Bronson- wow, is it me or does this reek of desperation?

from their facebook page;

Bronson Speedway
38 mins ?
Test and Tune tomorrow evening 6p-9. ALL divisions welcome. Street cars also welcome. Come on out and take a few laps on the high banks of Bronson Speedway.
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as everyone who has been around circle track racing knows, street cars DO NOT work well on a high banked short track
but their drivers think they are race cars… right up until they plow the corner and pound the wall!

they might be wearing a helmet but I bet no neck protection or fire suit- and a lap and shoulder belt while doing 60-70 mph into a concrete wall???
oh yeah this should end well…SMH :rolleyes:

If citrus county opening back up doesn’t kill them first

That could pretty well do it. Maybe it would facilitate a sale and get the place into the hands of someone who has a clue what to do with the place.Damn shame how that place is operated.

How they do it up north I guess

I dunno about that.

But I do know we have plenty of “stanced” Hondos down heah with very brave “drivers”. Am hoping some take advantage of this opportunity!

2 years ago next month we were there for a ‘run what ya brung’ street race where the flag man was on the track waving the checkered flag. He was run over and killed before the whole crowd. Very sad day. SLM race and all other races canceled after staying over from a rain out on the night before.
-JIM-

I was at Bronson the day the flag man was killed and the announcer missed it by inches. You would have thought they would have learned from that tragedy.

Lets not mix the issues.

I am ok with letting street cars try it out. Know why? Hopefully some of the people who try it will get hooked and want to race for real on Saturday nights.

Agreed, the day Bud Howell got killed was a very sad one indeed. I bet they do not have officials in the infield anymore.

Track days with street cars are extremely popular and successful across the country these days on some very high speed tracks, Sebring, for example. Some basic coaching can keep it safe. I agree with Boneperson that it could increase further participation.
I think the track is smart to consider this idea to generate revenue and stay operating. :aktion033:

Might be good to check on the availability of rescue equipment for that evening.

Particularly for street cars.

Not sure what the big deal is. 5 years ago strictly stocks at nss and osw were not required to have a roll bar, or racing seat, and stock seatbelts were allowed. The drivers then were only required to wear a helmet and long sleeves. It would most likely a still be that way if NASCAR hadn’t taken over.

Probably wasn’t so great then, either…

I guess I’ll reply with a couple different posts since a couple different things are being talked about.

First thing is this; based on responses and reads of this thread it looks like to me there is interest in Bronson Speedway. That is great!
The whole purpose of my original post was to draw attention to the track and what I see as the final cries for help; " any division or bring your street cars…"

I want to see this track survive and thrive!!!
I don’t think it can under current management, and stupid promotions like this WILL NOT help.

Why aren’t they promoting their 50 lap Late Model Sportsman race?
Isn’t that what is going on Saturday night, you know, race night! :ernaehrung004:

I was raised around race cars, both my Dad and Stepfather drag raced and raced circle track
I was told this from the very beginning; don’t race in the street and street cars have no business on the track.

while I agree with Groundpounder, Boneman, and OldSchool that it may entice some one to get interested in racing- if they come out and pile their bitchin’ Camaro into the turn 4 wall…

why would they do that?
warm up lap- take it easy
come off of 4 at about 40mph, see the green and nail it!
75-80 when you decide to back off and head to the corner
front end drops when you get off the pedal
going too fast- tap the brakes- load the front end
screaming into the apex you jerk wheel to the left
all weight transfers to RF- loads up and bottoms
physics takes over- goodbye- up the hill
POW there’s the wall!

car goes home on a roll off- driver has broken ankle

if a car is going to be driven as fast as it can go- raced
then it should have ALL safety equipment in place before it goes on the track!
full roll cage, racing seat and harness, fuel cell etc… :ernaehrung004:

One time, back about the late '70s or so, I had a handful of cars here and there and was (always) low on money. One of them was a recently “parked” '68 Cutlass that was missing it’s exhaust from about a foot and a half back from the exhaust manifold, and waiting for the funds to replace it.

2dr, inline six, muncie four speed, '70 GTO suspension, 7" rally wheels, decent goodrich tires or similar. Bucket seats and 3 point belts. Actually it was a low option F-85 that came with a six and three on the tree that I fixed up for the girlfriend.

So, as mentioned was out of money–I mean out–but wanted to go to the beach and it occurred to me that the Cutlass had most of a tank of gas. So off we went, looking and sounding much like one of the Lovelady’s sportsman cars.

As I passed New Smyrna Speedway, the back gate was open, so, of course, onto the track I went. There were a few trucks here and there, but no one seemed to be too excited, so down went the pedal and down the back straight I went.

Here is the deal–I had been around racing a bunch, watched stuff come in on two wreckers a bunch, and knew what New Smyrna could do to a car.

As big as NSS seems, the turns were tighter and more banked than anything on the street, and certainly inspired confidence, so I went faster.

But those transitions, man did they toss the car at the wall.

After gaining speed each lap, after about 4 or so I realized how the deal was going to end, and both wisely and uncharacteristically pulled back out of the gate and headed back on to 44.

Have been thankful ever since that I got myself, an equally wild young lady, and the car out of there in one piece that day. As with many occasions, someone was watching over me, no doubt.

Not to mention that they let the big body Monte’s on the track with the tin can imports.Would hate to see the results of that jap crap sitting broadside on the track,and to think that they wont allow Nova’s and Camaro’s :huh:

I have seen a guy wad up a three year old car and just knock the entire front end off of it in a spectator race once.I don’t know if it was the wife’s grocery getter (bad deal if it was) or his get to work car(just as bad) or daddy’s ride(if he had a dad like mine he didn’t go back right away) I saw a guy go through the pit gate once and land right on top of one of the late model guys wedge style car hauler(backwards I might add) and guys narrowly miss flagmen, pace cars,wreckers and track ambulances. In the case of the guy who landed on the car hauler that cost the track a couple grand for the damages to the car hauler. (I might add they had made the decision to run them reverse of the track and then left the out pit gate open.)In the case of the guy who tore up the three year old car.If it was the wife’s do you think she would ever let him get near a race track again? If it was how he got to work did he lose his job and not have any money to go back for quite a while? Who knows for sure.I did hear the track paid up for the damage on the hauler, but if that’s promoting racing I would love to hear how far it gets them.Why don’t they put together a race for dirt cars on asphalt.No ridiculous tire rules run what your comfortable with or legal at your home track or buy the cheapest piece of crap asphalt tires you can get ahold of.With All Tech suspending operations those guys need a place to run.Maybe they would like to give blacktop a shot without breaking their bank or building a whole new car.

“I saw a guy go through the pit gate once and land right on top of one of the late model guys wedge style car hauler(backwards I might add)…”--04

I believe I heard that story from the guy driving the car. Was it a IMSA style Corvette or Camaro?

The story was hard to believe, but he was a believable guy.

It might have been a camaro.Its been almost 40 years ago.It didn’t happen here in Florida though,what I was talking about happened up in Ohio at Columbus Motor Speedway. It did happen though. A lot of incidents that cause damage and injury are often times brought on by decisions the track made that in hindsight they would probably like to go back and change. Like seven years ago,again at Columbus,the wise decision to start having school bus figure eight races.I wasn’t there for that one but then again I didn’t need to be. The chunks of the concrete retaining wall the bus’s knocked up into the stands made every national news broadcast for the next week. Well in all fairness I guess that was publicity.

I don’t think ANY racer wants to see a track wither away. I do believe racers and fans alike, want to see tracks flourish and grow.

With that being said, I do believe racers and fans want to see bad track owners go away, and great track owners continue to lead the way for a win-win situation.

Some people have more money than sense and opt to buy/lease a race track and run it into the ground because they fail to hire the right management TEAM.

The formula for success is simple. I spent a lot of money on college and many years owning my own business to really figure out just how simple it is.

Withering tracks present a HUGE opportunity for owners, racers and fans. Some people just can’t put it together, and unfortunately that is a resonating problem.

People have tried to help certain owners, certain owners DO NOT want to listen. And that ignorance or stubbornness will soon reveal its ugly head. It’s a shame, but it can be fixed.