POSTED August 13, 2001

Tough week-end but good racing! That about sums up things! Saturday and Sunday our car counts were way down, in fact Sunday was our lowest car count of the season! But when you run 75 nights per season you know in advance and from many years experience you will have some week-ends like this, so bite the bullet and try to put the best show you possibly can, which is exactly what we did! 

The reason for the poor car count are varied, several regulars gone for many different reasons and no cars from other tracks at all on Sunday. But September will soon be here and with it other track's closing and our car count will increase dramatically! Plus we have reports of new cars still being  built and about ready to go like Barry Harrison's new MS and Ryan Buzzard's new SS! 

Registered two new cars and one kart over the week-end, Tim George, a client of mine, came with his SS 45 and Fred Collins with the TC 03. Danny Perkins with kart 29. The racing was extremely good! Saturday night Eric McGlothlen won the heat and came in a very close 2nd in the kart feature! What a feature it was as Eric, Greg Brown and Jessica Brown really raged a battle for the lead! Eric is the grandson of the man I purchased the track from in October of 1990, Ralph McGlothlen. 

The MTC put on great races both night! Nathan Aumack is not only our leading candidate for Rookie of the Year but he is now the season points leader! When we run the wrong way around the track Nathan seems to really take charge! His brother Mike had to go home Saturday and get the back-up car and he ran the back-up again Sunday and looked good! Fred Garrett had a good week-end finishing an extremely close 2nd Saturday night and winning Sunday.

Jason Schaefer looked super in winning the MS feature Saturday and came back Sunday for a strong 2nd to the always awesome Robert Teadt, Jr. Merle Yoder seems to have his car running better and was a close 3rd both nights. Paul Scott was back in his own SS again Saturday after a long absence and
it was good to have him back! Martin Andreade seems to have found some more speed out of his SS 00. Saturday night Melissa Worthington was back with the SS and TC. SS still has problems, however! Sunday it certainly appeared Jeff Brunt would win the SS feature! He had a big, big lead on Randy Morley and as the field was given the 5 lap signal Jeff slowed down and then went to the pits! He said later he had either a
bad transmission or rear end! Actually he won a stadium blanket in the drawing and Tom Pearson joked he pulled in the pits to get his prize! Anyway Morley took the lead but he was also not running well and slowed way down but managed to hold off Donald Hunley for the win! Certainly made it exciting!

Justin Mosher seems on the verge of challenging Nathan Aumack and Garrett. He had a shock problem Sunday but after he gets that corrected, look out because this young man is rapidly improving! Nick Landon, the kart winner Saturday, called me Monday and he is bringing a sprint car to test either Saturday or Sunday and may well move from karts to sprints next season! Quite a jump!

The Vintage Mods return this Saturday and this may very well be their final visit to Mottville. I know we have 3 more shows scheduled for September but we have taken a financial beating on them this year! They have apparently had some organization problems and , at least at Mottville, have next to no following. Really really sad because I have always enjoyed watching them
over the past 11 years at Mottville! But we can not continue to lose money on them night after night as that is not fair to our regular classes of cars!

George Davis has been doing a great job of mowing and the track facility looks great! He told me Sunday he will have his new MTC racing at Mottville Saturday! He has been driving it on the street and already has the back glass out!

Over the last 11 years I have allowed Mottville Speedway to literally consume me! I have devoted almost my entire life to it and that is not good! A person needs to be a little more well rounded and a certain individual has convinced me that I need to not let the track run me! Thus we are making some changes which I truly believe will not effect the quality of the operation at all but will save several people including myself some time each week! The most noticeable change from those of you who check this web site regularly will be the results. They will be in the same format as those we send to the newspapers. This will save us from writing a story and the results both. Over an entire season that is a bunch of hours saved! For the inside story beyond the factual results continue to check this column and you will not miss a thing!

As I mentioned before starting in 2002 we are cutting out some race dates. NO off season races at all, probably not much in November (depends on how November goes this season, could be none in November. We will cut out July 3 unless it falls on a Saturday or Sunday but will continue with July 4. That means that instead of running 75 regular season races and 2 off season races we will run about 65-66 regular season races, still triple what other tracks in our area run!
I really think with the economy being what is many many people are really missing the boat on TC and MTC! You can get a very good TC or MTC for $300 or less! It pays $60 to win and you use street tires. That means the cost of the car is at most 5 times what it pays to win the feature. Now a late model car running for $600 to win might well cost $24,000 easily and that means it costs 400 times what it pays to win! Plus you need racing fuel and racing tires! So figure it out and you can have a ball night after night in TC and MTC! No doubt in my mind at all that we are on verge of the future at Mottville with TC and MTC and next season I really look for these 2 classes to explode!

Meanwhile looking forward to another great week-end of racing action at Mottville and hope to see you there!