I'm going to bite the bullet and actually post a positive thread on here. It amazes me when things go well at a track or event, we read MAYBE a handful of posts praising that event. When things go bad, we read a handful of threads with several pages of responses tearing the track or event down. Which if you can't tell, is a pet peeve of mine in the world of social media. So at the risk of being socially unacceptable, I'm going to give credit where credit is due.
1) thank you to the Race of Champions and Chemung staff for running the event off at the scheduled times, and running the Modifieds mid program. I know of at least 30 people that drove down to support the event from the Watkins Glen area, and received a bunch of positive comments regarding how the event was run off on time. Even with an intermission, guys that left after the mods were at their hotels a little after 10, we stayed for the whole program and were back shortly after 11. Promoters don't realize how far this goes toward getting these folks to come back next time, plus bring some more friends if they can bank on being done at a reasonable time. I made sure to personally thank Andy for this so that he knew how important it was to many of my friends that came out to support the RoC Tour.
2)great job to Lori and everyone who had a hand in organizing and running the kids races at intermission. Again, small events like this go a LONG way in creating future fans and racers, I don't see why more tracks do not try to do events like this. It was great to see the smile on my daughter's face getting her opportunity to race on the same track that the big cars do, and hearing her excitement leading up to it brought a smile to my face. Takes me back to the bike races at Spencer in the mid 80s, or when we used to get rides in our favorite cars at the old Shangri-La track-things that almost 30 years later I still remember. I know how excited she gets when she had a chance to enter the pedal car races at the North South Shootout, or the big wheel races at Motorsports-other tracks should take notice and seriously consider giving a few minutes of their show to the next generation. Big props to Zacharias Motorsports and Austin Kochenash Racing for sponsoring the trophies, I know my girl appreciates it and is proud to show her's off.
3)the racing itself for the most part was clean and exciting, which I got a lot of comments on as well. I'm sure the track has it's off nights, but I'm glad all divisions put on a good show in front of a good crowd. People put such an emphasis on numbers, but I'll take a quality race with 20 cars that 10 are capable of winning versus a 30 car field that the last 10 cars are nothing but jam cars and/or are spinning every 5 laps. There is something to be said for quality over quantity, and it really shows on short tracks like Chemung. How many short track races have we seen where they start a big field, then all we see are caution after caution after caution until the field gets thinned down, then we see the racing kick in? I thought the RoC race was great, a normal mix of comers and goers, and was shaking out to be a great finish whether the last caution came out or not. Unfortunately a mechanical failure changed that, but still got plenty of compliments on Sunday on how the race was run, and how respectful the racers raced each other versus other tours or weekly tracks. The RoC Tour has a great group of dedicated racers, crews, and officials-nice to hear them get the credit they deserve from people that don't get to see them run very often, and who will be back out to support the series in the future when possible.
Bottom line of this post-most of us are all quick to jump on the bandwagon when it comes to being critical of a race, track, driver, official, etc. We think nothing of taking the time to write a post criticizing or how things should be done different. All to often, at least that I've noticed, we don't take the same amount of time to post a positive thread praising people or pointing out things that were done right. Hopefully this thread is read by or reaches those that it was meant to, letting them know that their time and effort into putting on a great show IS recognized, and is appreciated by not only me, but a large group of friends and family that came out to support it. Two thumbs up to all involved-keep up the great work!
