Just had enough

This weekend I did something I haven't done in a long time, if ever. Certainly not in the 3 seasons I've been managing this site. Definitely not in the past eight years I worked for Eagle. And, in the 14 years I worked on a car, I can't think of any time I've done it.

But this Saturday at the All-Stars show at Eagle Raceway, I did it.

I walked out of a race before any of the features. Pretty much right in the middle.

I had nowhere to go - my wife was with her sisters, I had nowhere to be the next day. The camera was working fine. I drove myself there. I certainly didn't do anything that would get me thrown out....

No, Saturday night I picked up my stuff, talked to two drivers for a minute, got in the car and drove home. Didn't look back.

Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the second night I've attended a show that got started over an hour late and still languished with unnecessary delays. Maybe it was the background bleating of a guest set of ratchet-jawed announcers spewing narrow interest facts to the crowd. Maybe it was the audacity to run a full-length intermission at 10 PM.

Whatever it was, I had enough. Big time. I stood in 30-degree wind chill to watch a USMTS show in March, I've sat through the chills at the Icebreaker and I've borne the heat of the "Dog Days." But this time the die-hard in me couldn't overcome the urge.

I went home, downloaded a good set of photos (with eight hot lap sessions and time trials, I was bound to get a few) took a shower, cracked open one of the beers I had planned for after the races and watched The Soup on E!, then Bobby Flay making ribs on the Food Network and went to bed. Sometime the next morning I checked to see who won.

I don't know what to think, or who to blame. I see two common denominators between this Saturday's show and last Sunday's Kornhusker Midget Klassic
Klunker. One, was the track conditions. Far too dry last Sunday, far too wet last Saturday each delaying the show over an hour. Two, the sanctioning bodies who seem to think delay after delay is somehow a good thing.

Last Sunday, the midget group tells Roger to stop watering the parched track, then asks to water it a few minutes prior to the scheduled start of hot laps (I was standing there). Then - they have the chutzpah to "apologize" for Hadan's alleged transgressions one day's time and an hour's drive away at Butler County.

Did they apologize for the 35 minute intermission, the inability to do their own starting lineups and the fact that the Eagle track officials had to run THEIR show, while the series race director had no communication with those officials. Did they apologize to the crowd in the low hundreds who baked for over four hours in the hottest part of the day to watch 6 red flags and more yellows?

This Saturday, I have to respectfully disagree with 'Eagle Pit Shack Guy' Greg Soukup, but the track crew did not come through with flying colors...the over watered track continued to get churned up and not become raceworthy until finally the sprints rolled the rest of it in, an hour late. What was left was fast and smooth, so I give partial credit. But to complicate things the All Stars demanded a second, full set of hot laps. Can someone tell me what the Hell was with a delay to run the dash, a meaningless post-race interview with the winner, another lengthy delay prior to the B, then a full intermission after the 7:00 show didn't see its first race till 8:30?

For as brutal as I'm being I can't lay all the blame, in fact not even the majority of blame on the track. Roger continued the tradition set by Eagle's previous management of keeping the show rolling along. Indeed - give credit in that FOUR classes are often run in the same time span as the two classes prior to 2006. When Eagle's in charge (and I'll add several other tracks as well), things tend to move along at the proper pace.

So what was it that lit me up? Let's start with the process of elimination.

I can't blame the motorcycles. Last Sunday I recall one red flag, and what, two (?) restarts? There were times they had to shut down because they had been sitting in staging for so long. They were ready when asked.

The track conditions? Partially. But I've seen delays when the track needed to be reworked/run-in and I've seen the show still get over at a respectable time for what was being run.

I think it's the lack of respect for the fan's time by these all-important sanctions. Some of them get it. ASCS, USMTS and the World of Outlaws come to mind. If there's a delay, they pick up their own pace.

The problem is I think a lot of groups bring an ego to the track. Their show is the marquis event and you should be fortunate for having them come.

Nevermind that the track is paying THEM. Without the track, the promoter and the fans feeding the promoter, they don't have a show. Maybe NASCAR can pull this attitude off, and I'm not sure they can do it 100% of the time anymore.

When a track has to put a proverbial gun to its locals to get them to fill SOMEONE ELSE'S show, the sanctioning body's leverage is minimal. And for any series just getting off the ground, one look into the stands should say that if they want to come back and command the price they do, in these economic times, they need to bring more to the table.

Otherwise, people won't leave - they just won't go. And I think that strange as it may seem, upon review, the lack of respect for the show is what pushed me out the gate. If my time wasn't important to them, then they aren't worth my time either. Maybe I'm the only one who cared, but the old marketing belief is that the vast majority of lost customers never tell you why they leave. They just pick up their stuff and don't look back.

Maybe I'm being too harsh - maybe the sun baked my brain, but after a few days...I still feel the same because I've seen it before, and on that night I just had enough.