Lebanon Valley Flooded

[Dave Steltz]

Ok fans here is some first hand info...I drove up tonight and walked the grounds, and took some photos for myself, and I spoke with Howard for about 15-20 minutes..

First let me tell you, unless you have been there, or experienced a real flood first hand, you cannot imagine the damage that water can do....there was alot of damage done and no one shoudd think that it just got "wet"...

Now for the good news...the track is CLEAN and the return road is CLEAN and the staging lanes are about 85% cleaned up...I am truly amazed how good it looks for what it must have been..From what I understand they are going to try to get street night in on wednesday and that will give us a good gauge of what the track is like, but I gotta tell you if you didnt see the rest of the facility you wouldnt really know that it was flooded...Steve and some guys were working on finishing up the clocks, lights, etc, and the score boards were lit up and the lights were working at the starting line...

Some of the paved pit areas are starting to clean up, there must have been what looked like 6 inches of mud on it at one time, and they are going to start in the morning sweeping up and then washing down the pavement...

I gotta tell ya, unless something crazy happens, it looks like this weekend will happen...If what I saw tonight is any gauge of the rest of the week, we will be racing on a great track once again this weekend...
I am planning on showing up on Friday afternoon for the Night of Fire, and lets all hope that the rest of the cleanup goes well...

A HUGE THANKS TO HOWARD AND CREW, FOR WORKING THEIR BUTTS OFF GETTING OUR TRACK FIXED UP... I cant say enough, but I made sure I thank Howard tonight when I saw him...
Please if you are a LVD racer stop up and do the same....

[RayStantonJr]

Hi guys,i read the last 2 posts.mike your concerns make sense,dave thanks for your trip to the valley and the update.i have been driving past every night after working on my car and daughters dragsters with nick graham at his shop,the dragsters are drying out nice and we are going through them front to back. We are planning on taking heather's top dragster fri. I don't know how everyone feels but taking in all.... What has happened in a week,, an 1/8th mile competition for super and pro would not be a bad idea for fri. We would get the first half ready for sat/sun it would be safer,faster show and the fans would still see great racing( all the stands end at the 1/8th anyway).even when the track is great we still get the dew after sunset ,,,just a thought.......i want to thank howard also he is a great person and quit is not in his vocabulary. Ed moran thanks again for pulling my trailers out . Ray stanton

[Michael Galofaro]

Listen not to sound like a dick - but street night is not going to tell us anything on how the track is going to be. Someone going 11.20 can drive over bumps and even pavement that has shifted and not even know it. Hit it at 200 ++ and you are going for a ride !!

He should just postpone the event and run a regular bracket program and then see how the track is with 7,8,9 and 10 sec cars. It's fine and dandy that they are busting their balls to get the track back to normal - BUT it should be for the correct reasons and made sure everything is correct and not just to have the "show".

I could be wrong and maybe overly cautious - but it's my *** in the seat and my wallet if something crazy did happen. I'll look foward to hearing how it was.

[ScottHall]

Wayne and I talked last night about the Friday Night show.
Originally the track wanted 8 of the fastest cars we could get to show up.
Last weekend we had planned on making plans and talking to Top Dragster racers and getting 10 or cars up there friday night.
Wayne spoke with Howard and let him know that himself, and others, including myself, will not be attending.
Between not giving guys enough time to plan, and the questions that no one can answer about the track conditions in race mode, we don't feel it right to bring in racers to even run 1/8th mile, if the conditions are not perfect.
We have no doubts about Howard and Steves ability to have the place up and running. But this economy has caused many of us to have a little more "thoughtfulness" about how bad we really want to race sometimes.
Our intentions originally where to gave a group of cars that would run from 6.50's to low 7.1's in a 8 car field. Running 4.20's at 165 mph is just as hairy on a decent track that has lots of time on it.
Wayne and I have been behind LVD all year, and are in the process of resceduling the final weekend of Top Dragster so we can finish of the season correctly.
I would hope that anyone would understand our decision to wait it out and give LVD a few events to get everything back to normal.
I'm sure that the track will still have room for anyone who still wants to run fast on friday night, and advise you to call the track and get information concerning this.
The LVD Top Dragster Series will be announcing the make up weekend as soon as we can find a date that works.

-Scott Hall