Governor's Cup 2011: To Be Improved...?

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

OK, so I wasn’t there all day long like a lot of y’all…but what, in your opinion, needs to be changed at the 2011 Cup to improve the “smoothness” of the show moving along? My OPINIONS:

  1. Pre-race or pre-qualifying tech. From what I heard (and understand) is that the cars were called to tech, and a LOT of them took their sweet-a$$ time just getting in line. I think there should be a time limit; if you’re not in line by such-and-such a time, you give up your qualifying (lineup) spot, and start at the rear of the field; then your car goes through a FULL tech AFTER the race is over, regardless of where you finished. If you’re in line *on time, you get a “Go” sticker on the windshield; if not, you get a “No go” sticker.

  2. If you fail pre-race/qual tech, are told to fix something, then you come through tech again and it’s STILL not fixed, you load up and go home. End of story. No qualifying, no starting money.

  3. If a car is involved in, or causes, a third caution, park it. As much I liked seeing that 90 come through the field a few times, I think she was involved in some way in at least five yellows. And I know the field was really shortened up at the end…in the drivers’ meeting, let 'em know to use their heads. Example: not real sure what happened between the 4B and 119 on the backstretch - under caution, no less. Not sure what happened to cars like the 23, the 89, the 74, and many others that didn’t really finish (I do know that the 92 was having fuel pickup problems with carburetor or something, and the 86 broke in qualifying…). There shouldn’t be really much reason that only ten cars took the checkered flag out of the, what, 36, that took the green?

  4. No halfway break…please. It really elongated the time that we (as fans) had to endure sitting in the stands. Let the pit stops play out during the race. PUT A PIT ROAD SPEED LIMIT if you’re worried about safety; that’s one thing that works for NA$CRAP.

  5. A SUNDAY-AFTERNOON SHOW. Preliminary stuff (with maybe three other local classes) on Friday night, a 50-lap “tune-up” with random starting spots (and a couple more local classes, maybe Sprint Cars) on Saturday, qualify Sunday early afternoon, drop the green at 1:00pm on Sunday. AND - don’t schedule against any other big shows. My understanding is that Peach State (Gresham<?>) had their World Crown weekend the same weekend this year. My suggestion: schedule wither the week before or the week after.

Please add…and be constructive, whether you were a fan this year, or a competitor/car owner/crew. I had heard that there were concession/restroom issues on both the grandstand and pit side <?>. Something the track needs to look at for next year. I didn’t go to the concession stand on the grandstand side, but when we came in around 7:15pm, the beer line was all the way back to the tower…restrooms were fine as far as I could tell. I didn’t notice any smell, like Rex said he did (or was he referring to the pit-side restrooms?).

2

I personally like the halfway brake and think they should keep it and don’t believe it would of changed the out come of the race. The one thing I would change is some type of inversion after the break.
I agree with the time it took to tech everyone and that should of either started earlier or if guys are dragging there feet then you start at the rear.
I think the 3 caution rule wouldn’t be a bad idea.
I don’t like the Sunday thing and don’t think it will draw as many people as keeping it on Saturday. I don’t believe a lot of guys would want to take the chance of crashing there car before the big race by running the night before.

3

As much as I was against the half-way break, I think it turned out real well. An inversion would have created more lackluster racing towards the end of the first 100. As it was, that section of the race was very good.

As for the Saturday/Sunday thing, I really like Sunday shows. The problem is the weather. This year, we got lucky and had some very good November weather. I’ve been to more than one Gov. Cup race where I froze my ass off. Had it been 15 degrees cooler, that crowd would have been less than half of what it was. Sundays may not bring in MORE people, but I think the numbers would be pretty consistant from year-to-year. I think I’d rather have 3000 for sure, than wonder if I’m getting 1500 or 4000.

No offense personally to Mark Keeler here, as I’m sure he had other duties to take care of that afternoon… but SOMEBODY should have been on the mic, explaining the delay to the fans and keeping their interest up. 2 full hours with NOTHING being said isn’t the way to handle it.

I’m somewhat burned out on the whole Autograph sessions, but whatever you do… KEEP THEM. It was very anticipated by the fans, and very well supported. Things like that, for the casual fan, are real important. I saw tons of kids (and more than a few adults) with big smiles. I myself got a big kick out of talking with Becca Kasten, Aaron Pierce, Jimmy Weller and a few others that I had never had the chance to meet before.

In a regular weekly show, I’m all in favor of the 3-spins-you’re-out deal. I’m not sure I would agree so much in a 200 lapper. Using Kasten as an example, at least a few of the things she was “involved” in, weren’t her issue. I don’t think it would have been fair to toss her out just because she was in the wrong spot when other peoples issues came up. For the record, I was told that if any car was to go 3 LAPS down, they would have been parked. As it turned out, there was no “junk” in the field to screw up the show for everyone else.

This race is getting back on the National racing map again, which is what was needed. As an example, Raceny.com, in NY, has a message board thread about the Governors Cup race. That area doesn’t normally give a CRAP about Florida racing other than Speedweeks… but there was interest in THIS years race!!!

4

Gresham ran the week before. Pensacola did schedule a test and tune for the same day as the Cup though. I do like the Sunday afternoon format though. I get to try it out at the Snowball next week. Yay!

5

Yes, run it on Sunday on the original “traditional” date (first weekend in November)… If you promote it, the fans will come… Even I could come then!
Hated to miss it this year…

6

On Kasten, I gotta agree with Jerry in that she wasn’t directly involved in some of those wrecks, but, she did come to a stop.

She did put on a helluva show; passing Anderson on the outside of three and four ain’t no easy task :wink: She’ll be back, I bet! :wink:

7

I wasn’t there but a couple of our snow bird customers were and loved the racing when it was green. “Cautions took too long to clean up” and “too many cautions”. “if they were not racing the show dragged” are the comments that stand out most.

8

I have to agree that the 2 hour delay and no announcement was a little strange and left some people hanging…but I am not sure I have ever seen a Gov Cup go off on time…

I like the idea of a Sunday race with the Saturday night classes and practice on Saturday night in lieu of Friday. The crowd was terrible on Friday night. I have been told that Robert will not allow it…

I am a little torn on the mandatory pit at 100 laps…I think with the double file restarts there are enough cautions to make it interesting on pit strategies, pit early or late???

It was nice to see the crowd and the car count along with a great race. If they could find a corporate sponsor and get the purse up to 10K to win and maybe $750 to start without the “lap sponsorship” it would draw even more good out of town cars.

I still have the pipe dream of someone with a lot of money (not me) putting together a triple crown with the Gresham race, the Gov cup and the Snowball and paying some outrageous bonus for winning all three or a combined points purse…

I am still wondering why the cautions took so long. Tim and the boys are usually very good at getting cars off the track. I did notice they seemed to be giving guys some time to get their cars fixed or work on them on pit road. Maybe they were just being careful with expensive cars.