Volusia Night One!

[HaudFan]

The track was pretty fast. 52 sprints signed in with 75 UMP modifieds.

Daryn Pittman was only a few thousandths off the track record in qualifying. The Wild Child blew an engine in time trials and still managed a 13.4 time...The track widened out for the feature and the top side was the place to be as Donny Schatz over took Jason Myers in lapped traffic for the first night win. The Wild Child was the hard charger of the night. He spun in his heat (which had 13 cars in it) and charged back for a 7th place finish. Started 14th in the B-Main and got the last transfer position by finishing 4th. Started shotgun on the field in the feature (24th) and charged up to 15th. The R19 team should be good this week!...Got my NEW R19 shirt from Patti Haudenschild last night!

Here's my only complaint about Volusia Speedway Park. They are in NO HURRY to get the show over with! The first sprint heat didn't start until 9:30. The feature ended at 12:30 am. Whether its a weekly show or Speedweeks there is never any HURRY!...And track operators wonder why fans don't come back.

[Boneman]

Not all of us are on vacation; some of us have to go to work in the morning. I think they ran 10 heats, a C main, 3 B mains and a modified feature. By the time the sprints pushed off after midnight, my eyeballs were spinning in my head. I sure wish they could have put the main event on earlier.

52 sprints and about 70+ modifieds! The racing was pretty good too, but they got a late start and had a show that ran a little long.

[bubba]

VSP and physics

Every year, I am blown away at how fast the 410's are there. I don't know if it is an optical illusion, but it seems like there ain't no way they are gonna make the turns. Completely BAD A$$!! Like someone tied them to a string and swung them around. How fast is Eldora in person compared to VSP? It has to be insane!

Track kinda hardened up for the feature, but it was quick as hell for the heats/qualifying, etc.

Like Haudfan said, the drive of the night was with the Wild Child coming through the pack in the B-Main, passing people like a maniac. Very impressive - the cajones on these guys must require a special seat.

Regarding the slowness. I actually give VSP some credit in the things they could control. Once they decided to get going, they were lining up the cars beforehand and only taking a half lap before green in most cases, not to mention only 1 lap of qualifying for the sprints and no qualifying for the mods. The biggest problem was the spin-crazy mods and the rookie tow truck drivers. Watching those guys put the hook on was painful then they drove about 2 mph back to the pits. Nice rigs, but gawdawful slowww...

The Alltell vision thingy was a neat addition you could see some replays - the one with the mod who hit the front stretch wall drivers side first was scary. I remember back in the late 80's somebody got killed there in a similar looking wreck. I still remember the sound of that motor wide open after the wreck when all the other cars had stopped - kinda chilling.

Overall - agreat opening night - general admission was kinda pricey at $29 but the reserved seats didnt sell, so we just sat in the top row anyhow.

[HaudFan]

Bubba, I was wondering why the tow truck guys were driving so slow too.

Eldora is wick fast, but according to the drivers when they put dirt on top of Bristol it was SCARY fast. Something like 3 or 4 seconds faster than the cup cars...Eldora is a fast half mile where you run up against the wall. Quick time is in the mid 12 second bracket at Eldora.

I agree the lining up of cars was good. But there were no time limits on the mod heats and they took forever. However I liked watching Kenny Schrader three wheel it through the corners.

[bubba]

It was amazing to watch the sprints on the Alltell screen and then look up and see them in real time. The TV KILLS the perception of speed. Makes me wonder how fast those other places are in person. Because of the roundness of VSP, they are constantly accelerating - I was waiting for that invisible string to break, it would have been a nasty wreck.

Yea, mod heats killed the continuity in terms of time - maybe the time limit would be a good idea. Kenny S was carrying that left fron the whole track it seemed. Good to see him run well.

They need to scrap that flat bed wrecker and just get another smaller hook out there.

I am usually beside myself with frustration after sitting through a VSP show, but I thought they did a decent job last night. The reality was they had a lot of races to run and the mods really killed it. When they ran green though they were pretty exciting.

[ancrdave]

One of the best ways to speed up these shows is do like East Bay does with the 360's and eliminate qualifying... Just run heats and use passing points to determine the line-ups... It's interesting to see how fast they run, but for the most part qualifying is boring...

[bubba]

That is true, too. I was just so enamored with the speed that I was into the qualifying, tonight probably not so much.