After trying our best to get our 07 Sportsman prepared for the 50 Lapper at Ellisville, we reluctanly had to give up late Friday night after discovering a rear end problem that we couldn’t repair in time. To show our support for everything the Ford family and Don Stamford are doing up there, we decided to make the trip from Port Richey to Ellisville anyway. The whole way up to the track it rained. When we got there it was a light drizzle and cars were practicing. No bogus rainouts here (even with a smaller than expected turnout and a big purse). The weather soon cleared and it was a beautiful comfortable evening, perfect for racing. I have to say I was impressed with what I saw there the entire evening. Even though the car counts and crowd weren’t the largest I’ve seen, the support for this place was evident by the enthusiasm I saw from everyone. These people are giving their heart and soul in bringing this place back. All of the races had great competition, a lot of side-by-side racing and exciting finishes. A lot of tracks don’t seem to listen to the good ideas presented on this board but it appears Ellisville is. I got good reasonably priced food in the pits and grandstand ($6.50 for a Burger, Fries and Soda combo and $2 beer!). Grandstand admission was only $10 and this was for a special show to boot. The show started right at 8 p.m. (as advertised) and ran tightly with an appropriate intermission time. The announcer was informative and entertaining. The Sportsman 50 was the highlight of the evening with an awesome race for the lead most of the event between Wesley (The Showstopper) Keller and FUPS Sportsman invader Kyle Maynard. Keller got by Maynard in the late middle stages of the event and then held Maynard off in a green-white-checker sequence on the restart and survived an attempted bump-and-run move on the white flag lap. It hurt my heart to not be involved in this event since it was a great race and everyone drove each other with respect and everyone put their car on the trailer in one piece. This was true in every division despite the speeds attained here. Without a doubt we will be back to Ellisville with the 07 next time. A couple of things I noticed on the pit side is that all cars are teched BEFORE the races as well as after. Safety is a priority here, as well, as drivers were reminded to drop the window net if they were o.k. after a wreck to signal the safety personnel of their condition. Most impressive is that this event had a guaranteed $1000 to win purse for the Sportsman. No phoney-baloney “if we get x amount of cars” BS. Even though the weather likely kept the field smaller than it should have been, Ellisville paid the $1000. Even more impressive was the additional $100 Hard Charger Award that was added to the purse and was previously unadvertised. With the smaller field, they didn’t have to announce this and they could have pocketed it. They didn’t, they do things right at Ellisville. I’m hoping that Robert Ford and Rick Williams can get together and add a FUPS stand alone Sportsman event at Ellisville before the end of the year. They tried to have an event with the Trucks, but for some reason they don’t seem to want to travel they way they used to and were forced to cancel. This doesn’t seem to be the case with us Sportsman. With our “series regulars” and the cars that were there last night, we should be able to field around 20 cars. That would be one hell of a race on that big track. Anyway, if your looking for a new place to race or go see a race make the ride up to Ellisville. I think you’ll agree, it’s worth the trip. :ernaehrung004:
Yes…
we do have a lot of fun at Ellisville and it is run by the Fords who used to race Sportsman there a few years ago. I was there Friday for practice that got rained out. Spent the night there in the pits and witnessed the hard work they do to prep for race day. A new entrance to the staging lane was opened up Friday evening and finished Saturday morning after the area dried out. This was due to a safety concern about the old entrance being in turn 4 where also the cars come off the track. Several near misses in the past.
Glad you had a great time and thanks for your comments. We ALL appreciate it…
-JIM-
