Hmmmmmmmmm. A sprint car race won on fuel mileage. Sounds more like NASCAR every week.

Tim Simmons

Driving like his buddy on a d-7[bulldozer] billy puterbaugh jr. At putmamville.

Robert, this is one of the best posts I've seen on this site in a long time.
I commend you, Casey Shuman, Kevin Briscoe, Billy Puterbaugh, etc. for posting your honest feelings here. Thank you.

Dont forget they cut out driver intros so they could get us out early

If they were forced to make many more laps it just might have been. Lap after lap of cautions, that were dragged out to the point of where you wanted to hop the fence and push the car out of the way yourself while waiting for the tow truck driver to get his act together. Oh well, it was still great racing and beat the heck out of sitting home ticked off that a race got rained out again!

hey rob,

thanks for answering my question and not taking it the wrong way. We were at terre haute and yes they did take awhile with the cautions. I agree with people not liking the down tubes and such at those times. We were kind of the same way! I know the whole weight issue is a big deal, but honestly the sprint cars should be mandated to use bigger tanks, a red for a fuel stop is unacceptable. I believe sprint cars used to have 41 gal tanks at one time, and they looked a lot better then. 1175 lbs is WAY too light for sprint cars, they dont need to be that light, im sure you'd agree, if only for a safety issue. We saw Brad Sweets Triple XXX sprinter after his wreck at Osky and there were BROKEN WELDS!!!!!!!!!!! and the thing was WAY too bent up for the ride he took, sure he walked away but BROKEN WELDS, come on! If we don't learn the lessons from the past (RE: early 80's late 70's) when cars got so light they were breaking apart and killing guys, we are doomed to repeat them!

Really sorry for your bad luck and i hope the rumor about you guys getting banned from Eldora next week isn't true, you guys have ALWAYS been one of our favorite racing teams to watch and you guys do a hell of a job week in and week out!

And one more thing, for all you people that are ******** about the time it took to run the overall program, WHY ARE YOU IN SUCH A HURRY TO GET HOME???? Are you in that big a hurry to get to your couch to watch tv? if they had started at 5 we would have had a dry slick dusty track before time trials!!! As it was it was the best track we have seen for years and some of the best racing all year!!!! I paid $25 bucks and drove 4 1/2 hrs I dont want to turn around and go home at 9!!!!!!!! One of the reasons why there have been crappy track conditions is the way too early start times!

Joe Stroehle

Who's car was Sweet running?

I haven't seen a Triple xxx break welds(At least anything scary) but I have seen a truckload of Maxims have some bad breaks.

The weight issue to me isn't the thing. As long as the car builders build the cages to spec, then a "Light" car isn't a big deal. Lighter cars do less damage to the drivers as well as themselves. That is as long as the cockpit area is built to spec. Heavier racecars aren't safer as they have much more mass they have to try and slow down once it is in movement.

Wasn't at Terre Haute so I can't comment on that. I hope the fans aren't that upset and they will continue to go back.

Heres to you Ballou on a honest post and congrats on a great run

I was not "********" about the overall time it took, heck I didn't even mind the slow wrecker driver, you'll have that some nights. I expect a certain ammount of down time for yellows, track prep, giving teams time to work on the cars before the B, & feature etc..also kind of missed that they did not do the on track intros. My point was that if a track is going to advertise a start time, try to stick to it. I could have cared less if they started at 5 or 6, just didn't care to sit the extra 1+ hour for things to get started.

You are absolutely right, they shouldn't have advertised the start time that early. That was a big mistake. For some reason the promoters at THAT want to start really early, it's stupid for a night race to be run 3/4's under the sun. Didn't mean to offend you, it's just that a lot of people like myself may have thought you were talking the typical USAC sucks, Promoters suck attitude about how they run the program. 6:30 was actually a perfect time to start and should be the norm for most tracks. You won't get the blazing sun effect as much if you start a little later in the day. The reason i said that was because when the promoters start hearing about time issues they freak out and try to start earlier and earlier and the track surface suffers!
Hope you had a good time otherwise because it really was an awesome night! and to be honest, if it takes an extra hour to get the track like they did, then id sit there everytime and wait. But I also understand where you are coming from, it would have been nice to not be so rushed at the motel to get there in time to see the water truck. although that was a beautiful site itself!

Joe Stroehle