PRESENTS--- 

RIVERHEAD HOLDS INFORMATIONAL MEETINGS
by Mike Fields

January 29, Long Beach, NY--- After a moment of silence for Wayne Shortemeyer, Track Announcer Bob Finan opened the annual Competitors Informational Meetings with his usual thanks from Barbara & Jim Cromarty for showing up to the meeting. He then showed concern for the state of short track racing.

Finan also stated in no uncertain terms that Riverhead Raceway was not sold and was not for sale. He then asked for help with the wild rumors floating around concerning the track by putting Riverhead Raceway bumper stickers on the back of their trailer saying, “Follow me to Riverhead Raceway!” Bob once again asserted that racers are in an entertainment business. He then offered to help by talking to prospective sponsors for the teams.

Chief Steward Bill Denniston then stood up and talked along the same vein about the word going around about the track being sold. From there, he thanked Bud Sexton for all the work he had put in paving the inside of the track for Go-Karts between turns 3 and 4.  Sexton also is revamping the inside of turns 1 and 2 for the Car Roll-Over division. From there, he introduced the track officials that showed up for the meeting, and explained their duties. Most officials then gave a brief overview of what is expected from the drivers, from sign in to payoff. Procedures pretty much stayed the same as in previous years. Those drivers who question the accuracy of the scales will be happy to note that there will be new scales for the 2007 season. All helmets this season must meet either the Snell 2000 or Snell 2005 standard.

Ed Brunnhoelzl Jr. had a heart attack last week.  Eddie III informed us that he had stints put in, and is back home feeling much better.

LAST MINUTE CHARGER RULE CHANGE--- The roof position height will now be measured 10 inches, instead of 6 inches back of the windshields…

MODIFIED RULES ENFORCED--- Cubic Inches must be listed on the hood, which matches Walter Bonczyk’s paperwork.  If not, penalties will be enforced… Also mentioned was that this is the last year for the 5-point harness.  In 2008, the 6-point harness will be mandated…

UP IN THE AIR--- Bill Denniston stated that he is in negotiations to have one of four or five national meets at Riverhead for the Go-Karts in 2008… Due to the fact that NASCAR seems to be in a state of flux right now (see NASCAR CANS FOUR below), Riverhead officials haven’t yet gotten the expected new points allocation system for the weekly series yet… Bill Denniston promised to try and get an extra five laps added to the 20-lap Blunderbust features when he meets with promoters Barbara and Jim Cromarty. That might be a tough sell.  He also promised to try and get an extra five laps added for the Super Pro Trucks, when the Trucks race on Sundays.  That one might be an easier sell, as the extra couple of minutes won’t mean all that much on a Sunday afternoon as it does on a Saturday night… According to statements made by Denniston, it looks like Riverhead will be putting down a new track surface within the next year or two…

SPONSOR CORNER STARTING EARLY--- Normally, we don’t get started on sponsors until sometime in March.  However, we’ve learned that Lou Maestri’s #1 Super Pro Truck has Gershow Recycling, Schwing Electric Supply, Monetary Recovery Corp., KS&S Electric, Kel-Rob Electric, Jolyn Electrical, Curious Creative Candles, G-Force Collision, and John Kirk… Chris Beutler will have NDA Kitchens, ADM Productions, Crest View Plumbing & Heating, Quaker Maid Cabinetry, Paul Beutler Contracting, Certified Carting, and will be racing for the Young Autism Foundation…

FINALLY FOR RIVERHEAD--- Get there early on the inspection days to get your NASCAR license instead of standing on the 3-mile long line opening night!

A BIG THANK YOU TO BILL DENNISTON for picking up the lunch tab at the meetings. Apparently he forgot from previous years how much we can eat!

BETHEL MOTORSPORTS PARK UPDATE--- Last Thursday, Billy Bartley and Jason Makarewicz showed up at the bi-weekly board meeting for Bethel Town. Bartley had been told the week before by a board member that the matter of Bethel Motorsports Park would be on the agenda. As we’ve written before, the town and the track’s neighbors want BMP to run on Saturday nights.  The track wants to run on Sundays in order to not compete with other Saturday night short tracks and dilute the available pool of race cars.

According to a phone conversation that we had with Billy this past Friday night, when Billy B and J-Mac showed up, the board president told the assembled group that representatives from BMP were there to “give a presentation”, as opposed to actually being on the agenda. Although a surprise to the two, Bartley got up and gave an approximate 15-minute talk about the track’s plans for 2007.

After his talk, a neighbor of the track got up and gave a rebuttal, reading off of a Post-It note. In the woman’s objections, she used the words “we” and “us” to describe the feelings of the other neighbors that objected. She then sat down. 

Another person then got up and asked the woman who the “we” and “us” are that she referred to.  That person then stated that he has lived across the street for a number of years and is favor of the track’s proposals. He further stated to the first woman that he was living there when the woman first moved into the neighborhood, and knew that there was a racetrack there before moving in. Apparently, the woman didn’t respond to the comment.

Before leaving the meeting, it was stated that BMP would definitely be on the agenda for the next meeting, held the 2^nd week in February. Stay tuned…

NASCAR CANS FOUR--- According to Brian Danko’s weekly column on January 22, NASCAR has given the old ‘heave-ho’ to four PR people at Daytona.  The four are Al Robinson, Jeremy Davidson, Jason Bates, and Laura Willis. We’ve never met Willis, and had met Bates only once, so couldn’t really comment about them.  However, Robinson and Davidson did a fabulous job keeping the media informed; Robinson with the Busch East Series, and Davidson with the Weekly Racing Series among others.

According to Danko’s column, they were asked to resign, and were then canned when they refused, which is a darned shame. Both Robinson and Davidson had developed an excellent relationship with the media they interacted with, and were always reactive, receptive, and helpful to us ‘media types’. When I needed an answer to a question, they got back to us very quickly.

Danko has a source within NASCAR that claims the governing body will be totally out of the short track weekly series, as well as the regional series in about five years.  We contacted our own source at NASCAR who refused to confirm or deny those claims. Was it only about seven years ago the NASCAR had around 100 sanctioned tracks?  In 2006, that number was down in the low to mid 60’s.  We also reported about a month or so ago that Jennerstown has withdrawn from the NASCAR banner.

It has been no big secret that the ASA Racing (www.ASA-Racing.com) has been attempting to sign up tracks under their own banner. We see that they currently have between 52 and 55 sanctioned tracks. Although Danko’s column doesn’t say that NASCAR is getting out of the business of sanctioning tracks, we think that some tracks could be getting out of the business of being sanctioned by NASCAR.  We’ll see what happens within the next five years.

Meanwhile, Jason Christley has written for the Day of New London for a number of years.  It was just announced that he has been added to NASCAR’s communications division. Connecticut’s loss is NASCAR’s gain.  We’ve read a number of columns by Jason, and have enjoyed his work, as well as the few times we’ve been with him in press boxes in Connecticut. He’ll make a fine addition to NASCAR.

However, after that reading Danko’s report, we heard that the house-cleaning is more like 12 – 18; most from their Communications Department. One rumor was that Mark Mockovak, Whelen Modified Tour media relations man was also gone.  Fortunately, that rumor was squashed after several days. By the way, what is the party line for the mass firings?  Financial Cutbacks!  If that is true, we wonder what NASCAR did with all the revenue they received from their last TV deal---

TALKING ABOUT CANNING PEOPLE, multiple sources have confirmed that Rob Arute is out at Stafford Motor Speedway. They didn’t waste any time taking his name off the Stafford website on the contact page. By the way, what is the party line on this firing--- uh, we mean departure?  “He left to pursue other interests”.

Upon hearing the news, one unnamed person commented, “What can be so interesting about an unemployment line?”

THE POLICE BLOTTER--- was a somewhat humorous un-attributed article that had been posted on Excite.com was e-mailed to us last week.  Apparently, Martin Truex Jr. was caught by a Volusia County Beach Patrol Officer urinating in a parking garage on his own car. According to the article, Captain Rich Gardner walked up to Truex and commented, “I hope that’s worth 100 bucks”.

According to Gardner, Truex responded with, "It is worth 100 bucks," and he held out a $100 bill. After smelling alcohol on his breath, Truex was charged with disorderly intoxication.

After we thought about this report for a few days, it may have been worth it to us too. However, with the rising cost of a car wash, perhaps he would have been better off utilizing a tree instead.  Well, it was just a thought…

ALSO ON THE POLICE BLOTTER is that SK Modified driver Frank Ruocco has been arrested for assault on a youth hockey coach.  Word has it that the coach was abusive to one of the kids on the 10-12-year-old team.  Ruocco strongly disagreed with the coach’s tactics.  Ruocco was charged with assault, while the coach was charged with disturbing the peace. We wonder if the judge sentence them both to 5 minutes in the box, or add a 10-minute misconduct...

Is it just us, or is this an extraordinarily busy off-season?

*****

Those are out thoughts this time.  What’s yours?   Questions, comments, and complaints will reach us at liracenews@hotmail.com. Until next time, Happy Motoring!

     Mike Fields has written for the Area Auto Racing News, Raceway Media Magazine, as well as being a contributing author for the book Chicken Soup for the NASCAR Soul.  He has also been a co-host of a weekly motorsports radio program, and a track announcer. Fields currently writes a weekly internet column, and is an occasional contributing columnist for the Riverhead Racer, the track program for Long Island's Riverhead Raceway.

     While not at his full-time job (babysitting his very rambunctious almost 4-year old grandson), he is the owner of The Hero Card Store!, providing specialty autograph cards to racecar drivers and teams. He may be contacted by e-mail at info@LongIslandMotorsports.com, or by phone at (516) 376-4028.

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