|
| With
the 9th SOS season now behind us how do you feel it
stacked up against the first 8 seasons? |
| Like
all seasons it had its highs and lows. I was very
pleased with our car counts at Ohsweken - we did better
at Brighton than in 2003 but I'd like to see us pull 1
or 2 more cars there/night on average. I used to worry
about this and even put incentives in place for the
teams to run Brighton. I have since decided there are
racers that want to race 15-17 times year and there are
guys content to race 8-10 times/year. I am not going to
change their minds or make them do something they don't
want to do. I just know that we have had some nice
clean, snappy shows at Brighton and those teams that
don't go are missing out on a good thing. To be honest I
felt there where too many lows and not enough highs.
Everybody seems a little more tense in the pits
(including myself). It just feels like we are pressuring
ourselves and our teams to put on good shows and when
things go wrong I find it both embarrassing and
frustrating on a personal and a professional level. |
|
| What
were some on-track highlights that stand out in your
mind as reasons that made 2004 successful? |
| On
track, the Patrick/Dempster battle early in the season
stood out. The early laps of the Canadian Sprint car
Championship when Knabb, West and Mulheim where battling
for the lead was classic stuff. I was very pleased that
a local - John Riegling - won on our return at South
Buxton. It is also great to see first time winners -
Cody, Bobby Crawford, Kyle Patrick etc. |
|
| What
are some of the things that the club learned from in
2004 that can be applied in the future? |
| We
learned more about 1 way radios than I ever wanted to
learn! We fought the workings of the radios themselves
more than I felt we should have. I figured today's radio
technology would make this easy. What we had not
anticipated was the effect of sprint car magnetos and
the overhead wings on reception. I believed because we
where dealing with a company that specializes in racing
electronics that they would have a clue about this stuff
(apparently not). We have worked through a lot of this
but I now know that we will never lose the blackboards.
We also learned a better way to set the field when we do
time trials that held us up a lot this year at the
final. That will be a non-issue for next years final. We
also worked with transponders for the first time - they
worked great - but they are expensive and I don't see
them coming in for a couple of years. |
|
| With
a successful return to South Buxton this past season do
you expect to return there in 2005 and are there any
other possibilities for schedule expansion? |
| I
certainly hope we return there and that we have more
than 1 event in 2005. To return to South Buxton and put
on a good show was a personal highlight. We will check
with the local area tracks to see if there is any
interest (roughly within 2 hours of Brantford) but I
don't see us extending our geographic area. If we can't
get a ton of travelers to Brighton - I have no reason to
believe that we would get them to Brockville, Cornwall
etc. It is certainly not considered a priority - to get
new tracks - I am quite satisfied with the 3 that we
have - anything more would be gravy. |
|
| All
three tracks that held SOS events this year seem to be
in a building phase, how do you see this benefiting the
club? |
| Obviously
the more fannies in the stands it creates more
"buzz" about the series. I really do not envy
the promoters trying to operate in today's environment.
Understandably, people expect more than a good race -
they want clean, comfortable facilities and that is
expensive to do and maintain. I've come to learn that if
you are a promoter, no matter what you do it is not
enough. If you build state of the art clean comfortable
wash-rooms, people will complain that there is not a
moving sidewalk to get them there. If you serve the best
hotdogs people will complain you don't have caviar on
the menu. The promoters have it tough. - Now you now why
I don't do the negotiations with the tracks - I have too
much empathy for them. |
|
| How
do you feel having a 16 year old series champion will
benefit the club? |
| I
certainly don't see a "downside" but I gotta
tell you it is becoming less of a novelty than it used
to be. Man, there are a lot of fast young kids out
there. Cody runs as well as or better than anybody I've
seen. The one thing that it may do is create some
interest with the "general media" - we can
only hope. |
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