Speedweeks Rundown

FLORIDA STOCK CAR RACING KARNAC's FLORIDA STOCK CAR RACING
1

Where did everyone go?

How was it?

I had a short 8 night speedweek due to work and flight schedules.

Ocala Speedway> Mods Sprints>>> 1 show (sat)

East Bay Lucas Oil Latemodels>>> 3 shows

Volusia Speedway Park> Mods Sprints>>> 2 shows

New Smyrna Speedway world Series Night #1>>> 1 show

Rants and Kudos

Ocala…Kudos, very entertaining and well run show along with that BJ guy handling the mic well.

First person i saw walking through the gate was Jim H.

I still liked it better as (clears throat) Asphalt but appeared to be thriving.

BTW Mike.your clay mix worked out very well.

East Bay …Kudos, great racing.

East Bay…Rants, a little expensive at the gate but still worth it, the track surface on thurs night? UGH!

Volusia Speedway Park… Kudos, Bunches of cars and racing.

seeing kenny Wallace on his roof right in front of me was interesting which i would wish on no driver but it happened, he seemed to be a good sport about it.

New Smyrna Speedway… Kudos, i had to have me some asphalt racing.

New Smyrna Speedway …Rants, Opening night was a struggle for drivers and crews with numberous wrecks.

some clean-up and line-up delays but refer back to kudos, asphalt racing without giving money to NAAASSSSKKKAAAARRRR!

Biggest rant…it was cold all week (which i hoped i’d escape from in NC) and monday it rained everywhere in the state.

I will surely be back next year.

2

Good seeing you at Ocala Harry. Very brief, but good to see you.
I was out at John Smiths’ house right after that to fix his gas furn. All is well over there too.:huepfen024::huepfen024:
–JIM H—

3

Good start for me this year. Already been to:

Charlotte County Speedway, Sunday afternoon race, very entertaining day
Volusia Speedway, Sunday afternoon show, Sportsman and Hobbies were featured, but a good Modified race as well
Ocala, friday night Sprints & Mods… extremely cold, but great racing
New Smyrna… practice day, 2 nights of Sprints, 1 night of hustling fliers out to everyone I could meet, Friday Reunion (5:30 AM until almost 2:AM when I got home… one LONG day)
Daytona for the ARCA race and Bud Shootout (free tickets, free parking less than 100 yards from the entrance) and took our pre-paid beers in with us. I’m proud to say, neither Nascar or the City of Daytona got a single penny from me that day!!!

9 race nights, most of them very good, and literally hundreds of people I spoke to, made it very memorable. From old friends, to all the Reunion Guests, to the 3 racing fanatics here from BELGIUM of all places… it was a great time to be a Race Fan!

All in all, one GREAT Speedweeks for me! Thanks to everyone that helped make it so fun.

4

I have had the most fun!

1 @ Ocala (rode in the push truck)
1 @ East Bay
1 @ Volusia (Shatz went from last to first)
4 @ New Smyrna, including the best race I’ve ever seen there, the Richie Evans 100
The Modified Reunion
1 @ Auburndale (I ran a heat, then my feature was cancelled so the fights could start)
1 @ Citrus
1 @ Orlando
1 day driving an antique midget at Zephyrhills
I got to do an hour on “Real Racin’ USA”
Tomorrow I wrap it up at an electric car race in Jupiter!

5

Thanks for the complement, Benny. I appreciate it. To be honest, I was off my game and under the weather on Saturday, but I managed to fake my way through it.

And it was good to see Frasson at Ocala even though there was not too much time to chat.

As for those that were there that I missed, sorry about that! I’ll do my best to do better next time.

And sorry that I failed to get out to any of the other speedweek events everywhere else, but life has been dealing me a really bad hand lately. Let’s just say that this whole economy thing has finally managed to catch up to me in more ways than one. There is always next year.

6

5 nights smyrna,4 nights volusia,1 wednesday daytona practice.lots of film and video.

7

I had a lousy speed week. The worst in years.

1 practice at Ocala (Got to meet BJ, and thanks for the hospitality)
1 night of Rain at Ocala
1 Race at Ocala Friday
I wimped out on Sat. because of the cold. The old bones won’t take it.
Sunday and Monday NSS.
1 afternoon at Orlando Speed World watching absolutely nothing of interest because they’d changed the format.

That was my speedweeks. UGH!!! Next year’s gotta be better (I hope). billy

8

Lousy for me, also

Had to put the wife in the hospital on Jan. 20th and she got out on Feb. 8th, still battling C, but was able to go to VSP on the 12th for the WoO Late model race. They sure know how to run a racetrack, anthem at 7:25, racing starts at 7:30, we left at 10:50 and I was home at 1. My buddy’s son is the car chief with Billy Moyer and I found a Moyer 1/24 and 1/64 scale die-cast and he took it and got Billy to sign it. Hope to get to Ocala Friday night and see my buddy Darrell Padgett race. I just ask to remember us when you say a prayer. God Bless.

9

4 VSP - Sprint, UMP and Big Blocks and LM - loved every bit of every show - great job VSP

3 NSS - I will always goto NSS for speedweeks, I will always bitch about it. Good racing/bad racing/good track mgmt/bad track mgmt. Great runs by my favorites made it worthwhile for me. Would love to see some buy in from the CRA or somebody to get teh SLM car counts up next yr.

Came down with the flu towrds the end and had to miss the truck race at Daytona - my kids had earned free tickets thru school and we had all planned to go, but we were all sick, so we watched on TV.

10

Speedweek for me was short too. With the economy the way it is I have to work every time I get the chance. The good thing is that my work is at the race track, usually. I had a 2 day show at CCMP, the modified reunion with the Richie Evans Memorial to cap it off. World figure eight Sat. and was supposed to run Sunday but they wimped out. I have to agree with Rex, the Richie evans memorial was the best Modified race I have ever seen. I’ll be at Ocala the 27th for the UDLMCS race. Hope tp see some of you there. Bob…
Oh and String bean, I’ll add you and your wife to my prayer list…

11

I actually managed to get around a little this year (more then the last couple)

3 nights at Ocala-Practice then friday and sat
2 nights at Volusia-Took dad to his first look at speedweeks at volusia once for mods/sprints the other for the late models/big blocks

Note:The big blocks brought back alot of memories for my dad also he was wondering if you were there jerry lol

12

We had a great speedweeks 3 nights at VSP some of the best racing ever, too bad they pack you in so tight in the stands, you would think as popular as that place is they would put in some better seating. We had 3 nights at NSS including fridays killer modified race, had people from the northeast say best they ever saw. We camped for 9 nights and had one of our best vacations ever. Can’t wait till next year.

13

Ocala (1) for All-Star Sprints
East Bay (1) for King of the 360s
Volusia (6) Five nights for WoO & All-Star sprints, One night for Big Blocks
NSS (2) for TBARA Sprints

Not one dime to Napcar…PRICELESS!

14

worst one yet over here too

My only night I could feasibly go to Ocala for the sprint cars and be a spectator and the damn thing got rained out. Then I worked on the car for three straight nights with the TBARA, two of those spent changing rear ends, to only run awful anyway. First year in a long time I didn’t get my Terry McCarl fix.

But hey, I made some new friends along the way and my most enjoyable contribution was probably helping change Dave Shotsberger’s flat when the push truck dropped him off in front of our hauler during Monday’s feature. Unbelievably nice guy that Dave.

That and I got to eat terrible infield food with HaudFan - now that was priceless.