This is our biggest and most exciting month of the racing season. It all begins this Saturday and ends on SpeedWeekend. In this edition of Wade’s Weekly I’m talkin about this weekend’s Firecracker 150 and will examine social media FWIW.

 

I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend off and got home safe and sound. But now it’s time to get ready for the stretch run at Speedway 660. And what a run it’ll be!

It all begins this weekend with the Firecracker 150. Our Martin’s Home Heating weekly Sportsman teams will likely face some stiff competition from visiting drivers and a Pro Stock driver or two.

Last year Dave O’Blenis won the Firecracker 150. He also won the Best of the Best 150. But he didn’t win either of the two big races on SpeedWeekend. A few Sportsman drivers have told me they don’t think that Dave and other Pro Stock drivers should be able to run the Sportsman races. But other drivers and fans are all for it.

Speedway 660 fans love a great Sportsman race. This Saturday night the Martin’s Home Heating Firecracker 150 will thrill fans in the Geary Woods!

No matter where you stand on this issue, you’ve got to admit that it raises the level of competition and makes for a more exciting race. With the region-wide decline in the number of Sportsman teams, it also adds top-rate competition to the starting grid.

It’s not as if the Pro Stockers have an unfair advantage. Their cars have to pass tech just like everyone else. And they are not guaranteed a win either. Remember earlier this year? Young Andrew Rodgers beat all-comes to take the $3000 first place money in the Martin’s Home Heating 100. As a matter of fact, all three podium finishers in that race were weekly 660 Sportman drivers!

Speedway 660 weekly Sportsman Division drivers don’t have to take a back seat to anyone! Our best Sportsman drivers have proven many times that they can compete with visiting race teams and Pro Stock drivers who show up for these big races.

But Dave O’Blenis has to be considered one of the favourites come Saturday night. His car will be well prepared and he’s a great driver. One of the most interesting story lines is that he’ll be racing against his daughter Alexandra. Alex is just starting to get comfortable in a Sportsman car and celebrated her first podium finish last time out.

Switching gears, regular visitors to Wade’s Weekly and our Conversations with drivers and other racing personalities know how much folks in our sport talk about the Speedway 660 racing family and the Maritime racing community. It is well documented how drivers and crews help each other out in the pits and lend each other parts.

Sure there are racing rivalries, but as Sly & the Family Stone used to sing: “We are Family”. Or are we?

Social media is here to stay. It can be a good thing, however sometimes it brings out the worst in folks!

I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the whole racing social media scene. I don’t participate or even follow all of that, but recently one of our young Bando drivers popped out his hand-held device and showed me some of the comments drivers, crew members and fans are making about our sport.

To say I was blown away would be an understatement. Most of these comments were negative, many were disrespectful and some were downright nasty! Social media seems to give everybody a soap-box to stand on to rant about opinions, conspiracy theories, sour grapes, defamation of character, etc etc etc.

It’s pretty easy to let your fingers do the talking, because oftentimes folks will use their devices to say nasty things they would never say face-to-face!

So why am I bringing all of this up? Well the racing community is a fairly small, tight knit group. It’s a kind of fraternity made up of folks who love fast cars, intense competition and great people to hang out with.

I can’t think of a better way to spend an evening or an afternoon. Being at Speedway 660 with our racing family is always a great time.

I’ve been hangin around this sport since my Dad raced at the old Riverglade Speedway back in the sixties. I’ve met some of my best friends through racing. So it is disheartening to see folks in our racing community make slanderous comments, attack each other and bitterly criticize race tracks and tours via social media.

Social media can be a great thing. For example, Tim Terry tweets updates during the Maritime Pro Stock Tour races. That gives folks an opportunity to follow the action, if they are unable to travel to the races. And FaceBook allows drivers to give their fans inside information about their race team.

Tim Terry (left), the voice of the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour, uses social media in a positive way to keep fans updated about what’s happening in our sport.

That’s all good. So even though I personally don’t mess around with social media, I think it can be used in a positive way. It’s the personal attacks, cyber-bullying and stuff like that we could do without.

Racing is intense. Bumper-to-bumper and door-to-door action often leads to heated competition. Things happen on the track. That’s part of the excitement. But when the checkered flag comes out the race is over. Do we really needs to amp-up the rhetoric through social media? Do we really need to hide behind an I-Phone to verbally assault another member of our racing family?

Sometimes cars get together when short-track action gets intense. It doesn’t mean a driver deliberately ran a fellow competitor off the track!  

So there, IMHO I’ve had my little say about social media.

We’ve got four weekends of racing left in the Speedway 660 season. That’s an intense, exciting month of action in the Geary Woods. It all begins this Saturday night with the Firecracker 150. We’ll follow that up with Fan Appreciation Night, the Night of Champions and SpeedWeekend. Wow, some of the most incredible action of the year is coming our way.

August is a big month at Speedway 660. The Bando Blast on Saturday night is just one of several big races scheduled for August.

So go ahead, use your social media in a positive way to let everyone know all about it! TTYL.
We’ll see you at the races!