Cleaning off the desk while waiting for the fine folks at 51 Sports to send me a Halloween Howler 150 press release that will never come...* Time and again I'm asked the same question: Why do the northern drivers all travel south for PASS races, but the southern guys never come up here? The answer is an unpleasant one.
Southern Super Late Model teams have a nasty reputation for being unwilling to travel to any event in which A) they don't think they are the prohibitive favorite to win and B) aren't guaranteed a non-handicapped starting grid.
That's it. That's the reasoning. They're so busy swimming in the NASCAR Kool-Aid that surrounds them, believing anything short of a win at the local level will kill their NASCAR aspirations faster than a blown engine, they're not willing to risk much.
* With the southern guys hospitably stepping aside, Cassius Clark won the Halloween Howler at Greenville-Pickens (S.C.) Speedway on Saturday. A disappointing year for Clark has been salvaged over the late part of the season. Faulty scales robbed him of a 100-lap win at Wiscasset Raceway last month, but he's won both the PASS North season finale at White Mountain on Oct. 14 and now the Howler.
Yeah, Cassius is good. And if people knew the shoestring budget his team worked with, they'd be even more impressed than they already are.
Top-5 from that Howler: 1. Cassius Clark, 2. Ben Rowe, 3. Derek Ramstrom, 4. Ryan Lawler, 5. Corey Williams.
* Want to see one of the most embarrassing things on the World Wide Web? Check out this thread on the Racin' Paper message board devoted to All-Star Speedway.
I don't know if track owner Bobby McArthur does or does not pay what he owes racers, and frankly, it's a discusssion I don't really want to have. But for him to make the posts he does under the screen name of "SHOWSTOPPA" is one of the most disgusting things you'll find in the world of short-track racing. This is the man running a NASCAR-sanctioned short track threatening his teams openly.
Yeah, that's good P.R. I wonder how many cars you'll see in the feature lineups next season -- assuming All-Star lasts that long...
* Game 4: Red Sox 4, Rockies 3. (Sox win World Series, 4-0.)
Yeah, it was THAT good. And, yeah, I haven't gotten sick of watching the post-game coverage yet. Probably never will.
9 comments:
Good to hear the news on Cassius winning the 12 grand!
He's a good shoe and his dad works hard setting that car up... in long green runs he generally has the best setup....
Your SHOWSTOPPA coment is spot on....
He needs to disassociate himself from his alter ego... He's in business .... he shouldn't continue to yuck it up on that board because many folks like you, who perhaps don't understand the whole SHOWSTOPPA farce on that board would read it just the way you did...
And though he is likely teasing someone he knows, how does anyone really know for sure?
You have to understand that part of existing on that board is not taking anything thats said to heart... in fact they will sometimes go out of their way to insult each other or one up each other in the natural flow of conversations there... the first time reader would react much like you did...Its a horse of different color on that board ..
On a more pleasant note...I've been one of those Sox fans staying up to all hours of the night during the playoff format... and all I can say is WOW!
But I would have cast my MVP vote for Jonathan Pappelbon... He's the difference IMO between being a great team and a very good one... he saved two very close games against the Rockies...and he was the ace in the hole so to speak....not to say that lowell and some others werent deserving too... but gotta give it to him IMO
That was $5000 won by Cassius... my error...
Looks like the recent rule change allowing 50 lbs for the crates on the 1/2 mile tracks down there might have helped him a bit?
Dustin Pedroia = MVP
TB
I agree Dustin would have got the MVP!!!
The lack of professionalism seen in that thread is also evident in the way the track was run this season on a weekly basis.
Somebody made a comment to the effect "All-Star is the raciest track in the Northeast". It is also one of the worst promoted tracks. Flags should be raised for any track that regularly draws less than 400 people sitting 20 minutes from a city the size of Manchester.
On top of that he mislead many people on who really owned the track this season (it wasn't him).
Tracks run in this manner set back the short track racing industry for the region. At this point, I don't see a lot of positive growth in the near future of All-Star.
Here is another little gem that the most unprofessional track operator in New England has posted:
http://www.racinpaper.com/racersvoice/viewtopic.php?p=69764#69764
TB,
Amazing... Your petty comments from a self claimed journalist.
If in fact you were so interested in the event why did you not support it?
You degrade southern teams for not comming North to compete yet you yourself to date makes no effort to go South and legitimzie your own comments and publish your own self imposed veiws on judgement upon people that you have never met nor even spoken to.
Your stated ridicule is childish at best.
If you want race results you may check Speed 51's site as i would assume they attended the event. Or maybe the PASS site as i am quite sure they were there as well and by the time you posted this little rambling such information was most likely posted there.
Your credibility is falling by the wayside by each post.
Please for our sport, make an effort to support short track racing and post about facts in which you attend and can actually have foresight in regards to what you are talking about.
REAL journalists actually attend events. ANYONE can read others work and ACT as a Journalist.
TB, in the past you have contributed to our sport with credible reporting. Would be nice to see that reality again.
But it will take getting up from your computer and getting to the events and tracks you are commenting upon and utilizing forethought as oposed to judgement.
As for the Star Speedway operator you may think of him as you will, yet he is getting people talking and Star is on peoples minds.
Looks as though you and others that think less of him are falling to his promotional tactics and star is not falling off the radar. It's always better to be talked about than forgotten... Good,bad or indifferent it's promotion!
Remember not many care for Humpy Wheeler, yet it works for him as well.
I've got about 10 World Series MVPs, including your favorite Julio Lugo, who made two absolutely huge defensive plays in Game 3. I know you think he sucks, but he deserve major, major props for those two plays.
But I can't argue with Lowell one bit. Four RBIs in four games, including the game-winning RBI in Game 2. He made all the little plays key to a World Series win. He stole third to score an insurance run in one game, hit a key home run in the Game 4, made that great slide to score a run in Game 4. He was amazing. No one more deserving.
Well, OK, Pedroia was great, Ellsbury was great and Papelbon was just unbelievable. I'd say Lowell and if not Lowell, Papelbon (three saves in four games, come on).
Sorry, did someone say something about racing.
Andy's obvious distaste for Star Speedway is over the top....
Simply put... Andy dosen't like SHOWSTOPPA... he figures he got screwed one time buying some refereshments at ALL Star's concessions and ever since then he has not found one nice thing to say about the place....
OF course SHOWSTOPPA has also made Andy B his #1 target for his negative comments too.... so the WAR rages....and if anyone finds something good about All Star's existance, Andy likes to beat on them too....
As big a bully as Andy makes SHOWSTOPPA out to be, he certainly is himself....
Andy likes to say his negativity is all truth, but his past practices say otherwise...
He also has an ongoing beef with the management of Twin State Speedway and he hated PASS's attempted operation at Canaan in 2006 and ridiculed it constantly the same way he now does All Star and Twin State.... He likes to have a whipping boy...and hates it when SHOWSTOPPA makes him his personal bitch....
This war of words will go on as long as their are computers and places like this to wage that war on...To me, this is just and endless battle of the Hatfields and McCoys....
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