Opening night

The above video clip was taken at the Cedar Lake Speedway opener on April 8, 2008.  As opening nights go this was a warm one as you can see by the way people in the pit area are dressed.  Opening night weather can be unpredictable from year to year.  Some years openers don't take place as scheduled due to lingering snow and cold.  Other years as illustrated in the above video clip the weather can be almost summer like.

Note: This 2005 video was taken with my old standard resolution camera. I have since upgraded to an HD camera so that future video posts will be of much better quality. My videos are for illustration on this blog only and are not meant for resale. See your local track videographer for high quality videos of racing events. My favorites that I highly recommend are Meeks Video and Frypan Productions.

So far this early spring (I'm writing this post on March 16) we have been in a cold and snowy pattern with more snow storms in the forecast and no significant warmup in sight.  With openers scheduled as early as the weekend of April 5-6 we need some warm weather to melt all the snow if the races are to take place as scheduled.  I won't go out on a limb and predict when the openers will actually happen this year but as you read this post and look through the photos you'll see a variety of dates and weather conditions at the past openers.  I trust that you'll enjoy this trip down memory lane.

Looking through my records I verified that I attended opening night racing at CLS in 2001, 2002, 2003 (both nights), 2004, 2005 (both nights), 2006 (both nights), 2007, 2008, 2009 (both nights), and 2012.  the 2008 Cedar Lake opener did not take place until School Bus night on May 17.  Conversely last year the 2012 opener was run on April 6 and as noted by announcer Chris Stepan was the earliest opening night in the history of the track.

Opening night isn't always easy on equipment as seen in this 2001 photo

If you look at the background in these next two photos you will see that the trees have barely sprouted leaves.  Where I live we have clay under a few inches of black dirt and there have been many years that the opener was in the books before my yard dried up enough to walk around and pick up the sticks that had fallen over the winter.  I recall some years when the tracks had to move snow to hasten melting so that the show could go on as scheduled.  

The leafs are just starting to appear on the trees and fans are prepared for dropping temperatures after the sun goes down as Craig Thatcher motors past at them at the 2003 CLS opener.

Buzzy Adams at the 2003 CLS opener back in his Super Stock days

Troy Springborn showed up at the 2004 Cedar Lake opener with sharp looking ride that had obviously been groomed and tweaked in the shop in preparation for the big night.  Unfortunately things did not go as planned and all that hard work was negated by a turn one flip.  Ashley was not injured but many long hours of work went wheels up that night.

Troy Springborn motors down the backstretch on April 9, 2004

Unfortunately things did not go as planned.  No drivers were injured in the making of this photo

Everyone is anxious for the opener to get here.  Racers, fans, track workers, and of course the photographers, videographers and writers.  Track conditions can be unpredictable but most years the racing has been close and exciting on opening night.  

Everyone looks forward to opening night including the photographers at CLS 2005

Opening night action CLS 2005

Photographers get their first chance to try new angles and lenses as this 2006 CLS opener pic of Bryan Sierks illustrates

This 2006 opener photo of Jason Miller is dedicated to those of you who leave the left front at home.  Everyone brings fresh equipment to the opener.  Some leave with the loot, others with a flatbed full of scrap

If you know me you're probably wondering why all the Late Models and Modifieds in this post but no mention of Sprint Cars to this point.  Easy answer.  Sprint Cars and record setting early openers aren't a good mix on account of the unpredictability of early April racing surfaces and their affect on the light weight machines.  Sprint Car fans are used to waiting a few weeks longer for their fix than the Late Model and Modified fans.  One of the earliest Sprint Car races I could find a record of attending in my archives was contested at the Kopellah Speedway (now Saint Croix Valley Raceway) on April 27, 2007.  This race took place prior to the formation of the UMSS but the appearance of 360 Sprints on the little bullring just north of highway 8 foreshadowed bigger things for the track and the 360 Sprints in the future.  The Saint Croix Valley Raceway will open their 2013 season on Friday April 26, 2013, with the UMSS 360 Sprint Cars as the headliner.  The next day the winged warriors will tow a half hour down the road to Cedar Lake for a Saturday April 27 date resulting in two nights of racing that is sure to attract some visiting teams.  This race weekend takes place six years almost to the day since the race depicted below.

Kevin Nickle (10) and Jerry Richert Jr. (62) April 27, 2007

We struggled with a stretch of wet, cool weather in the early spring of 2008.  In fact we experienced so many rainouts that spring that the Cedar Lake opener did not take place until May 17.  I'm not sure if that was a record late date for our modern era.  Years ago tracks didn't used to open until May so there are most likely some later openers in Cedar Lake's history.  If there are any Cedar Lake historians out there that know what date their openers were scheduled in the 60's, 70's and 80's you can visit my gotomn.com website and use the email link to contact me, leave a comment here on the blog or message me on Facebook.  I'll share your story here in my next blog post and give you a tip of the hat.

The weather wouldn't allow the 2008 CLS opener to take place until School Bus night on May 17

Brent Larson enjoyed the May 17, 2008, Cedar Lake opener

Friends remembered Dave "Navy Davy" Trautmiller at the 2009 Cedar Lake opener (April 18, 2009)

Tony Schill pitching it into turn three at the April 18, 2009, CLS opener

Flyin' Ryan Olson at the April 6, 2012 Cedar Lake opener (earliest in the history of the track)

Ryan Olson celebrates his historic earliest opening night win on April 6, 2012

As I wrap up this post I'm checking the extended 25 day outlook on accuweather.com.  Though never 100% accurate long range forecasts tend to be pretty close on what kind of a pattern we'll be in.  At this point they're showing highs around 20 for the first few days next week gradually warming into the low to mid 40's the following week with lows still in the teens and 20's.  I don't see anything above 50 until April 7 but again this is an advance forecast and things can change.  Keep in mind though that the weather has to warm up sufficiently to melt the snow, dry the grounds, and provide fans with a reasonably comfortable experience after the sun goes down.  Precipitation is another subject altogether, I hate to see races rained out but as someone that prices agricultural rail shippers for a living I'm in touch with drought conditions and I'll take all the rain we can get.  Hopefully if we do have a wet spring it will take place during the week and won't affect the racing.  May you all experience an early and enjoyable opener at your favorite track wherever that may be.

Racing notes:  

Tim Kaeding returned from down under driving the Krikke Sprint Car in Australia to score a World of Outlaws victory at California's Tulare Thunderbowl.  The Krikke car was the ride that Aussie transplant and current Minnesota resident Brooke Tatnell found succes with in the past.  Kaeding is a past Cedar Lake World of Outlaws and Rice Lake IRA winner.  Kyle Busch and Kasey Kahn put themselves in the front row for the Bristol NASCAR race on Sunday March 17. 

See you at the races!

Thoughts on February racing down in Florida

Before we get into the racing I just wanted to mention that I received some feedback about a problem with the formatting of this blog when viewing in MSIE.  I made an adjustment on the template and tested it in Internet Explorer and it looked good after the fix.  FYI, this blog is provided by a third party (Blogger) and is not a part of my gotomn domain.  I have the capability of creating a blog in house on the gotomn.com website as a Wordpress page but there would be a learning curve so that along with diving head first into Linux will be a retirement project.  If you remember my podcast page, Midwest Racing Talk, that site was created with podcasting software that works on the same principle as Wordpress only on a more limited scale.  For the time being I'm going to leave gotomn as is and continue to use Blogger.  I run four browsers on my system for testing purposes, MSIE, Firefox, Google Chrome and Opera.  Going forward I will be sure to test any template changes in advance to ensure that they're compatible with those four browsers.

Speaking of feedback, you can leave comments about my blog posts on this blog, in fact I encourage you to do so.   In addition to leaving feedback here on the blog you can email me at mndirt@hotmail.com with comments, questions, feedback or whatever is on your mind.  Your feedback positive (or negative if you think I've got it coming) is greatly appreciated.

I am not a NASCAR authority and in fact admit to only being a casual fan of pavement Stock Car racing.  Mostly I tune into NASCAR to follow the progress of the drivers who got their start on the dirt.  My casual interest in NASCAR dates back to when I was a kid and my dad used to follow NASCAR racing.  NASCAR television coverage dates back to at least 1960 but the first flag to flag race coverage did not take place until 1979.  I remember watching those early race segments with him but the details are fuzzy now that over 50 years have passed.

My wife and I got hooked up to cable back in 1985 when we were living in Saint Paul and have had either satellite or cable ever since. I was a fan of the old Speed Thunder broadcasts and watched quite a bit of NASCAR in those days while we were busy raising a young family.  During my tenure as a racing reporter and photographer I got some up close and personal exposure to NASCAR and some of the top level drivers.  I even had the opportunity to interview a couple of NASCAR drivers back in 2003 so as you can see it's impossible to be working around the dirt tracks and not get some exposure to NASCAR stars.

Up close and personal with Dale Earnhardt Jr.  We were so close during this press conference that I had to back up to get Dale in the shot.  Now that's close.

Another close encounter with a NASCAR driver in 2006

Racing fans live for the rush of being up close to the action, but nobody wants to be a part of the action.  Unless you're living in a cave you know that Kyle Larson got into a huge wreck during the last lap of the Daytona Nationwide race and parts of his car ended up in the stands.  As of Friday reports are that two fans are still hospitalized and one issued a statement thanking the other fans for coming to his aid and stating that he would not be alive if it were not for their actions.  A day or so after the accident reports said that some of the injured fans were talking to lawyers about a possible lawsuit and message boards lit up condemning them.  As I pointed out in a couple of the threads, I'll reserve judgment without having all of the facts.  Some fans suggested that these were frivolous suits due to scratches and bruises and that any fans involved should be banned from all race tracks for life.  My observation is that anytime the EMT's spend well over an hour stabilizing the injured before moving them that tells you the injuries are more serious than scratches and bruises.  If you saw the images of Larson's tire, wheel and brake assembly that made it up to the ninth row it's easy to imagine it doing more damage than scratches and bruises.  How will the accident affect their quality of life going forward, are there going to be long term health problems requiring surgeries?  Was there disfigurement involved?  Will their injuries affect their ability to make a living?  This situation will no doubt play out behind the scenes and most likely drag on for several years.  I'm not going to pass judgement on the deal but I hope that everyone is treated fairly and things work out for the best for all involved.  

I took this shot in 2005 at Kansas Speedway.  Fans like being close to the action but nobody wants to be a part of it.

NASCAR has some issues to resolve on the two Super Speedways.  Most articles I'm reading suggest that the accident was made more severe by the car hitting a crossover gate and that the tire went through, not over the fence.  These are incidental details with the big question still being, "can these cars compromise the integrity of the catch fence?"  Based on what I have observed the answer is yes they can under certain circumstances.  Accidents could be replicated over and over and are going to produce different results every time.  Most of the time the results are going to be predictable but just like in football an ugly bounce can produce unexpected results.  One time when I was around 10 years old I went out to Cedar Lake with my dad and the Wilke clan.  We were sitting on the backstretch near where the pit grandstand and concession are located today.  I remember there being a spot where there was little or no fencing and a berm around the track.  There was a big tree up close to the track and races used to go very late out there, often until one or two in the morning.  I got tired and leaned up against the tree and fell asleep.  During one of the Jalopy races a car lost a wheel and tire.  The tire climbed the bank, flew up in the air, and bounced off the tree inches from my head and rolled back onto the track.  If that tire had hit me I probably wouldn't be here today.  Fortunately tracks are much safer today but anytime you're dealing with that much speed and the possibility of crashes and mechanical failure the unexpected can happen.  Today when I'm down in the infield I follow the advice of a fellow photographer and "go for the protection".  You'll see me hang back during the Features and concentrate on wide angle shots with that in mind. 

The other big topic down in Florida was Danica starting on the front row and leading the race.  Man, there sure seems to be a lot of Danica haters judging by posts on the message boards and Facebook.  It seems to me that a lot of NASCAR fans are totally ignoring her accomplishments in Indy Car racing.  True, she wasn't a dominant driver in Indy Cars but she led the Indy 500 and finished 3rd in that race, led Daytona and finished 8th and won an Indy Car race in Japan.  In addition to her accomplishments on the track.  There are two things that Danica brings to the sport that admittedly exceed her on track success to date.  One is sponsor dollars, Danica is a sponsor magnet and she brings money to the race teams she is associated with.  Second, according to one article I read the 2013 Daytona 500 boasted a 30% increase in viewers.  Danica draws viewers to the sport and more specifically female viewers.  To put things in perspective, my wife watched some of the Daytona 500 to see how Danica was doing and I don't think she has ever paid attention to a NASCAR race.  I think that pretty much says it all.  Danica is good for the sport, she is a good driver, she brings money and generates interest.  She'll have some good runs and maybe some not so good runs.  Will she make the chase or win a race this season?  That remains to be seen but every driver in the field has up and down weeks and seasons.  She is a good driver who will do good things for the sport and she deserves to be there.  

I listened to some of the dirt track racing from Florida but I'll admit to not paying very close attention.  Unlike NASCAR where I can watch unlimited television coverage as part of my cable lineup dirt track racing broadcasts during the past few years have been pretty much exclusively an online viewing experience.  There are a host of PPV internet video feeds to choose from but none of them offer ease of operation with my current TV setup.  Either I watch racing in my office on a 17" monitor or on my wife's clunky old laptop.  We have high speed internet and have two HDTV's that we can get online with.  The older one accesses the internet through a Nintendo Wii and the newer one through an internet capable Blue Ray player.  The picture is good through the Wii and superb through the Blue Ray.  Unfortunately none of these PPV racing internet broadcasts have seen fit to offer streaming through those devices and likely never will on account of the expense of licensing for those devices.  The alternative would be to purchase a new laptop with an HDMI output and stream the laptop through the television.  I'm not going to buy a new $600 laptop to watch dirt track racing on television a couple nights a year.  By my way of thinking dirt track racing is something to be experienced on a nice summer evening out in the fresh air with friends and family.  Dirt track racing is a total sensory experience, not something I think of sitting on the couch and watching on television.  Not to mention the charges I'd run up on my credit card every weekend watching streaming races.  I'm trying to pay those charges down, not increase them.  Like I said, this is just my way of thinking based on my personal preferences and TV setup but I will admit to having paid to watch the Prelude on HBO.  If something like that was available all the time I might watch a few more televised dirt track races.

As far as Florida results go I check the box scores the next day on the racing news sites and watch highlight clips on YouTube.  I don't get too excited about the Florida season openers, especially with a series like the World of Outlaws where they race 100 times per season.  We know who the fast guys are going to be from year to year and Florida isn't always indicative of who's going to win the title.  For somebody like me who thinks of racing as a hands on experience Florida is mostly out of sight, out of mind.  

Our local season is kicking off in less than a week with Cedar Lake's Sasquatch Indoor Midget Nationals.  I had the privilege of taking photos both nights at Cedar Lake's last indoor Midget race back in 2008 at what was then known as the Sandbox Arena.  It is my understanding that more seating has been added to the newly christened Cedar Lake arena and they have beefed up the ventilation.  Aside from the problems with air quality back in 2008 the racing was awesome.  One Heat race I remember in particular was one of the best Midget races I have ever seen.  If the racing is anything like that this should be a great show and I give it two  thumbs up.  Unfortunately I will miss this event.  It's going to be tough to sit this one out because I would like nothing better than to be a part of local racing history.  I wish CLS a safe and successful debut of their newly remodeled facility. 

Dave Darland at the Sandbox 2008.  Action will be close and exciting at the CLS Arena and I encourage local racing fans to attend.

I'm still making adjustments to my 2013 schedule and I'm looking for a deal so that I can add a few more Saturday night dates.  Whenever I attend a race I plan on writing about it here in the blog, illustrating the article with photos and video clips and making all of the photos available to the track.  True, this isn't a high profile website as far as racing sites go but I'm approaching this season on the assumption that if my writing and photography got me a 14 year gig with a racing paper and the opportunity to write full feature length articles for a magazine I must have been doing something right.  There are a couple of possibilities but I want to cover some races here on the blog first so I have something to point to as an example.  If nothing pans out with the Saturday night racing I'll probably dig a little deeper into the Street Rod schedules and attend a few more of those shows.  I've got a few Saturday night races that I don't want to miss at any cost but I haven't figured out how I'm going to approach a pay to work situation.  I'll have to get my hands on some phone numbers and make a few calls to see where things stand.  I've got a lot of years invested in covering racing so now we're going to put my track record to the test and see if all that work and expense was appreciated. 

I had to sign up for two single days of vacation to complete my 2013 preferences on the roster so I chose Friday April 19, the night of the Jackson Spring Sprint Car special and Friday August 2nd, the Friday of the USA Nationals.  Jackson would cost around $70 in gas and another $70 for a motel (too old for those all  night drives) and April will be upon us soon so I'm not sure if I'll be able to make that one.  The USA Nationals comes with a big price tag as well depending on my status so we'll have to see how things look when August rolls around.

I want to thank Jim Morrison with Hawkeye Racing News for accepting my offer to contribute photos on a reduced schedule.  I'll be sending exclusive photos with captions to Hawkeye from all of the races that I attend.  Likewise thanks to GRP Motorsports and Ron Bernhagen of the Saint Croix Valley Raceway for helping to make my limited 2013 racing schedule possible.  Without your assistance I would not be able to continue to do this.  I mentioned something in a previous post about shooting for race teams but haven't given that idea much thought since then.  We'll see how things work out and plan from there.  Wish me luck, it looks like I'm going to need it. 

See you in April!!!