‘I took a break to take a different view’

It’s been a couple months since my last DEAD-ON and I appreciate the emails and messages on Facebook wondering when my next column was coming out. Actually, it was June or July and I had reached this point where I thought I just wasn’t interested in “where the sport is going” or “can I possible help make it better”. The more I thought about it the less significant I thought my opinions were. Somewhere around September I was sort of leaning towards not racing anymore. Just seemed the amount of work, time, money and effort to have a winning combination was just not rewarding enough.

I am not sure if it was one thing that happened or a lot of things over the months from July to September but the end result was I noticed I had been letting the failures of a local track affect my own racing. The sport as whole is doing great; sure, it is changing from the “old days” of doing things, but that is OK.

I have one of the nicest Project Cars we built for sale, “Project 10-The Hard Way” 1985 Firebird. Why is it for sale? Simple, I have three drag cars and it is a lot of stress to get them ready. The Firebird (Red-Bird as we call it) is a great little bracket car but just wasn’t as much fun as my Olds Cutlass or ”Project 4-Link” dragster. It is 100% ready to go if you are a racer looking for a drag car that has great parts in it, a lot of “little things” to make it better from the 40 years’ experience I have had. $15K and it’s yours.

I noticed the “Winter Series” as it has been known as for the last 25 to 30 years has crumbled into basically nothing. I think that was part of my negative attitude this summer. I always thought the Winter Series was one of the mini-tours that made bracket racing so unique. Then I realized that was my view of it and evidently not very many people shared that view or it would still be happening. I think there are so many Big Money races scheduled across the country that racers who used to wait for the Winter Series so they could race 15-19 races in 21 to 25 days in Florida’s warm weather for $5,000 or $10,000 a day simply have more choices to race for Big Money closer to home. I am not saying that is a bad thing, it is just the end of a chapter of racing that I thought was unique.

Speaking of the Big Money races, WOW! On just about any weekend you can take a bracket car to a track within decent driving range and run for a couple $5000 races, maybe a few $10,000 races and probably find a $25,000 or $50,000 to win race at least once a month. The catch to those races is it will eat up a lot of money in entry fees, travel money and maybe some vacation, but what an opportunity. If you can kill the tree and clip off a few dead-on runs you can bank some good money.

Are there too many Big Money races? I hear that question a lot and at first I thought there were. Now, I don’t care. If a promoter wants to risk $30,000-$50,000 on a weekend’s purse to try to make some profit, good for him and I hope it works. The only downside I see is it is changing the local track’s opportunity to attract a good car count of local bracket racers. We all make choices and then we live with those choices. Choose not to support the local track? Then don’t whine when they change to a lot of Test & Tune events and pay $500 to win a bracket race. There is no right and wrong that’s for sure. Like most of life, it’s a choice.

I hope I can stay enthused about making a better mental effort in my racing. I did fall back in love with golf and, like racing, that eats up some time. At 65 years old the energy levels fall off so it will be a “choice”. The Olds is ready and I want to try some Super Street racing and a more laid-back weekend at an LODRS event once in a while. Double-entering local bracket race for $1,000 to win, trying to crush the tree 13-17 times a day and take .010 or less at the stripe is becoming a bit out of my reality I guess.

I hope all the Big Money races scheduled for October and November across the country are successful and make the promoters some money. ONE REQUEST FOR EVENT PROMOTERS: PLEASE send us some pictures and results of your Big Money races! If possible send copies of the round sheets to me (Nicholson@racingnetsource.com) as I would like to “analyze what it takes” to win the $10K-$20K and even the Million Dollar Race.