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With the turn of the calendar page to February, action on the building front is well underway for most racers, at least those that have their sponsorships in place.
Sponsorship has been a big issue for a lot of racers this year with the economic issues causing many sponsors to tighten their purse strings in order to survive.
NASCAR has definitely felt the pinch this year, forcing many teams to join forces and pool their resources. This unfortunately, has meant that some good drivers simply don’t have rides for 2009. For some time, it looked like NASCAR would not have a full field for the Daytona 500, but at last count 44 teams had registered, alleviating this problem for the short term. Several of the races will not have full fields though, with car counts as low as 34 or 35 instead of 42.
Attendance at some races appears to have slipped as well, forcing some tracks to reduce ticket prices in an attempt to fill the seats. If anyone was inclined to go, this would be the time with the lower prices and seat availability.
The same is true at most of the local facilities as well, forcing Lake Doucette Motor Speedway to suspend operations for this year and an amalgamation of Centre for Speed and River Glade Speedway. This is not a real amalgamation, but a shared points fund and schedule, which should lead to bigger and better competition at both tracks while reducing some of the expenses.
Meanwhile, Speedway 660 seems to be on track for another successful season and the addition of a 4 cylinder class will bring more action to the fast paced operation. After experimenting with a 6pm start time last year, the Speedway 660 guys have reverted to 7pm starts which appears to be a popular decision.
The Carquest Pro Stock Tour continues to be the premier division in the Maritimes and is expecting more growth this year. They have gone from 11 races to 12 and now boast 4 extended distances, 3 250 lap events and a 200 lapper in the finale. They have a new director of the Tour in Scott Alexander and from all reports from the drivers meetings last weekend, he will do a bang-up job at the helm. Alexander was a former driver on the Tour and sure knows how to get things done.
The Carquest Pro Stock Tour is the top rated short track race tour in North America and shows no sign of slowing down. Rumours abound about big things on the horizon for the tour and several NASCAR drivers are anxious to participate in it over the next couple of seasons.
Cumberland County’s only participant on the Carquest Pro Stock tour, Sandy Livingston Jr., has started work on preparing his car for the upcoming campaign and is on a serious sponsorship hunt. Racing at this level is serious business and sponsorship is necessary to be competitive. With all the exposure that the Tour and its participants get all over the Maritimes, it is a good place to spend some of the advertising budget, either on the car itself, or on that big trailer that goes up and down the roads nearly every week.
Riverside Speedway, the crown jewel of tracks in the Maritimes, has announced that they are making some more improvements at the track to increase the racing experience. Rumour has it that Reagan Smith, last year’s IWK 250 champion and NASCAR Sprint Cup driver, will be back to defend his title again this July.
Well, that brings us pretty much up to date for now so remember, the Daytona 500 goes in another week, kicking off the NASCAR season and the local season starts in May. My regular weekly column will return around mid April, so see you then.
“Gentlemen, Start Your Engines !!!”
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