By T.J. Buffenbarger
Last week I had several people ask me if I was going to the All Star Sprint Car Series program at Butler Motor Speedway. After all the All Stars are a favorite series for us to cover, our readers can’t seem to get enough of them, and Butler is in my home state. People seemed somewhat surprised that my answer was no and wondered why.
The reason is that if the people that run Butler don’t care why should I?
In an industry that often asks for a positive spin from their media, I’m positive that I didn’t regret my decision one bit. That was before hearing about the confusion in running the program, Caleb Armstrong’s injury, and the delay after teams wanted the track watered after poor visibility for the feature. With their past history of not being able to run an organized program why would I never want to start the week of my family vacation with that sort of experience?
While I take what is done here on TJSlideways.com in a professional, work like manner we tend to avoid programs that are not enjoyable to race fans that I consider our target audience. There are several local destinations I’ve eliminated from my schedule over the years because I don’t feel they are entertaining for the paying customer. I consider covering a race to a degree an endorsement on that series and facility and until I see some improvement I don’t feel the need to go to Butler.
My question was why would anyone be surprised by what happened last Saturday? Granted the Armstrong/dust situation was a bit more extreme than most situations, but having disorganization at that facility should surprise nobody.
The worst part for me personally is I can see the potential. There are teams that continue to race there under far than desirable conditions as the only weekly sprint car track in Michigan. What is sad is when I tell people where I’m from and normally is followed by a negative response about Butler, dusty track conditions, or long programs.
The only reason I’m wasting keystrokes on it at this point track conditions that are so bad that professional race teams will not go back on the track is deplorable. In addition, it’s embarrassing to me a resident of this state that one of the biggest sprint car series in the country had to race in such conditions.
Butler has done something I never thought any sprint car series or track could ever do to me.
They made me apathetic to the situation. I don’t have enough fight in me to keep harping on a problem nobody in charge seems to care about. Hopefully the All Stars and the Outlaw someday can visit Tri-City Motor Speedway in Auburn, Michigan so we can give them a different taste of a well-run facility in the Great Lakes State with a great racing surface
Notes:
The ASCS officials and teams were among the easiest we’ve worked with. While I cross paths with many of them throughout the year at non-ASCS events, it was great to see an ASCS National program again for the first time in over a decade for yours truly. The only disappointing aspect was seeing all of those officials and teams pull up to the region for one program after events at Plymouth and Brownstown Speedways were rained out (using the term loosely for Plymouth’s cancelation). With a majorty of the teams making the trek from the Oklahoma, Kansas, and Texas region it had to be an exceptionally painful to only get one of three races in. Hopefully it works out better if the tour returns in 2016.