I-96 Speedway World of Outlaws Roll call

[allenja2005]

Just Curious how many Local guys plan on making the trip for the race?

[drdoug]

As a fan, I'm in. Hartford Friday night, Woo Saturday night. Yahooooooo.

[Stevensville Mike]

Hartford Friday and I-96 Saturday for me, too.  I'll have the sausages a-cooking outside of Turn 4 Friday Night.  

If I am still alive Sunday, I might even try for Kokomo.     Hey, like the old Schlitz commercials used to say - You only go around once in life.....

[Mudclodbob]

Both nights for me with camera and pen in hand.

I'll be at I-96 early.

Are you camping either place Doug?

Kokomo................mmmm.........maybe

[drdoug]

Camping Saturday Bob. Look for the Hoosier flag and old glory proudly being flown. Hummmmm Kokomo Sunday.........you got me thinkin.
See you guys Friday around the grill.
Doc

[beaner]

I will look for the gang at I-96.....always a can't miss show to support the promoter for bringing in the BIG boys.  I plan to find a mushroom this weekend in the Northern woods and look to take in opening night Friday at Cherry since I am in the area.
***I see Stevie Smith is expected in a 2nd Elite Motorsports car as a teammate to Jason Meyers this weekend.

[Stevensville Mike]

***I see Stevie Smith is expected in a 2nd Elite Motorsports car as a teammate to Jason Meyers this weekend.

Good!  A good guy he is.  I remember seeing him win up there about 10+ years ago in a WoO show.

[trooper]

Bunch of chicken shit drivers like crybaby kinser cant handle a fast smooth track.  Just like hartford a few years back.  The LAST woo sprint race i will ever go to.  Good job mike and crew at 96 for prepping a great track i know it was not your call to pull the plug.

[drdoug]

I am with you Trooper. After all the rain and the track prep, the I96 crew did an awesome job getting a WAY FAST track prepared. The Hartford thing came up in our conversation too.
I have officialy attended my last Woo sanctioned show. And from the sounds of it, alot of folks felt the same as i did.
If anyone would like my 2 reserved seat tickets for May 30th., i would be glad to send them to you. Just email me your address and i will stick them in the mail.
Doc
dsimmons5@copper.net

[14fan]

what they said

[Stevensville Mike]

So, by the sound of it (WoO racers aside) the track wasn't refunding any money(?).  Hartford did this in the aforementioned reference when they cancelled the WoO race. 

Because it was a "Special Event", the "Four Heat Minimum" rule was not in "effect".  So, no $$$ were refunded.  Tickets were good for re-admission on the rescheuled date, but no $$$ given back.

When Hartford cancelled back a few years ago, they did it at about 7:00 p.m. (race time was 8:00 p.m.).  The bad part was, they were selling tickets right up until that time.  They were running in the track, for it had rained for most of that day.  Knowing Hartford, they probably coulld have gotten started a few hours earlier, but we are talking Hartford here.  Hence the unofficial motto: "Racing at 8:00.  First Heat at 8:30."

We were drinking a couple of cold ones out in the parking lot and decided to finally head on up.  As we were walking to the gate, people coming back were telling us they just cancelled.

I kid you not, there was a fan at the gate that had just come up from Lawrenceburg.  He bought some tickets, and then they cancelled - like 30 seconds after he handed over the cash.  They wouldn't refund the money.  He hadn't even goen INTO the track yet.

If that guy would have had a pistol, there is no doubt in my mind he would have opened fire.

Both of these just sounded like bad scenarios.  We'll have better days, guys.

[drdoug]

You are right Mike. We WILL have better days. The thing that was crap, was the fact that the fans stuck around, through the rain and mud hoping to see a show. When the few Woo guys took to hot laps, it was record breaking fast. Then they blamed it on the ambulance getting stuck. So cancel the whole damn show and piss off 5000 people in the process. About 10 or so of the "prima donna" from the traveling series appeared at the top of turn 1 to look down the front streatch. It was almost as they were thumbing their noses at us. But i can tell them where they can stick their thumb. Again as in my above post, I96 did a tremendous job on the track prep all things considered, but as far as i am concerned, SOD,IRA, AND THE ALL STARS are the only traveling series to get this guys cha-ching.
Doc.

[treemover]

I,m with you guys about woo cancelling the race, they knew long before midnite that they weren,t going to run! Maybe they were afraid a local might win since they only seem to be able to run on a dusty track! I would like to see the local drivers boycot the May 30 show and see how great a show the woo puts on with about 15 cars. Woo is only looking for the money with no regard for the fans (who are the money!) The long delay was just to sell some of their trinkets!

[wrench3w]

I agree with all these post and would just like to give a "shout out" to any fans who read this, for sticking around on saturday to try and watch some racing. Ok, now as previously mentioned come support our local series and the show will be much better. We may not have half million dollar budgets and traveling t-shirt wagons but we can put on one hell of a good show and if the track is a little wet our drivers will just tighten their seatbelts a litlle more. Good job to Mike and his crew as well for getting the track into raceable conditions, next week don't even bother to work the track. Leave it as dusty and dry as possible, maybe then barring some other type of incident (conditions are too fast, too slow, magnetic poles are changing)  they'll race. Oh, and thanks for all the help from anybody who came down and helped get the 3w around once we showed up, it was a big boost for us.
Terry

[Huffer29s]

My disclaimer: Even though I am a huge WoO fan, I am not defending anything that transpired on Saturday, just giving very limited knowledge from someone who has just recently gone from sitting in the stands to someone sitting in the drivers seat. I love reading every post on these forums and value most of the opinions of the regulars here.

First, I understand that 5,000 fans were put out because supposedly the WoO officials called the show. It is my understanding that this was because an ambulance got stuck while trying to get to a driver who had just flipped his car. If that is the case, like all of the drivers out there that night,  I am 100% positive that if it would it have been me out there running that my friends, family and especially my two children would have preferred that all safety equipment was fully operational and had the capability to get to me and anyone else on the track as soon as humanly possible. I would hate for them to grow up with a disabled or dead father because someone thought that it would be better to not inconvience 5,000 fans and decided to run an event even though the equipment used for life and death situations was non operational.

Second, after following a Friday night SOD show last year, I went to my favorite fallback track, Butler. After waiting hours before buying our pit passes, they finally cancelled the race. No race cars even made it into the pits, let alone the "Four Heat Minimum". Everyone was told "no refunds" and all tickets and pit passes could be used at the next regular scheduled event. It was damn near impossible to get anyone there to understand that we would not be running the next event as we had planned on running with SOD that weekend. After much discussion it was finally agreed that we could use our pit passes the next time we came back, instead of being out the $150 we paid in pit passes on top of the diesel fuel and time we burned going there and back.

Which brings me to my third point, the expense and loss of time showing up to an event where you take zero money home. My operation is substantially smaller than WoO regulars and my travels are a fraction of theirs as well. My budget really fells the pain and there have been several times where we have shown up to a track, been almost there or at least on the road when a race night was cancelled and the first thought that goes through my head is "wow, this sucks, that information would have been great a little sooner!"

Fourth, thank God Saturdays WoO race is being rescheduled. In my three years of racing, there have been ZERO SOD races that have been rescheduled. It is something that I do not understand, especially when there are so many open weekends during the our season.

Finally, after I all but begged Ben Rutan to race the WoO show on Saturday, my father has told me that after this weekend with SOD, we will be dropping my car off, leaving his on the trailer and taking it to I96 on Monday for the WoO. I am very excited that we will have one more local guy (and a very talented one at that!) trying to defend our turf as the "prima donnas" do a great job living up to the Outlaw MO: come to town, kick ass, take all the money and leave! I really doubt after racing tracks like Williams Grove, Eldora, etc., these guys were worried about losing because of a wet tacky I96. When was the last time the WoO were at any of the Michigan tracks and a local driver finished in the top 15, top 10, top 5 or actually won the feature? Hopefully this year it can at least be Dustin and Ben up there kicking ass!