View from the Tailgate - August 30

[LongIslandJam]

What's your thoughts?

[RacinRob]

My thoughts are lower ticket and concession prices will attract more people. More people=higher payoffs. Higher payoffs=more competitors. Also make an entry level division that is weekly...let's face it, the blunderbusts are no longer entry level. It's a shame, not to take anything away from Tommy W., because there is nothing wrong with what he does, but it's hard for people to keep up bEcAUSE he has the best equipment money can buy. I think a huge problem is that you have too big of a gap in these divisions. You have the Wild Childs, the Arnolds, the Wegmanns, then you have the Sepes and the other low budget teams. I say find a way to bridge the gap and give these guys more incentive to race.

[art11758]

There was an interesting thread some months ago on MSS about costs. It touched on many of the points made by Carl and Rob. One of the things I came away from that thread with was this little bit. The rules should be made and kept in the mind of the poor man. Affordable race cars keep divisions healthy. When I worked on Figure eight cars at Islip, we had home made everything .(or it came straight from Demasco) Now I know that was a loooong time ago, but take a look at some of the incredibly tech figure eight cars out there now. Somewhere along the way the rules got adjusted. Now that they are there, it's not going to be easy to go backwards.(if at all) Somebody mentioned to me that parts were getting hard to come by for some of the older Blunderbust cars. The topic of aftermarket control arms as a solution was mentioned as well. I could not believe my ears. Not the answer in my opinion. The rules state "stock" through out and there is a statement about cost control with stock parts at the end of the rules. I cannot imagine the "Pandoras Box" if it were to pass. There are always going to be folks who want to be the big fish in the little pond and have seemingly endless amounts of money to spend. In the end though I still feel well prepared inexpensive race cars are much more satisfying than trick of the moment money pits will ever be.