"Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Well we made it hear about 1:30 this afternoon, and we have everything set up. We got a "warm" welcome here in San Antonio as the temperature was around 93 on our arrival. Weather station report:
93*
Baro 29.36
Humidity 37.9%
AA 2125
DA 3375

It is supposed to be a little cooler the rest of the weekend (89 Sat, 87 Sun). The lows are around 67-68 so it will be nice for a little while in the morning. Testing starts at 5 today. There is a chance of rain tomorrow afternoon, but Sunday is clear. So, if we can't finish tomorrow we should be able to finish up both races Sunday.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Good luck guys!

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

I planned on running the test and tune today. I haven't even left the house yet and its 5pm. Transmission will not go into 4th gear. My string of great luck continues. I think I'm going to close the garage and pretend that car doesn't exist.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Wish we were there! Good luck!

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Good luck all, and hope the weather is good.
Work won this round against me...

Ken

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Well, a pop up shower came out of no where, and it ended the test session. Forecast calls for a 40% chance of rain tomorrow evening. More tomorrow.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Well qualifying is complete after a couple showers in between. Juniors are finishing up now. Weather is looking clear now. John Clegg hurt an engine in the first qualifying session and Ed Carpenter broke something. He should give us an update on his situation later.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Broke a couple gears,slider and a dog so I'm done for the weekend good luck to everyone.

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It's bad enough breaking your trans but your dog to?!! That's a bad weekend! (hey if we didn't laugh we would be crying) Jim


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Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Ed,
I keep thinking about a stick in my Firebird, but then I read about your recent luck... my automatic sounds pretty good.
Seriously, you are due for some good luck. Hope you get it fixed soon.

Ken
Stock 412

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Thanks for the reports, what are the car counts like in Stock and Super Stock?

Bill

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Yesterday, they had 15 cars in stock and 9 in super stock. 2 super stockers broke in qualifying. Track conditions were not very good as always. This is probably a big reason for the low turnout for stock and ss. We won't be attending this race next year.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Disappointing.

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I just don't understand the thinking or the lack there of, as to why IHRA does not require that the San Antonio Raceway management (sic) take a more positive position as to the condition of the racing surface.

I know that IHRA may not have the amount of money that NHRA does, but can't they see that if you don't have a track surface that works for all Classes, that people just won't come back.

If Jimmy and his son do not return to San Antonio, they just cut the field down by 2 Stockers and 1 Super Stocker, and the people that are reading this that have not attended will not even bother to try it.

Very few if not all Stockers had traction problems as more that half the SS field. Especially during the last 2 rounds.

The track at one time was very good, but in the last few 7 or 8 years has gone down hill. Trying to cut corners on track prep with cheaper traction compounds (VP), poor management and legal issues has once again turned a good track with National Event status, down to a pure Bracket Program Track.

R J Sledge



RJ

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

You're too generous RJ. It's clear from their concert posters with pictures of thugs on them and the constant promotion of $10 watch or race nights that is all they are interested in. Trouble is that doesn't pay the bills, and the April report for the bankruptcy shows a $29k loss for the month. They won't be around long. No track at all is better than what it is right now. Anyone who complains about the track just gets told they don't know what they are doing and fed a line of BS about some big tired turbo car and how great it runs there.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Yet the IHRA powers at be at the time elected to keep division 4 over division 5 even towards the end we never had turn outs so poor in division 5. They're bragging all over the place about resigning all of these old/new tracks but not a peep about bringing division 5 back. NEW IHRA OWNERS and president are you listening?

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

IHRA Div 4 never had decent car counts. I don't recall going to one with more than a dozen SS cars. I don't know how the tracks can afford that.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Ed you missed Baton Rouge which always has good turnouts and Memphis usually does as well. We had 43 stockers and around 30 super stockers in Baton Rouge this year. Memphis should have 25 stock and 10-15 ss. The other classes average around 30 cars if I had to guess.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

I went to the Memphis & Baton Rouge races a couple of years ago, along with Red River, San Antonio, Pine Valley, and of course Tulsa. All this the years Tulsa was IHRA. Low car counts at every one I raced.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

Cooter sorry to hear about your problems, I guess Pap gave'em an ear full. You were on a roll.

Baton Rouge was always a good hooking track, " Moose Juice" was the secret along with a large dose of common sense and track people that actually wanted to do the job correctly. I miss those days.....

San Antonio Raceway was and could be great track again, but there would need a change in their thought process. Not everybody runs a set of 32X14's, a 3000 rpm converter with a 1.72 Glide in their car. It would have been great if on Saturday and Sunday to have a 20 minute timeout and re-prep the track for the final two rounds of completion. It would just make common sense to do that. I am not certain, but I believe that the regular track personnel were in charge of track prep for the event. I know that there were only about 18 Stocker and 9 SuperStockers and they do not make up the majority of the racers, but we paid our money and quite a lot of them will not come back ever. As Cooter has said in an early post, Baton Rouge has 4 to 5 times times the amount of S/SS cars show up there as compared to San Antonio Raceway, and hey it not because they don't want to drive a little further, its because of the problems with the lack of track prep at SAR. In my racing life I have never seen a track that has so much potential and still does not understand what needs to be done.

I would be more than happy to have a discussion with the management at SAR and/or IHRA about how little time and expense it would take to make this a great place to race.

I live 45 miles from SAR and drive right by it to go to Houston to test at least once or twice a month. That tell you anything??

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

You cannot test in San Antonio period. On weds and Fri there is no track prep its terrible. We don't waste our time there anymore. I as well tow all the way to Houston to test. It an hour away I hope the race stays because it the closest track to me but it needs to improve.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

I elected not to go to SAR for the simple fact the BS of that track far outweighs the rewards of winning a race. I only get 4 chances a year to race the crate motor car and even that wasn't enough to sway me to drive down there.

In 2012 when they had the sportsman spectacular, I didn't go. I got an email from IHRA asking me why I did not attend that race but I attended the points race. My response was if it wasn't for it being a points race and the next closest race to claim my other 2 races was 12 hours away I wouldn't have attended the points race either.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

I moved my bracket car down there Just before the Nitro Jam in 2011. Wed. test night never got the car to hook. Friday of the Nitro Jam it didn't hook either. IHRA must have taken over prep on Saturday it hooked. I didn't race again Halloween and Thanksgiving race of 2012. It never hooked. Last time out was Nitro Jam 2013 and it hooked again. I had to replace the rear u joint do to all the bad conditions on Friday of the Nitro Jam 2013. I run a 275/60 Hoosier DOT radial on a mid 10 second Falcon. I've never had problems with traction at other tracks. It seems to me they really want the street/ import crowd not racers.

Jeff

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

San Antonio was a great track 10 years ago, and IHRA was at its best, and people still didn't support them. There was one year where there was a decent car count in Stock. Super Stock was always low. I made the trip from Ohio or North Carolina to San Antonio 3 times. If things aren't supported when they're strong, how do they expect them to make a comeback when they're weak? When things are taken for granted, they die off. Same deal in NHRA Div. 1. They've had some incredible independent S/SS events. People didn't bother to support them, and now they're gone.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

100% CORRECT Ed that was the point of my argument with aaron and skooter, but they claimed div 4 racers supported the events better than 5, sure couldn't prove it by the numbers since they had such a foothold in the market div4? they didn't want to lose it as it was ever expanding REALLY? WHERE? I guess we're all still waiting :rolleyes:

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

They must have been thinking about the throttle stop bracket cars.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

IHRA might have been "at its best" 10 years ago, but it wasn't in Texas. I don't even remember if they had it in Louisiana?

You can't blame racers for not coming to a IHRA race in San Antonio when NHRA had a Divisional the same weekend in Houston. The only reason I went to San Antonio is I'm 45 miles away. You cannot expect the racers in the Houston/Louisiana area to come to a IHRA race 400 miles away and miss a NHRA race less than 100 miles away. So don't try and blame the racers.

NHRA always posted their race dates after IHRA and guess what? The San Antonio race was always the same date as a NHRA Div race. NHRA did not want IHRA to gain a foot hold in Texas and played the game to their advantage. Texas/Louisiana is a huge area with great job opportunities available and NHRA realized what was at stake. IHRA dropped the ball and has been playing second fiddle ever since.

I want to see IHRA succeed in San Antonio, but with the complete lack of track prep and maintenance during the race day its not going to happen.

Different mind set by the SAR management or lack of understanding that you could be like Baton Rouge with 75 and 80 car fields in S/SS. That's a lot of money and available to somebody that understands, you need to cater to all racers and not just the 32X14 tire, soft converter, P.G Trans crowd. No offense meant.

SAR has the potential of becoming a great track, but its heading down the road to mediocrity and just about to reach the last exit.

RJ

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

You're right. There was some shockingly bad scheduling. That said, there was one year with no conflicts, and there were still only 44 Stock and 18 Super Stockers.

I think Alex is also right. I think the decision to drop Div. 5 was the turning point that started the downward spiral.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

The very least racers should expect is a decent racing surface. There is nothing worse that a track can do to their customers than having a poorly prepared race track. Good track operators understand this. Racers will overlook bad food, nasty restrooms, less than great pit area, but you give them a sh#%^y track and you WILL lose your racers. Sounds like this race track will be gone by the end of the year.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

I don't know, I think you hang a NHRA flag and they would keep right on mooing in the gate. People been whining about the pit conditions at Houston for as long as I can remember and keep right on going back. I think they would keep going if they were spinning on the track and not just in the pits.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

RJ said :
>Different mind set by the SAR management or lack of understanding that you could be like Baton Rouge with 75 and 80 car fields in S/SS. That's a lot of money and available to somebody that understands, you need to cater to all racers and not just the 32X14 tire, soft converter, P.G Trans crowd. No offense meant.<

IHRA recently lost their great Div 4 track prep Guru, Tommy. (Sorry, I forgot his last name. I'm old) Great guy too.
It seems like many local track prep guys don't realize (or care ) that we race on a different surface than the local bracket cars, as R.J. described above. Bracket racers I talk to don't realize even our torque converters are as much different than what they use. I see them spraying it, and say " there ya go" without dragging it. When I have tried to bracket race here at home, and have trouble spinning the tires, several have told me I need to work on my car, since they don't have any problems.

Same level of prep we see if we rent the track for testing. I can usually make it hook well enough to test, but some local SS cars can't and won't go back there to test. I had better not go to a real race set like that, it would flip over backwards. LOL
When the Div 4 guys show up for the LODRS race it's great.

Guys that have a track they can rent for testing that hooks don't realize how lucky they are.

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

As I elected to skip SAR I also elected to skip the Houston national because the 2013 debacle.

I'm running out of places to race cause they all keep screwing me somewa or another! I have gone back to full time bracket racing, and even my home track pissed me off enough this season(cancelled an event after 13 hours of waiting around and making 2 time trials) I almost didn't return(I will say they made up for it by hosting one hell of a race memorial weekend). I don't make millions, hell I hardly make thousands and work 50 hours a week to race on the weekends! I do this because its life to me and its fun. When organizations don't make it fun I do not want to support them. Problem is, I'm running out of organizations to race with!

Beard, if you and Anthony could just host some races south of the mason Dixon and west of the Mississippi that would be fantastic!

Re: "Live" from the San Antonio Pro Am
 

We appreciate the vote of confidence, but we've generally not seen the kind of car counts necessary out west to support a big money event. We're not independently wealthy, so it's not a risk we can take.

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Tommy Freeman. You're right, great guy, and he had the old section of highway at Little River working fantastic the last couple of years. I never thought I'd have anything good to say about that place, but he really made it work.


San Antonio has had the lids off the septic tanks with stench pouring out of them for years now, right next to concessions. How's THAT for a sh#%^y track!