I covered racing in California for 18 years and was a fan for much longer. My home track was Antioch Speedway, but I've probably been to 20 or more tracks. The magazine I published was Don's California Racing Review. The name changed a few times during the run, and I'm sure I'll tell the story about why that happened in a blog in the future. I also wrote for such magazines as Racing Wheels, MotoRacing, Veach Racing News and others. I announced for Antioch Speedway, Merced Speedway and Chowchilla Speedway.
I walked away from racing at the end of the 2003 season having burnt out on the whole experience. Since then, it seems that too many good people who helped build the sport have passed away, and some of them are already being forgotten. I had a passion for the sport and ideas on how to help. Sometimes that led to way too much stress, but I was always willing to jump right in there and try to help when given the opportunity.
So, why the blog? Basically, I have loads of prograps, notes, interviews, records of points and finishes, pictures and other stuff covering short track racing on the dirt in California. To my knowledge, only Gary Jacob had a bigger collection of records, and he is one of those who have passed away. Perhaps my next post will talk about some of the greats we have lost in recent years. But anyway, the point is that I am in the early stages of writing a book that will be available for purchase.
The book hasn't started yet as I am working on other projects, so a release date is a year away at least. What will it be about? I don't know. This blog will be a place where I discuss many things and think out loud about what will be in it. I will comment on racing past. Though it's not my intention to get into current racing, I'm sure I will. It's my intent to be honest, but not mean spirited. I don't want to offend, but unfortunately, it may happen. Just know that I come at this as a fan of dirt track racing and only want to see it get bigger and better. The best can still be yet to come if those involved work towards it.
Anyway, this is just supposed to be a short intro. Some of the things I want to to talk about here include:
Racing history, past champions, past winners, great moments of the past.
Carbureted Sprint Cars. As a co creator of Wingless Spect Sprints with Don O'Keefe Jr. and John Soares Jr., I have some things to say on the subject, but I also want to go deeper into the past, when NCMA, California Dirt Cars and Cal Mods were the three choices.
My quest to get established and my dealings with some of the promoters, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Getting to announce races. What a rush that was.
The promoter fued down in the valley and my honest opinion on that situation as a guy who was there for a few years of it.
Starting a State point race (DCRR Sweet 16/Terriffic 12).
The web racing project that rocked the net, CRO.
And much, much more.
The aim is to have a hard cover book, probably 150-200 pages, that will make for good reading. What will be in that book? Well, we've got time to figure that out, so welcome to my blog. Don't mind the mess. Just getting moved in and cleaning it all up.
