How not to act in public.

I had a bit of a long night tonight, here's a breif rundown of what took place.

It's our end of the year blow out. Ohio/www.lakevillespeedway.com/]Ohio Dirt Blow-Out There are eight divisions (if I counted right) and a couple of them are split into sperate classes for a total of 14 features, I think. The first night was a war, we had a WoO regular (who's name escapes me) come down and make the other sprints look like they were standing still. By the second race I was pulled from the corner I was flagging (did I mention I was helping out flagging this weekend?) and was placed as a roaming thug. My main duty was to yell at people, "Sit your *censored* down and shut the *censored* up before I decide to kick you out for good, you inbreed piece of white trash!" Or, something to that effect.

We had a truck do a barrel roll down the front straight ending in corner one. Our mini stock class has been fighting and really trying to kill each other lately, they were warned that if it continues, they wont have a class next year...So, of course, one of the worst rams a good friend of mines car on the final lap of the heat race, Shaun (my friend, and no, not our Shaun:)) bounces off the turn two wall, never lifts, catches him at turn three and takes them both over the hill full throttle. It was a bit of an over-reaction, but deserved. The next heat race for the group ten cars started, in ten laps four were running. The third race was pretty clean until the end when the number two guy take the leader over the same spot on the hill that Shaun took his victim over. Nobody was happy, the families were fighting in the stands, then just as the Super Late Models were starting, they had to red flag the race and send the ambulance and sheriff's deputies to the pits. One of the late model guys (who is the father of the last kid taken over the hill) was threatening the kid who took out his son. The father of the kid (another late model driver) took a tire iron and whacked the first guy over the head knocking him out cold. I understand why he took the cowardly way out, Dean (the whackie) is around six foot five and weighs probably close to 300lbs, he has been known to really beat the living heck out of people (and me once). He's a nice guy, but you don't piss him off. So the tally was something like 10 cars destroyed, two hospitalized (the truck guy and Dean), two arrested and spending the night in jail. All of this and we have night two comming up.

There's more but it's late and I should get a little sleep before round two.

Over the years Lakeville has gained a reputation as a fighting track--Lord knows, I've been in a few fights there over the years--but this was chaos. I have a feeling this is going to get worse. You know, I always believed I would die on a race track, I just kind of thought it would be in a car. Oh well, I'll update you on how tomorrow goes--assuming I live through it.



For the love of everything good and right, if you ever get into motorsports, please, please, please...don't act like these people!

Sounds like you need the National Guard to keep the peace. I would have suggested the Hells Angels but you would end up with a higher body count.

I'm thinking several Tasers on your person for the next couple of days. I normally would suggest a Glock or Smith and Wesson but from the sound of the place they wouldn't be enough. A Thompson with a few 250 round clips would be nice with rubber bullets.

You should get it filmed and sell it to Spike TV or post it on YouTube.

I take it the inbreeding is bad in that area. You know you are a Red-Neck if you go to family reunions to meet women.

Maybe they sould rename the event RACE WAR.

Yep, well on my way back over for round two. I found out why the fighting started in the first place, it began before a car was on the track. One of the drivers who had been banned for a year for fighting/bad driving/ and generally being a menace, was allowed to come back for the blow-out. A few of the drivers who'd lost cars to this moron's aggression were not happy about him being allowed back, so tensions were high anyway. My buddy Shaun's family (they run about five different cars) was on another families "hit list" because they believed Shaun was cheating...well duh! But in the class he runs, when they did finally decide to do a thorough inspection, they DQ'ed the top fifteen for the night...including two of the three cars of the offended family. It would have been all three but one car was in a different class. SO, now we have one driver possibly facing an attempted murder charge and one with what sounds like massive head injuries.

I've worked as a bouncer in too many clubs when I was younger, and I've seen too much violence. Please guys, remember, any fight...even the dumbest little thing can lead to death. I saw it once about twenty years ago...a railroad worker having a drink and running his mouth was punched ONCE by a person I went to school with. He hit his head as he fell, he died as the result of one punch. If you can, walk away, no matter how it makes you look.

On the plus side, the track is honoring a young man who just arrived back from Iraq a few months ago, he departs for his second tour in Iraq next week I think. This would be the one exception to the walking away rule...if you fight for your country, then God bless and be safe. I don't know this young Marine's name, but, I know I owe him a huge debt.

God bless the Marines (as well as the Army, Navy and Air Force.) They are the ones who draw the line on the ground and say none shall cross on my watch.

Still think you need the National Guard or maybe about 10 Marines (or Rangers or Seals).

Well, that was just anti-climatic. Most of the night went smoothly after the local sheriff warned, in the drivers meeting, that anyone so much as shouting was going to jail. Of course on dumb person from Kentucky (why are they always from Cleveland or Kentucky?) decided to test him... the hillbilly lost, in short order and was arrested for disturbing the peace after yelling something about pigs and fascists. The tiny cuffed man seemed to convey how serious this cop really was.

We had a very big sprint car accident, it must have been about 30ft in the air, no serious injuries but one really expensive car was reduced to scrap metal.

Then we had a great wreck, one of the pure stock guys (3000lb car, tube frame, 500-600hp) hit the wall head on after something broke. It was only cool because this guy has been a *censored* since we were in high school, and I think he may now be talked out of ever getting in a race car again by his wife. We can only hope...maybe she'll make hive move to another state soon too. Well, I can dream anyway.

It wasn't until the last race that there was any real fighting, some moron was upset at one of the Hispanic drivers and called him a wet back. It was a good fight, it stayed between the two of them and the Mexican proved he wasn't a Mex-i-can't. OK, that was a dumb joke but it's almost 3:30 am so...

I did come to a major decision concerning racing and my future, but it's late now, so, I'll update anyone who's interested soon. Watch for an update on my car build thread that has been sitting in a state of limbo..I can't think of what I called the thread right now, but when I'm more awake I'll look it up and post.

It's not just Kentucky or Cleveland. There are inbred (or Black Hole) areas in most states.

Did you get pictures of the Sprint Car Carnage?

Whisper in the wife's ear about how good life is in say Arkansas.

Don't mess with Hispanics, they aren't as weak as you may think.

Decision about racing? It's either moving to a slower class and becoming a mentor of the kids or becoming a car owner and putting somebody young and courageous in the car like Shaun.

BilboBaggins wrote:

It's not just Kentucky or Cleveland. There are inbred (or Black Hole) areas in most states.

Did you get pictures of the Sprint Car Carnage?

Whisper in the wife's ear about how good life is in say Arkansas.

Don't mess with Hispanics, they aren't as weak as you may think.

Decision about racing? It's either moving to a slower class and becoming a mentor of the kids or becoming a car owner and putting somebody young and courageous in the car like Shaun.

BilboBaggins wrote:

It's not just Kentucky or Cleveland. There are inbred (or Black Hole) areas in most states.

Did you get pictures of the Sprint Car Carnage?

Whisper in the wife's ear about how good life is in say Arkansas.

Don't mess with Hispanics, they aren't as weak as you may think.

Decision about racing? It's either moving to a slower class and becoming a mentor of the kids or becoming a car owner and putting somebody young and courageous in the car like Shaun.

Nope, it's actually quite different than any of those...however, if Shaun wants to make his way to Ohio in mid April next year my buddy Jerry has a sprint car that may need a driver.

I guess I'll give a hint, I'm recruiting some big names (well, trying to) and it will be the most important thing I've ever done. It won't involve me, or anyone, in a car in the next year, and it should be big enough in a few years that every one here will be near one of the events Now I really confused the issue huh? Oh, and one last thing, as much as I want to start a high dollar racing series, this is in no way a racing series.

This would be the car, the reason its going so slow is a track regular, who never missed a race in twenty some years, had always dreamed of driving a race car. Well, actually mostly he wanted to drive a sprint, he was diagnosed with cancer over the winter. So, the car owner decided before he got too weak he should have a chance. Tony Huff drives a sprint car This is breaking my heart as I write this, on the Lakeville forum there was a post, Tony died this morning. Anyway, that's not what I started to say, come on down Shaun, we'll put you in a 130mph rocket.

Oh, and I didn't have time to take any pictures this weekend, but I'm hoping the track phothog got some, he was in the right area, if he saw it happen.