[QUOTE=Dyno Don;43025]I would like to see the quality of the cars running The Little 500 improve.

The Little 500 has become almost like a NASCAR race. The first half is for getting rid of the wanna be's and the second half is for racing. And you hope one of the wanna be's does not take out a lot of the quality cars.(like what happened Sat.)

Dyno Don,

Using your words here, which wanna be took out a lot of the quality cars? I must have missed that part of the race.

I didn't see any of the slower cars cause serious trouble either. I was impressed with the closeness of the racing late in the show. Cottle, Elliot, Litt and J-Rod all were entertaining. Too bad some of the other strong runners weren't running at the end to mix it up.

By my count, if you included cars and drivers that ran last year and didn't run this year and the USAC cars from Wed., you would of had about 70 cars of which 65 would have been the best of the best equipment.

The spread of the field if those cars showed up would be from an 11.1 average to an 11.4 or 11.5 avearage for last. That is pretty tight if you ask me.

There are a ton of great cars and drivers right now, but I believe that most can't justify the tire costs and the fuel costs to run the show if they are coming from places like Florida, California and Michigan.

Total purse for the Little 500 is over $120,000. Money isn't keeping any contenders away. The "Night B4 the 500" midget race is. My solution is to run the Night B4 race Two nights B4 on Friday night and move the Hoosier Hundred to the Friday of the MotoGP weekend in September in place of the midgets. As far as the disparity in speeds at Anderson make as a minimum that any car must time within 2 seconds of the pole sitter total for the four laps. It doesn't sound like much but it is a half second a lap which is a difference of 22 laps plus over 500 laps.

We talked to a recent USAC champion at Terre Haute and the Lil' 500/Night Before the 500 midget race conflict was brought up... Something was said about the promoters getting together and figuring something out about the conflict. He said he'd love to do the 500. He also told us, "I know where I'd be if I was a fan". :respect:

My question is... There's no conflict with the National Midgets and the Midget 400. As a matter of fact, the Nat'l Midgets are in Indy the night before the 400 Qualifying on the 24th. How many "big dogs" will show, if any? :checkered:

FLORIDA TO ANDERSON WITH A F-350 PULLING A 28' TRAILER
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I think people need to start putting how many little 500 they have attended before commenting. This was my 15th little 500 and it was deffinatly one of the best if not the best one I have seen. Quaility of the field was up quite a bit this year. Until the big one, the top 10 were within a half a lap of each other. yes a couple of the wrecks were unfortanate, but that will always happen. Some of you comment that you wish the big teams were there, but i fondly remember the first year that Usac took over, the big teams wrecked themselves out. I really think that was the worse little 5 that I had seen with like only 9 cars takeing the checkard. The other thing is that most of the"top dogs" don't run cars that would last 500 laps. lets not forget about your half nots that ran really well. here is where they started 16. Jacob Wilson, 07, WBR-45.656; 17. Ryan Litt, 7, Litt-45.661; 18. Russ Gamester, 46, GMI-46.616;21. Kenny Biro, 72, Biro-46.762; and with his best run in a sprint car Rex Norris III, 63, Norris-46.842; 25. Rex Norris and Kenny Biro both kept there nose clean and had good races. Norris took a very bad car from wednesday, and made it very competive. They had biro listed as the leader at one point. I know he was in the top 5 for a while. Here is my long winded point, no matter who and what cars are there, there will always be slow lapped cars. Names don't make a race, the race makes the names. last thing if the cars had to qualify within 2 seconds of the leader only 26 cars would have started and you would lose half you fans for next years race.

I got to say it was very nice to see that 66 car running STRONG again. I hope u guys are able to make the trip back up here next year.

After seeing all 60 of the Little 500's, this was one of the better. I didn't like the tragedy during the race. What was amazing to me was how many drivers found better speeds during qualifying. Congrats to Shane Cottle.

I can't compete with Checker'd Past with this only being my 34th Little 500. I can however say it was one of the better races that I have personally seen. The tragedy definitely put a damper on the evening but a big congratulations to Shane Cottle and the entire Contos Racing crew for the victory. Larry Contos has contributed so much to this race and it was great to see him rewarded for his long time efforts.

I also agree that you will always have slower cars on the track. Go to any sprint show and you will see the same thing. I also would like to see USAC change some things around so that the Little 5 doesn't have to compete for drivers with the Night Before the 500 at ORP. I doubt that will happen since they both have a long tradition on the Saturday night scene prior to the Indy 500.

It is always exciting to have the leader and the second place car on the same lap. It was also interesting to see the 5th & 6th place cars on the same lap battling for position in the late going. A great run for Johnny Rodrigues, Rex Norris III and Ike Beasley. Three rookies who kept their noses clean and finished in the top 10.