As you probably already know, the Superior Speedway recently announced that they will be a NASCAR affiliated track in 2009. Proctor Speedway has countered by suggesting that they might move to Friday nights and go head-to-head with Superior.
I can't believe that Wissota would allow Proctor to go head to head with Superior in an obvious attempt to put them out of business. What are they afraid of? They dominate practically all the racing from eastern Wisconsin to Montana. If they're as successful as they claim to be they should have nothing to fear and just let things play out. If this works for Superior it works, if it doesn't then maybe Superior will return to Wissota. Even if Superior is another sanction it's still good for racing to have both tracks operating in the area.
When it comes to auto racing facilities more tracks is always better. As auto racing enthusiasts the masses think of us all as a bunch of toothless rednecks so we're all in this together. The non-race-fan masses next to these tracks would like nothing better than for the racing community to implode from the inside over our petty differences. Congratulations Twin Ports, you're going to make the non-race-fan neighbors and politicians very happy if you keep bickering among yourselves resulting in the closure of one or both tracks. Once a track is lost to developers it will never come back and that's what's so disturbing about this whole thing.
I have only attended a few IRA shows, a WoO Gumout show and one Late Model special at Superior so I'm observing this madness from a distance. I have been to Proctor twice for a Wissota Sprint special and the Silver 1000. Last season I attended Wissota, Nascar, IMCA, unsanctioned, IRA, WoO, WDRL, Badger Midgets USMTS, USAC Pavement Midgets and a probably a few other sanctions that I'm forgetting. It's all good racing and everyone in the Twin Ports area will be affected if one of OR BOTH of these tracks ends up closing. That's right, I said both, it's going to be a tough economy and Friday night racing isn't necessarily an automatic ticket to success. People have to scramble to go racing after work and Friday crowds are never equal to those at most Saturday night tracks. A Split Friday crowd could backfire and adversely affect both Proctor and Superior.
Both Proctor and Superior are nice tracks with a long tradition. It would be a shame to see Wissota approve Proctor's proposed change to Friday night and end up having it blow up in their face. Personally I support my favorite tracks regardless of their sanctioning affiliation. Maybe down here by the Twin Cities we're a little bit more tolerant of that variety because we've got Cedar, Elko and Raceway (NASCAR) and Arlington (IMCA and one Wissota class) nearby. A short drive south and we're close to USRA Modifieds. When the southeast Minnesota tracks switched their Modifieds to USRA, when Bob Allen became an IMCA supporter and when Cedar Lake switched to NASCAR the sky didn't fall and the sun still came up the next morning.
Stan Meissner
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