. The final checkered waved at 12:45 a.m. and my vehicle told me that it was only 32 degrees, minus wind chill.
There were some positive things however. The scoreboard has nice big numbers(unlike Volusia in Florida) and it is very easy to read the time trial results. Now if we could just convince them to cut back on the time trials period we might have more of a race track to run on. However, we are down here for the weekend and we will hope that things run smoother, quicker and to a more exciting conclusion on Saturday.
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