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We attended the WoO races at Volusia last weekend and the USAC Sprint Car races at BRP the last two nights. This is our 5th straight year of going to Volusia and our 6th straight at BRP. Before everyone gets together and bans me for attending WoO races, I’ll admit that we like them on certain tracks. Volusia, Knoxville and Tri-State have had some absolutely incredible winged races. It is an entirely different style of racing on those tracks.
Anyway, here are our thoughts:
Volusia
36 cars were on hand for the opening of the WoO season. That was up a couple of cars from the last couple of years. Friday evening was COLD even for us Northerners. Compliments to the WoO officials for pulling the schedule up. They actually had the cars started for motor heat before they opened the front gates. We left after winner Donny Schatz’s victory lane interview and we were in the car at 9:30. I’m still not a fan of the WoO starting their heats with no invert, but lining up the feature by the heat finish does make them race harder in the heats. The crowd at Volusia Saturday night was probably the largest we’ve ever seen there. Every stand was packed, there were people sitting on the walkways in front of the stands, tons of people standing everywhere.
Brian Carter, CEO of the World Racing Group, parent of WoO and UMP, was present and very visible all weekend, speaking to fans and vendors, helping in any way (I saw him emptying a full trash can) and asking people if they werehaving fun and what can they do to make the experience better. He seemed genuine and seemed truly interested in what the fans had to say about their experience.
The many improvements over the last 5 years at Volusia have been impressive. The new stands are a HUGE improvement. Long overdue. The safety improvements definitely paid dividends because Ian Madsen’s incident in turn two 5 years ago would have likely had tragic consequences.
BRP
For some reason, I REALLY like this quirky track. It uniqueness makes for some interesting races. It sucked that Thursday night got rained out. Compliments to USAC, the USAC drivers, the BRP staff, the Mod Lite Stars officials and drivers on running a quick, efficient show Friday and Saturday nights. In recent years, we’ve come to dread the Mod Lites as it seemed they had lots of issues with yellows and lineups, but this weekend they had their act together and most of the races were pretty entertaining. With 30 cars present for the opening races, I hope the future is bright for the USAC Sprint cars. There was some pretty good young talent on display this past weekend. Anton Hernandez, Dennis Gile, and Katlynn Leer all made the feature both nights. Connor Leoffler looked pretty racy Friday night before crashing out in the feature, and Anthony D’Allessio had a solid feature last night. I don’t know how many of these 5 will try to run the full season.
Brady was bad fast both nights, on two VERY different racetracks. I’m really surprised there weren’t tire issues last night, but glad there weren’t. Hopefully Brady’s impressive performance this weekend attracts some sponsorship opportunities to the Bacon/Hoffmann car.
I am really getting concerned as to how much longer BRP is going to be viable. It is looking really rundown and it appears there is little to no maintenance being done. I know Bubba Clem has been having some financial/tax issues. I hope I’m wrong.
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