Tracks don't get prepared in one morning. Nobody had touched the track before the weekend. I don't know if they were out there Saturday or not. I don't know why calcium wasn't used. Everybody knew it was going to be dusty. If anyone could have predicted it was going to be that bad, USAC would not have listened to them anyway. I don't know who USAC is accountable to, but I hope they ask what steps were taken to prepare the track and make arrangements to prevent this from happening in the future.

Not sure I agree with you on this subject, but this place needs more people like you that will stand by their guns and not be swayed by the "mob."

The drivers are not going to pull off. We had this discussion at my track when another driver made a poor decision not to pull off and got another driver hospitalized. Speaking as a driver myself, I can tell you that you cannot rely on drivers to make rational decisions when they are on the track. Their judgment is clouded by their adrenaline, their anxiety not knowing if their going to have a ride next week, finishing well enough to feed their kids, etc.

T-Mez stated that he knew he should have pulled off but chose not too. He accepted part of the blame for that, but in the end his decision was based on the fact that there are a lot more race car drivers than there are race cars. He was hired to do a job and he felt he had to do it. I hope that this experience has taught all the drivers, as well as USAC, a valuable lesson.

Last week, someone told me to go screw myself..........I guess if I was a real racer, I'd have a sore ass this week but I chose not to take this persons advise..........there its broken down real simple....we have choices. you said it........T-Mez said he should have not raced which leads me to believe the thought ran through his head.........and he made the wrong decision. no harm no foul.........racers need to think clearly and for themselves..........you should never trust anyone to look out for your best interests except yourself. The track wanted to have the race, USAC wanted to get the show in.........I doubt they gave any consideration at all to driver safety as they both were looking out for their own best interest............Attention Racers............no one will care more about your safety than you !!!! CHOOSE WISELY

e.p.a.

Here is something I find interesting.

I'm not saying this to start anything, just an observation, and this is something I really find interesting.

From everything that I've read (I wasn't there), it was dusty from the time the cars took the track, and the way the track was watered, it was going to be dusty for the 100 lapper.

All the drivers knowing that still belted in to go race.

But yet... a few years ago, at Union County Speedway, drivers weren't happy about a road grader 100 feet past the turn 2 wall, and every USAC driver pretty much loaded up and left everybody stranded before even firing a motor.

Why did they throw a fit about one thing and load up and leave, but not something in my opinion that is FAR FAR worse.

A racer's decision to race can be a wrong one made for what are essentially almost all the right reasons. Almost. A sanctioning body's decision to self-promote an event (and thus accept responsibility for setting everything right in order to provide the best possible event experience and race) should be held to an even higher standard. If you choose to promote an event, and you aren't either prepared, capable or committed to making it the best event it can be--and the safest--then what did you take on that duty for? Just for the money? In order to box out a rival? Hubris? A whim?
I can accept, as many of the drivers have done since, that some responsibility for saying "No!" rests with them. And the car owners. But was there more than just the implied threat of losing ground in a points battle for refusing to race? I'm not saying that there was, but in a division that races as few times as Silver Crown, fewer yet on dirt, and fewer still on genuinely racy half-miles, does there even need to be? You want to win the points, you don't take a knee and give every other competitor who doesn't trailer his ride the upper hand. It would have been understandable (and preferable) if the whole field just said the show will have to wait until changes are made, but then we would be reading and listening to the same "Modern Day Spoiled Wimps"-posturing that was leveled at teams in the past for demanding safer conditions. And who would actually believe that the same folks who botched the track conditioning initially would quickly undo and satisfactorily redo what was already a mess?
We've seen on another thread that the flagman, in a move I simply have neither seen nor ever heard of before, has offered his apologies to every driver for not being the final arbiter and insisting on aborting the start until conditions were improved. Is there anyone among us who would have insisted, had he not offered that apology, that he deserved any blame? And heaven forbid that the drivers form a union, or union-like coalition in order to effect positive change. The hue and cry in this day and age would make national news.
I doubt it will take another wreck on the first lap for the drivers to say "No" next time. I'd expect that if there is another abomination of a racing surface forced upon them, not only will some of the more outspoken drivers refuse to push off, they will collectively resign from the event. And if a track is that bad again, under USAC's oversight, I'd certainly expect that the fallout for the organization will be lasting and will doom some persons in that brand-provider. USAC is nothing without the deeply-talented pool of exceptional regulars who deserve better than they are receiving.
I'll give the drivers one pass for not doing what in hindsight is obviously the right thing, and saying "I refuse", but I will NOT extend that pass to the entity that forced the conditions that those drivers should have balked at upon them.

Was this the first time they tried to do a day race since calcium was banned?

The fact that T-Mez was willing to look into the camera and admit that he made a bad decision earned him a lot of respect in my book.

One other thing: In this modern world, is there no such thing as an affordable and environmentally-approved substance that can limit dust in a racetrack-type of application? Couldn't one of us with some farming know-how (rules me out) make a fortune introducing such a solution? I understand that the calcium chloride that helped numerous tracks in the past, has been banned, but in this age when toxins that can cause birth defects are routinely sprayed on food crops anyway, isn't somebody on the cusp of creating a soluble dust-deterrent?