BobMiller

Due to a soggy forecast, the 360 Spring Nationals and ESS season opener has been deep sixed.

A Fonda topic without a problem? Now there's an oxymoron if there ever was one.

And the problem with the berm around the bottom is that it holds water against it and drivers can't stay away from that either.

Nobody has said anything about this on DTD, so I will. Eldon Payne... In the front half of the modified race, Eldon was absolutely the fastest car on the track. And I'll bet I'm not the only one who stood there in complete shock when he not only took second place, but then proceeded to pull within a few car lengths of leader Steve Paine. Steve was able to clear lapped traffic much easier than Eldon and was able to put some distance back between them again. Eldon continued to struggle with lapped traffic the remainder of the event and ended up finishing 5th - still a respectable finish for anyone. Call me impressed.

Ma and I got to the track at 11:30. The first thing I saw when walking in front of the covered grandstands to head up to the roof was a deep puddle of water at the bottom of turn 1 against the infield. Tyler was just getting to that location with a backhoe. I stopped to watch a minute while he used the front bucket to pull that water back into the infield. That puddle was almost knee deep, a good 15 to 20 feet in length and definitely had to go. He had to work at it a while, but he made it disappear. I would have to assume that its origin was the result of rain because I've never seen it like that from routine watering. I am going to pay more attention to this, but I think I noticed something Saturday. Outlaw didn't seem to take rubber with all those laps like I expected it to. I got wondering if American Racers don't do that as well as Hoosiers.

I must be all f@#$ed up. I was there. I stood on the roof from roughly 12:00pm until the final victory lane interview was done. The dust was in my face the entire day. I am STILL picking concrete eye boogers out of my eyes from all the dust I ingested, but I'm not complaining. I finally got to see my first stock car race of the season - after a 5 month layoff, and I would GLADLY go through the same conditions again than to go another month being cooped up in the house with cabin fever. Yep... I was happy to be there. Even after I spent the whole day yesterday in front of the wood stove thawing out. But I started my 2019 racing season.... Yes it was brutal dusty. No, the track conditions weren't ideal. But anyone who goes to Dundee more than an event or two per season also knows that the track conditions on regular Friday nights are nowhere near what we had last weekend. And you also know they won't be like that again this coming weekend. This is the thing that kills me. When the racing conditions are perfect, hardly anyone speaks a word. But holy shit, when the conditions are bad? They just can't wait to pile on and beat the place up.

In hind sight, the show went pretty much as I expected. There were points where the dust was ferocious, but it must be that you can see better on the track than in the stands because there weren't any monster wrecks. Just my opinion, but if Alan Johnson had started in the top 10, or if the single caution on lap 61 of 70 had happened ten laps sooner, the outcome likely would have been different. Steve Paine won, but AJ started dead ass last and had to pass every car but one to finish second. If you stayed to watch the Street Stock 100, you'll probably agree that the 60 or 70 lap battle for the lead between Dylan Cecce and Glenn Writenour was the best street stock racing you've ever seen... ever.

I'll definitely agree that nobody knows their cars more intimately than Matt does. I've been to his shop a few times over the years and it's amazing how clean and orderly he keeps it. Each of the cars up on stands in various stages of assembly, shop floor without a speck of dust, not a drop of oil on the floor under any car either.

I wish I had scanned it when I saw it, but ealier just this week I saw in an old DIRT Trackin' magazine where DIRT decided to start counting cautions on series events, but no caution single caution would ever count more than 3 laps. Maybe they should revert back to this?

All I am saying is that missing one show should no longer be an automatic disqualifier.

How do you figure that? Just a couple of years ago Matt Sheppard earned no points for 3 consecutive shows and still won the title. Missing one show should be easy to make back up.

Also correct...

Just taking an educated guess here, but Danny is driving the second Tyler Siri car at Dundee this season. And with Dundee running the makeup Dutch Hoag Open from last year, he will probably be there.

Just wondering... do you know who hotlapped the car this past Sunday?

Remember you said this tomorrow when Carmen fits you into the back of the ambulance.