Five Flags Speedway’s infamous tech man, Ricky Brooks, was hired to tech the World Crown races at Peach State Speedway the past weekend. This is the same guy who had enough fortitude to throw out Kyle Busch and Steve Wallace at last years Snowball. Brooks found 2 of the 35 late models illegal in pre-race tech, but the real story was the local divisions. Virtually the entire fields of Trucks and Sportsman cars, along with a bunch of Modifieds were thrown out in post-race inspections.
I applaud Peach State for finally hiring a rulebook enforcer. Asphalt racing has seen a slow decline in car and fan counts over the past few years here in Georgia. I think part of the reason in car count decline has been the lack of rulebook enforcement. I’m sure the same situation exists in Florida, as well as other parts of the country. The rulebook has become recommended guidelines rather than the bottom line. 4 or 5 teams in each individual division have hijacked those divisions and turned their cars into pseudo late models. In an effort to maintain their top drivers, the tracks have ignored rulebook violations in order not to tick off what remaining cars are left. There are hundreds of asphalt cars here in Georgia up on jackstands, tucked into the back of a shop, because the drivers got tired of trying to keep up with the cheated up crate engines, the $9000.00 ministock engine, the aluminum brake rotors, the carbon fiber drive shafts, etc.
Now that Ricky Brooks has exposed the level of rulebook violations that occur here, what will the tracks do now?
Lanier Speedway has an upcoming race called “Outlaws and Gamblers”. It is billed as as an event with no rulebook. What will really differentiate this race from a regular weekly feature event.
In 2009, will the tracks enforce the rulebook, hoping to get some of the idle cars off of the jackstands? Will enforcing the rulebook chase off the remaining 5 or 6 cars that populate each division?
On a side note, the World Crown race was outstanding. 35 late models, 2 or 3 thousand people in the grandstands, 2 and 3 wide racing throughout the entire race, 25 bucks to get in. I will attend this race for years to come!
IF you would have seen the Tech area at NSS Saturday night, you probably would have been impressed. I think I counted 9 cars in the area being teched, pretty thoroughly I might add. I am not sure of the final outcome, but I know of two cars (1 car, 1 truck) that were DQ’d.
Hopefully they will get the 2009 rule books out before the end of the year and then stick by them and enforce them going forward.