grades for Marion County Speedway

[Boneman]

A+ for track surface preparation
If you are not familiar with MCS, it is a 1/4 mile clay oval just down the road from Bubba’s in Ocala. Last night, they had a near perfect surface: smooth, not to wet, not to dusty, it looked great! Maybe some racers and fans prefer bumps, ruts and car swallowing holes. If so, there are plenty of other tracks around. MCS looked like a pool table last night.

A+ for the Florida Mini Sprints
I was so pleased to see 25 mini sprints pull in to race. Although I’m pretty sketchy on the details, there had been problems between the track and this club. I am grateful to both sides, however it happened, that they have put this behind them and are back to racing together. Its good for open wheeled racing in Florida to have these two organizations on the same page!

As luck would have it, they had “yellow fever” in their feature last night. Hey, that is racing. The top cars were busy fighting it out, but the middle and the back had incident after incident. I guess it happens in any class, especially with dense traffic.

A+ for hosting a fun and relaxing night of racing
I made my second trip to MCS, and brought a friend and 2 of my sons along for their first night up there. If you are not racing, its tough to tell how well everyone gets along, but it certainly looked like a friendly place, and as far as I know, everyone went home happy.

C- for too many yellow flags
I know, some can’t be avoided, but others absolutely were not necessary. AND a bunch of the drivers need a talking to: if you are involved in 2 cautions, you are on the trailer. Some of those drivers were involved in multiple yellows, and many waited on the track for the yellow to appear. That needs to have a consequence.

D Drivers meeting
The only way the meeting could have been worse is if it was conducted in Chinese, or maybe French.

The guy running the show had a lot to say, too bad we could not hear or understand a word of it. Why is there no speaker where the drivers assemble? He has also got to learn to keep the mic a lot closer. Sorry, but that meeting was a waste of time.

We loved the track and are certainly looking forward to getting back up there soon! The pictures below was taken during practice for the Lightning sprints, and with my boy in action cleaning the dirt of one of Wayne Davis’ cars.

[Frasson118]

Also saw MCS for the first time last night. Me and AB195 went to the Ocala show (A+ on that one also), and when it was over, off in the distance, we heard racecars. The lightbulb turned on, and we hauled ass the 2 miles over to MCS.

It was basically the last race of the night, but we watched that, strolled around the pits, and walked the track. I can vouch for Rexs A+ rating on the surface… smooth, tacky and dust-free.

This visit, totally un-planned, was an excellent bonus on top of an already great night of racing. If they do the Speedweeks double header with Ocala again, I’ll make a whole day out of hitting BOTH complete shows.

This place looks like a LOT of fun, had plenty of cars that I could tell, and just a friendly vibe in the air. Looking forward to seeing a complete show there sometime soon.

[Frasson118]

PS - is that track really listed as a 1/4 mile? I would have guessed a 1/5 mile. Seemed a lot smaller than either Showtime or Auburndale, which are both listed as 1/4 milers…

[Boneman]

Ocala fans are lucky to have two kick-butt tracks in their home town.

You could see that MCS is pretty different from Bubba’s place. At Marion County, everyone is in the pits. There are some small stands, but at this time they aren’t attracting 1000 people to sit and watch. Most everyone appears to be involved with a car, a club or the track. Nothing wrong with this, its just not spectator driven like BRP.

I like the fact that they are running a few shows a weekend: karts, quads, bikes, etc run their own deal, and the cars come out on Saturday night.

Why don’t more pit areas have big shady trees like this track?

[Frasson118]

That’s another thing I forgot to mention… it really has a “club” feel to it that reminded me of my bike racing days. Not many outside “fans”, mostly the families of the competitors. At our little track, the Dads did the officiating, flagging, trophy presentations, etc… while the wives and sisters ran the concession stands, sold tickets, raffle tickets, and registrations… ALL voluntary. Zero paid employees at our club.

And we ALL had a blast, many of us found our first girlfriends out there (usually a sister of one of your competitors), and in some cases, created lifetime friendships. It was a fantastic influence on a bunch of young kids, and I’d bet good money that these same values are very strong at MCS.

These younger kids that race out there, will remember these days fondly for the rest of their lives.

[ocalasp76]

NAPA 15 Chevy on the track for the Tyler Morr fund raiser last month. The kids loved the rides and if we had some dirt tires, it would have been even better. As you can see, the surface is great!!
-JIM-

[Southern_Outlaw]

This is excatly what Bill and Lori Cleary are trying to build A Family orientied apthmoshere for everyone. I have been there since day 1 with Bill and can promise you this…IT WILL ALWAYS BE LIKE THAT!!!..Rex thanks again for you and the kids help on both the 92 of Darrin Davis and the 98 of Johnny Gilbertson. You guys are so welcomed to help out anytime…Johnny will be back in the 98 next race unless it sells…next time bring your suit and we’ll get ya few laps in one of the cars…Wayne Davis