Jeez. Now, I’ve been around short track racing a LONG time. I love good, hard-fought short track RACING just as much as the next guy. But this track - Bowman-Gray - comes down this kind of stuff every week, even in the lower divisions, I’d quit going. Why? I’d be embarrassed. Real race fans shouldn’t be jumping the fence, getting involved in on-track altercations between the drivers. In this particular video, it just looks like the 29, running second on the restart, just got a good run on the leader going into turn one. Then, that car, the 17, tried to mirror-drive and block, and took himself out. I don’t think the 29 did it at all. No reason to go after the guy when you take yourself out while leading. Why not just settle for second (or maybe third if the other guy followed through) and be able to load the car on the trailer at the end of the night, instead of going off the track on the wrecker with a crashed race car? I don’t watch this Bowman-Gray stuff on TV because of stuff like this.
In all my years of short track racing down here, I can only ever remember one fight that even came close to something like this. It was at St. Pete in 1983, and involved Rusty Haugh and Scotty Shelton, who were running in the Thunder Car division at the time. Apparently, they had gotten into it on the track during a mid-week show, and it carried over to Saturday’s regular show. It got nasty, involved Haugh ramming Shelton’s car up onto the trailer and through the tailgate of his truck, a guy ramming a jack handle into Haugh’s cockpit, and Haugh’s car ending up underneath Shelton’s trailer. I remember about 4 Pinellas County Sheriff’s cars showing up racing down the dragstrip, as it was only afternoon practice!
But apparently, this kinda stuff happens every week up there in Winston-Salem. I don’t go to the fights and hope a race breaks out; I go to see some great short track action. It shouldn’t get this heated up every week.
Jimmy, I agree with you on most. Yes, it was a VERY clean pass and I would rather put it on the trailer in 1 piece as well.
However, the embarrassment factor goes up substantially when you race in front of 20,000 rather than 200.
Jimmy You like that you should be about 20 years older. When I started going to Saramana Speedbowl In 1953 that was an every week thing. You’d go into the pits after racing and keep your helmet on for 30 minutes in case some dude came at you with a tire iron. I taped a race at Desoto one time, mini stock, where a man and his wife both drove in the class. The husband and another car got tangled up coming out of 2 and the husband front clip was torn off. The wife under caution came around 2 and hit the driver her husband had gotten tangled with. As I remember he was only bruised very bad but she could have killed him easily. The guy filed a law suit I guess. A year later an attorney called me and bought that video for court. What looks so odd to me is how many cops they had avaible to settle things down, and they didn’t stand for anything. Thats good. Bob…
People love drama - did you notice the crowd cheering ? Bowman Gray is like the Jerry Springer racing show - and they have a large following that spends money racing and watching.
Love it at 1:54 when the cop swats the shirtless guy who needs to buy a belt like a fly…all 78 lbs. of him, he get’s up and goes right back down again.
jimmy olny half right this time it was not rusty as you say it was the late joe trinkas it all stated as they came in the pit gate an just carried on from there i remember it well as i used to work the parts truck for natz peters at the time rusty was never the type to do something like that joe differnt story :ernaehrung004: this all happen when you would sit in the stands till after the races were over an you could get by the gate at the end of the stands after the races were over
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