Just curious

[00 RBDJ]

I was just curious on why the Figure 8's are (9 out of 10 times) the last feature of the evening.

[racerwife]

I remember hearing many years ago it had something to do with tire compound and reversing the tire rubber being put down on the track. It at that time supposedly would affect the handling, (safety), of all divisions that then followed us. We also used to be the "draw" to the track to watch the spectacular figure 8 race... that was when we had 30+ cars a night, ran heats to qualify on the oval, then raced on the eight. So, if we raced last... the crowd stayed later.
Now... I think it has more to do with having to remove everything from the track for us to race the "8"... the tires certainly have changed over the years so who knows if that is still an issue.
The people who would probably know why we have always run "last" might be Rick and TK , (and Roger, but he doesn't post here)... they have the most years at Riverhead & Islip than anyone in the entire division.
Hey Rick and TK... whats the deal?

[Fig8 T.K.]

They like to save the best for last!!!

Kathy K.

[leah28racing]

I love that answer Kathy!

But it is probably because they have to clear the track, and they only want to do it once. Although they do put us before the modifieds sometimes when it's to sunny out lol!

[00 RBDJ]

Kathy,

Can't argue with that.

Denise

[RickFigure8]

For many years, it was Bob O'Rourke who kept us last due to his feelings, as Karen said, that we put the rubber down in the wrong direction on one end of the track. In recent years, it was probably due the the infield condition and that we kicked up a lot of dirt and pieces of pavement into the turns, but that has all been nicely fixed and now it seems to be a toss up just when we run. The newer drivers would find it strange how some years back it was so unusual to run on the 8 in daylight. In the Islip years, heats, consi's and warmups were on the oval. The only time we ran on the 8 in daylight was championship weekend. If we had a makeup feature, it was in daylight, but on the oval. At Riverhead, we finally got to have warmups on the 8, which still was not that same as racing on the 8 in daylight, but then came the Sunday shows.

Rick

[Tower Man]

It's called a Paradigm. We do it that way because we always did it that way.