Gotta feel for the TBARA. I love their races, but here on their biggest roadtrip weekend, the weather moved into the panhandle region. Did they get either of their events in?
johnny gilbertson won friday at pensacola. story on tbara.net
keith butler won tonight at mobile. got info here
Am I mistaken or were car counts low? 12 and 17
Something is really wrong here. It is the TAMPA BAY AREA RACING ASSN.
Something is wrong where they have to go to freaking Mobile and Pensacola or where ever to race.
This was the premier sanctioning body for many. many years…what is going wrong here? Why have all of these scraped up start up groups appeared? There is equity in the TBARA…not so much with the others. It would seem that one could improve what the TBARA has to offer and stay strong…or let the cast off defectors undermine the long term equity here. There are only so many sprint car teams. Is it really that fractioned? It used to be a club. Now it seems like the powers to be in all of these groups have seen $ to be made…forget the club.
The TBARA that I remember sanctioned dirt, pavement, winged, non-winged and tried to keep the racers happy. It seemed to work until greed stepped in…
[QUOTE=legendofauto;79613]Something is really wrong here. It is the TAMPA BAY AREA RACING ASSN.
Something is wrong where they have to go to freaking Mobile and Pensacola or where ever to race.
This was the premier sanctioning body for many. many years…what is going wrong here? Why have all of these scraped up start up groups appeared? There is equity in the TBARA…not so much with the others. It would seem that one could improve what the TBARA has to offer and stay strong…or let the cast off defectors undermine the long term equity here. There are only so many sprint car teams. Is it really that fractioned? It used to be a club. Now it seems like the powers to be in all of these groups have seen $ to be made…forget the club.
The TBARA that I remember sanctioned dirt, pavement, winged, non-winged and tried to keep the racers happy. It seemed to work until greed stepped in…[/QUOTE]
You seem to know more (because you mentioned the word greed and didn’t explain it) than you are leading up to here…just go ahead and explain it…speak your mind…
Let me just say that tire sales and point fund money doesn’t always add up…when somebody catches on to that, then everybody wants in on the action. This is why the satelite groups proliferated a couple of years ago.
Could you guesstimate how much they made off of tire sales and point fund money??? Really…just guesstimate…how greedy were they??? Thousands??? How much do you think they made???
Millions, no thousands, maybe, several hundred, for sure.
When it came to PROVING how many tires were sold that contributed to the points funds…silence…but I, the “tire guy” say that Mr. tire company contributed “so much” to the points fund. Unfortunately this has gone on for years, no true accountability.
Why do you think there was a shake up a couple of years ago? Somebody had a cash cow for years. The natives got restless and threw him out.
The Pres of TBARA should be sponsor hunting, smoozing track owners, and communicating to the troops (owners) about the current state of affairs…for the good of the club!!!
Years ago, the owner of a car that W. R. drove for was the treasurer of TBARA…that’s the earliest I heard of a club official “borrowing” funds. His intials were J…
[QUOTE=legendofauto;79636]Millions, no thousands, maybe, several hundred, for sure.
When it came to PROVING how many tires were sold that contributed to the points funds…silence…but I, the “tire guy” say that Mr. tire company contributed “so much” to the points fund. Unfortunately this has gone on for years, no true accountability.
Why do you think there was a shake up a couple of years ago? Somebody had a cash cow for years. The natives got restless and threw him out.
The Pres of TBARA should be sponsor hunting, smoozing track owners, and communicating to the troops (owners) about the current state of affairs…for the good of the club!!![/QUOTE]
I can only ask…what has happened to the TBARA since they "threw him out’?
He trashed the club to track owners(and did so in the media), no leadership stepped up and “he” started a off shoot group! TBARA is still suffering from that. No offense to Stan!
One of the track promotors, ahh I think his name was Boob Deal, bought into the cheap purse structure offered by the off shoot program, ended up with small car counts and stlll went out of business…
TBARA I hope will survive this struggle and re-emerge as the sanctioning body for sprint cars in Fl. The lack of effort went on for years, it will take time to rebuild. I truly believe it’s worth rebuilding the Tampa Bay Area Sprint Car Association.
Too much history, Riddle, Haynes, Childers, Butler, Rodriquez, Andrews, Melnick, Johnson and yes…kills me…even Lasker. 
It is the historical group of sprint car racing in Florida.
Sorry for my rant! It just saddens me to see the current state of affairs with the sprint cars.
All total there are probably 40(?) total asphalt sprint car teams in the state and that is not enough to spread across 4 groups. And then, the groups schedule around each other to avoid a schedule conflict so now you have a race every weekend somewhere. How many of those 40 can afford to race at a different track every weekend?
To all sprinters, the state of sprint car racing in FL is that there isn’t any on asphalt. You are divided and conquered. Worse than that you have divided and conquered yourselves! The tracks allowed you to do it by giving the new series race dates.
My advice is, no…YOUR ONLY OPTION IS, rather than listening to every genius that comes along with a great idea for a different series or rules, STOP! Go back to your roots and rebuild the group that built sprint car racing in FL. When the TBARA becomes one again and includes all sprinters, they will have far more influence to get you racing again. It was said and it is very true, the tracks pay the purse and the advertising. They are at the very least as vested in the TBARA as the members themselves are. Maybe their pissed and showing it. This all just pure common sense thinking here.
Just my opinion…
there isn’t any on asphalt
Citrus is planning on adding them on a monthy basis.
[QUOTE=Boneman;79680]there isn’t any on asphalt
Citrus is planning on adding them on a monthy basis.[/QUOTE]
I was including them as the fourth group…
How many cars are they getting?
No disrespect to the Citrus track regarding other classes but…
sprint cars were designed for 1/3 or 1/2 mile tracks…not that tiny place.
Payouts? How little?
sprint cars were designed for 1/3 or 1/2 mile tracks
Gotta disagree with you on that one brother. The sprints put on excellent races at Citrus. I’ve seen a bunch of good ones with the TBARA, and the latest event with the IPSCA featured and excellent, hard-fought battle for the win.
Tim, the IPSCA drew 14 for their race there last month.