By T.J. Buffenbarger
(September 9, 2024) — Saturday night one of the highest profile sprint car races of the weekend held at Port Royal Speedway had eyeballs from around the globe focused on their product during their biggest race of the year, the Tuscarora 50, when the track took rubber early in the finale and created less than stellar racing conditions.
Everyone involved in the situation was disappointed in the situation including the track crew at Port Royal, who more often than not hits it out of the part with one of the most entertaining half mile race tracks to watch sprint car racing on in the country.
It was another reminder of a favorite saying of mine.
“They can’t all be classics.”
Not every race will be a thriller that goes viral on all the social media channels and YouTube. That’s why moments when we see a stellar individual performance from a driver, a thrilling finish, or wild moments throughout a feature event become special. If every race had that kind of spectacular action, then none of them would stand out more than the others.
It’s okay for a race to just be, okay.
Even the best in the business can have a swing and a miss on occasion, and if you want to look on the bright side if you are on the Port Royal staff it’s that people are disappointed because more often than not you’ve done your job so well that people just expect to see incredible racing week in and week out at the Junita County Fairgrounds.
I’ve been to racetracks where conditions like what Port Royal experienced on Saturday was caused due to lack of knowledge or care. I can assure you that Steve O’Neal and his crew do not fall under that category.
Last year I made my first visit to Port Royal for the Tuscarora 50 weekend due to what I saw online week in and week out. Until four or five years ago that event would not have been on a list I wanted to cover. After viewing it online for several years I had to go see in person if the same kind of action translated in person.
The weather was abysmal, yet I saw one of the best races I witnessed in person all last year during the program on Friday. Rain washed out the rest of the weekend, yet I left satisfied because the one day of the event that was contested was good enough to make the entire trip worthwhile. The entire event from the moment I walked in gate until I left late that night was worth the plane ride, hotel, food, and rental car expenses to cover it ten times over.
If you spent your hard-earned money visiting the Port Royal on Saturday, it’s okay to be disappointed. Hopefully you had enough fun with the surrounding event that the finale didn’t put too much of a damper on your visit, but it isn’t a license to be irrationally mean over the situation.
The staff at Port Royal has more than earned a mulligan for what happened Saturday night. While that cache of goodwill they have built up over the years doesn’t completely absolve them from criticism for what happened Saturday, it doesn’t make them deserve the tone I’ve been reading from some on social. Especially the people that were sitting on their couch watching online and didn’t make the trip to see the event in person.
It’s more than fair to say Saturday night at Port Royal missed the mark and was disappointing, but it wouldn’t sway me from making a return visit to the Junita County Fairgrounds for the Tuscarora weekend in 2025.
Notes….
• The track conditions showed another aspect of Rico Abreu’s improvement of a driver in route to victory on Saturday at Port Royal. Abreu was able to manage the race and his tires just long enough to make the 50-lap distance. I’m not sure if Abreu would have won a race in those conditions two or three years ago.
I was just as impressed with a majority of the field managing tires in those conditions to make it to the finish. Even more impressive were a couple of drivers such as Zeb Wise that safely exited the track when having issues late in the main event, not bringing out a caution flag to impact others in the closing stages.
• Danny Sams III continues to impress after his sweep of the Interstate Racing Association weekend at the Jerry Richert Memorial Friday and Saturday at Cedar Lake Speedway.
• Another impressive performance involving the Richert Memorial was Kerry Madsen backing up an incredible tail of the field run up to second place at Cedar Lake Saturday with a 468-mile trip to Eagle Raceway to win the Stuart Alley Memorial on Sunday night.
• Dylan Westbrook continued his winning ways at Ohsweken Speedway 11th feature win of the year at the 3/8-mile oval. Westbrook has only lost one feature event in 2024 at Ohsweken, finishing in fifth position on June 28th, making Westbrook the odds-on favorite going into this weekend’s Northern Sprint Car Nationals on Friday and Saturday, which will be previewed more in depth later this week.
• It is enjoyable to read reaction on social media when the USAC National Sprint Car Series puts on a good race in an area that doesn’t frequently see the series. While the weather on their recent trip to the southwest as far from ideal, Saturday’s three car race for the win at Texarkana 67 Speedway between Brady Bacon, Kyle Cummins, and Kevin Thomas Jr. with Cummings flipping after taking the white flag and Bacon eventually going onto victory brought rave reviews. Hopefully the event was successful enough that fans in that region can try again next year to have two days of USAC racing there.
• Taylor Ferns’ historic victory at Salem Speedway during the Joe James/Pat O’Connor Memorial Saturday night was another chapter in the winding road of her career. Having a front row seat for almost every stage of her career through non-wing pavement racing, winged dirt sprint car racing, a hiatus for college and starting law school, then returning to pavement sprint cars and USAC Silver Crown Racing mixed with the beginning of a stint in Indy NXT, it was fun to see the emotion as she exited the car at Salem on Saturday after her win. After admitting the brake pedal went soft early in the main event made the accomplishment even more impressive.