: Do you think he needs to get out of his firesuit during the race day?

BB: No, you know that is something that he rediscovered and that is a little bit of a getaway for him and I think it is pretty cool, he loves it, he’s certified in the safety area, we all are, we have all been through the SFI Certification process and he loves it. He loves to be able to go down there and talk with the drivers telling them the ET they ran – who won and who lost, I guess it has re-energized him a little bit.  He likes it; yeah I think he’s going to be around for a little while longer.

: What is your schedule for testing prior to the March Meet?

BB: We are going to have two test-n-tune weekends, the two weekends prior to the March Meet after the Winternationals.  It is open to anybody and everybody that wants to come test.

: Is this your last job? Do you see yourself at Famoso until they start putting the dirt over you?

BB: Good question. I see myself involved in the sport of drag racing, it may not be at Bakersfield forever, but I grew up around drag racing.  Actually I was at Lions Dragstrip, but I have been at Famoso my entire life. Good question, I don’t know.  If I am working, I will be involved in the sport, if I am not working I will have retired.  I will be involved in drag racing as long as I can, maybe at a different level, or with a race team or somewhere else.

: Would you want to take Tom Compton’s job?

BB: Wow, no that’d be a lot, I kinda like what I am doing right now, that would be tough.  I have a lot of respect for him, anybody that can take on the challenge they take on – on that level, I have a lot of respect for.  Tom Compton, Peter Clifford, and all, in my eyes they work hard and I don’t know if I could take on those challenges. I am not sure if I am up to that level right now, I am trying to get that experience now.  Look, I am happy in Bakersfield, we are fortunate that we have the fans we do who come out the races we put on.

: Is the Los Angeles Market an important part of the fan base at Famoso?

BB:  We don’t make a lot of attempts to target that market, but I shouldn’t say LA is not important, we do promote down there twice a year at the Winternationals and the Auto Club World Finals at Pomona with a display, kind of a co-op effort with the Museum and we get a lot through the Museum.  So we don’t do a lot that targets the LA Market.  Truthfully, I just can’t afford to advertise in that market, advertising in the LA area is... well I just don’t have the budget to support that effort.  We have a pretty good population base when you figure from Bakersfield up to Sacramento and over to the desert and the Central California coast, that is quite a population that we can pull from and that is what we really target.

I think we are sort of relying on the fact that the March Meet is so established, people are just waiting for the date to be set, that’s what we are selling, they know what the March Meet is, they know the fun that it is, the event that it is, the happening that it is… all we are doing is selling the date, I don’t want to say that we don’t need the LA Market, I love it, but we don’t make a major attempt to promote to them down there. You at the Museum, Tony Thacker and his staff are great to us, we get to go in there and set in the Museum and advertise, they are good to us, so it helps us to advertise down there affordably.

: Thank you.

BB: We’ll see you at the March Meet, March 5 – 7.

Custom Article Framing