I was at VCS last night and witnessed the multiple incidents involving Mr. Memmer. I don't know the young man and I am not trying to throw him under the bus. I will say that from a fans perspective however, it was inappropriate, childish, immature, stupid and low class. The show he put on was right out of the WWF and Jerry Springer show type performances. I saw a few kids around us and they were really getting into it. A great time to teach a youngster that this is totally inappropriate behavior and shouldn't be tolerated. Hopefully the parents were able to get this accomplished.

As a former track official, I will say that scoring a race is one of the toughest jobs ever. I applaud the folks that week in week out "enjoy" doing this. It certainly wasn't a job I ever wanted to tackle. I realize that MSCS has had some challenges with scoring a race but I have also seen USAC,IRL, NASCAR, ARCA, ASA, CRA, and various other sanctioning bodies have less than stellar results in that department at times. I recall a NASCAR race a number of years ago where it took almost 20 laps to get the lineup sorted out. And technically they have top of the the line scoring equipment. The fans in the stands were not impressed and neither were the drivers. That of course is another story.

Being a former track official I realized the danger that we were all in under "normal" racing circumstances and we accepted that as part of the job. I always felt safe because of the people we worked with and their safety practices. It has to be a clear understanding between officials and competitors as to the safety concerns and understanding the policies in order to provide a safe atmosphere. Knowing what was acceptable and what wasn't. The line has to be clearly drawn by the track or sanctioning body and the offenders punished accordingly. With that being said however, we still had some close calls and thankfully I can only recall one person getting seriously injured and it was an accident.

I don't know exactly what caused the whole thing from the start last night, but if it was over his place in the lineup, he should have taken what was given to him and moved on. I have seen very few instances where arguing with an official has gotten your spot back. I could have even understood him stopping on the track to get an explanation and letting the official know that he didn't agree and then move on. However, to endanger another persons life by swerving toward them is totally unacceptable and inexcuseable behavior and he deserves to be suspended in my opinion. And then to perform his tirade on the front stretch was way out of bounds and borders on the insane. If I was a competitor, I am not sure I would feel real comfortable racing with this guy.

As to what happened in the pit area, I didn't see and certainly can't comment on that directly. I am sure that the ones who were in the pits can and probably have give a description of what transpired in their opinion. For the police to be called, I am sure it wasn't for exemplary behavior.

In the coming days and weeks we will undoubtably hear more about this incident. For this young man's sake I hope he can get some help in managing his anger. IF, and I say IF, some of the posting on here are correct, then this certainly isn't his first time of having anger issues. If this is a reoccurring pattern, I doubt that it will be tolerated much longer and it could adversely affect his racing career if it hasn't done so already. These are my opinions only adn I don't expect everyone to agree. I have also signed my name, so I am not hiding behind a screen name.

Mike Padfield