A letter from America

[Biffo]

A Letter from America - Biffo checks out some U.S.Dirt

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Well as I wrote most of the notes for this in Florida I guess the title still stands, besides I never sent postcards to anyone ....lol.

 

On vacation, as they call it out here, near Fort Lauderdale, I take wife and her mate Shopping but do a deal, we must fit in time for some small oval Stock Car racing.

Already found out on the Internet that the nearest 1/4 mile track from where are is called Hendry County Motorsports Park.

Took a look on their web site and Google Earth to find a 1/4 mile oval smack bang in the middle of nowhere, and a meeting due for Sat.13th Nov. - 7pm start.

" Its only about half an hour up highway 27 from where we`re staying", I`d said, running my finger up the map.

Printed out the map from the net, which had no scale, so that was just my guess.

 

The day arrived so the three of us set out in our Chrysler Town & Country rental motor with plenty of time to spare and soon found highway 27, then headed north.

It was a wide dual carriageway, straight as a die through the flat landscape of Sawgrass swampland, north of the Everglands.

It was just starting to get dark and we drove on, and on, and on.

Then the bugs came out, hitting the windscreen like rain as they splattered, had to keep using the wash/wipe to see where we were going.

If you camp out here and the Alligators dont get you , the bugs will.

Eventually after seeing nothing but bugs, grass and swampland for 45 miles we arrived at South Bay, a small town with a Gas Station.

Time to fill up with fuel , 2.97 dollars (£2) a gallon wasn`t so bad .

Ventured further up highway 27 until we reached the town of Clewiston, then a couple of miles out the other side we could see the track lights in the distance.

Stopped in the car park dead on 7pm and realised my little 30 minute jaunt had been nearer 65 miles and 90 minutes.

 

THE CAR PARK - MAINLY VANS & PICK-UP TRUNKS

 

Parked amongst the vans and pick up trucks of the locals, paid our 15 Dollars each to get in ( £10 ) and climbed onto one of the wooden stands.

Hendry County Motorsports Park is a dirt oval on a clay base surrounded with a concrete safety wall and high catch fence.

All the racing is anti-clockwise and there is an open pit entry / exit on one corner.

Like most of the U.S. small ovals the spectators sit along the start / finish straight and the opposite straight is just a row of advertising boards.

The nearest track we have on ukdirt is Birmingham dirt, if you had more banking on the bends.

Fastest route round was to brake at the end of the straight then get the back end to slide and then power out, going wide, up the next straight so you just miss the wall.

Sounds a bit like Brum to me....

Not many spectators , about 100 - 150 in total.

 

THREE BRITS TRYING TO BLEND IN

 

From 7 to 7.30 they were running lap times for the Main event, the A Final, with each of the 19 finalists doing 3 laps, lap 2 being the timed one.

At 7.30, in the usual U.S. traddition , we were invited to take off our hats and stand for the anthem ( played over the PA ).

Eventually they were ready to run the heats for, Pure Stocks, Street Stocks and Pro Stocks, which to be honest all loooked pretty much the same.

All beefy V8 powered saloons, just technical differences somewhere on board.

The only class that looked any different were the Mini Stocks , these were smaller, basic 4 cyl.saloons and hatchbacks of mainly Japanese origin, refered to as Compacts.

Unfortunately most of the heats were 10 lap affairs with only 6 or 7 cars, so it wasn`t long before my female companions were moaning , is this it, no Bangers ?

 

HEAT WINNERS WITH PIT EXIT ON FAR SIDE

 

Dispite my explanations of the skills invoved in racing on dirt they still weren`t too impressed and went off in search of eats and drinks.

They came back with coffee and Funnel cake, a Florida favourite at race tracks and open air events.

Funnel cake is like a doughnut mixture which is poured into hot fat to form a kind of round brittle pancake then covered in icing sugar.

In this case it was lovingly prepared by a local woman pouring the mixture into the hot fat with one hand whilst holding a cigarette in the other.

Interesting bit of multi tasking except when she`d finished we weren`t sure if it was covered in icing sugar or just fag ash !

 

TIME FOR THE FINALS

 

Eventually it was time to run the finals for each class.

This time there were around a dozen cars involved and raced 15-20 laps , which was a bit more interesting with some close finishes.

Of course as soon as anyone spun out etc. up came the Yellow flag to stop racing and slow down.

Once the offending car or cars got going, off we went again on Green, for the rolling re-start.

So came the last race of the night, the A Final and the 19 qualifiers took to the track, lined up and switched their engines off.

This was to enable the kids to get down on the track and get autographs of their favourite drivers.

I didn`t rush out there but took some more photos while hanging around.

 

AUTOGRAPH HUNTERS

 

After 15 minutes or so the tracks cleared of fans, so we can start.

The commentator says in his Southern dawl, "OK folks all together now", and everyone shouts out, "Gentleman start your engines", and they did.

Time for some real action, dust and noise, I thought. - Well yes and no.

As soon as anything happens out comes that damn Yellow flag.

Two more things of some interest happen when the Yellow flag is shown.

Firstly a car will dissappear off to the pits, for whatever reason and reappear later.

Coupled with the fact that there are no fin numbers, just those on the doors, it must be a lap scorers nightmare to keep track of 19 cars.

Secondly there is a guy wearing headphones who opens a gate in the safety fence and jumps down onto the track.

Bearing in mind even under Yellows the cars are doing 35 plus mph , this seems not to be a good idea.

So then he jumps forward into the middle of the track with cars passing him on both sides and starts pointing at certain drivers to tell them that they are out of position and to get forward or back.

When he`s got them sorted he jumps back through the gate and out of harms way so they can re-start on Green.

 

MORE A FINALISTS

 

This goes on for some time , a couple of laps done then out come the Yellows, man prances around in the traffic pointing and jumps back again, spun car re-joins the pack or just bogs off to the pits and may come back out later or may not.

As they didn`t count the laps on Yellow the 30 lap race must have gone to 50 at least.

My lady companions were now standing near the exit for a swift getaway so I joined them and stood next to the official with the headphones who`s job it was to do the Dance of Death during the Yellows.

He was telling me that this was the last race of their season and the winner would get 2000 Dollars.

He`d just had to tell his best friend to get the the back of the field and was none too pleased with the idea.

Just then a large angry woman came up to him and says," Thats bull* man, 90 was overtaken on the Yellows, thats bull* man and you know it ! ".

He made a good impression of being both deaf and blind and ignored her `til she went away.

He explained that she was the wife of the driver in car 90 .

 

THIS IS THEIR SEASONS TOP POINTS SCORER FINISHING A BIT HOT AND BOTHERED

 

Having got rid of one angry wife he was presented with another one, mine.

"The racings far better back in England", she told him, "Much more exciting than this".

Now he looked a bit dejected and tried to explain the skill of driving on dirt , of course he was just wasting this breath.

I asked him how many more laps, and he replied three.

Lucky, they were without a Yellow flag and we had a winner, dont ask me who though.

Time now to exit and enjoy the long drive back.

 

Well I enjoyed the racing overall, but we wont be going back there, at least thats what I`ve been told..........

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Robwoollhouse]

brilliant

 

[xTx]

Great write up, thanks for it, sometimes we forget how lucky we are to have such an exciting sport as uk banger racing to enjoy!

[bobbert325]

Quality read and write up Mr B. Thanks for taking the time and effort to post it up and share it with us gd sir.