A fun time at MIR
 

They have really been working on that facility since I was there in 99. Great weather and a very accommodating group of officials.

A lot of NHRA racers were there enjoying the weekend as well. The starting line was a little tricky for the stick cars on Friday but it was in much better shape Saturday morning for eliminations.

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Thanks for coming, y'all! Nice to meet a few new folks, too.

Class Eliminations were great. I believe I heard Bob Unk say it was the best session of Stock Class he's seen in a long time.

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Unk did a hell of a job announcing. The first round of Stock was pretty cool. I managed to bend a couple of front wheels and a broken wheelie bar. Getting fixed right now. Royce has a really nice operation, and as a racer himself, knows the deal all together.

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It was our first time at MIR, it's a very nice facility and we had a great time. We'll definately go back in the future. I hope next time we go though they get rid of the bathroom attendants, that was by far the most quirky thing I have seen at a track. It's a little irritating to pay $70 to get through the gate, then be expected to leave unnessesary bathroom attendants a tip for turning on the sink and giving you a paper towel. In my opinion the bathrooms were not as clean as they could have been, or should have been with an attendant being in there all day. One of the gentlemen in the mens bathroom started harrasing our car owner for only giving him a $1 tip. He told him to give him a five!!! I was scared to go in the bathroom out of fear they'd harrass me too.

But enough of my whining, it was a very nice track that we look forward to going to next year.

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I will second Angela's motion regarding the attendants.

I did see a sign indicating MIR will have new restroom facilities for 2008.

Re: A fun time at MIR
 

Angela,

You will find bathroom attendants at other tracks as well. I did not have the same experience with the attendants.

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Well the 20 plus that I have been to in my drag racing life have not. What other tracks have bathroom attendants? In fact, I have never been anywhere in my 29 plus years of life that someone has turned the sink on for me and handed me a towel.

Re: A fun time at MIR
 

Norwalk.

Although in the dozens of times I have raced there, we have never been solicited for a tip.

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I've was at Norwalk last year and my husband raced there for years before moving to NC. The difference is the bathrooms there were spotless, the people were doing their job as janitors keeping the place clean and stocked, and like you said, no they were not begging for a tip. They got out of your way and did their job. They did not jump in front of you and turn on the sink and hand you a towel then give you that expecting look, which would then be followed with a hateful look if you bypassed their tip basket.

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Angela,
Buy my trailer and you won't have to worry about the bathroom attendents ever again.

I enjoyed MIR as always. My only problem is parking. There was a lot of wasted room there and they packed us like sardines.
Chip

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Buy your trailer? You just bought that trailer!! Going to buy a toter home like I told you to, eh?

Where we were parked was nice - last spot in the corner. Had privacy and wasn't smushed in with anyone, they could have technically fit another trailer beside us but they didn't. BUT as nice as this spot was, we were told that young men were hanging out around the back of our trailer, and had came out of the woods behind us. I suspect they walked through the woods and came to the track, not paying. When we went to leave Saturday night we noticed some young guys hanging out looking suspicious. So I called the track and reported this and they assured me they'd have security patrol the area. That made me feel a lot better, my $160 grill was in the back of the truck, and it was still there the next morning.

Somehow though, as much privacy as we had, word spread real quick that Tim Sloan was in our pit Friday morning. Where is my confused smiley face at??

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MIR is one of the worse for theft.
A couple years back someone stole the winshield moldings of Mike Petries car during broad daylight.
Chip

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'Attendants' at Norwalk are actually Norwalk staff. A number of 'big' tracks will employ the kind of bathroom attendants that Angela is talking about for their bigger spectator shows. Those attendants supposedly work solely for tips and are not paid by the tracks.

I've run into it at Maple Grove and Englishtown, but there are very few IHRA tracks that operate that way. MIR is one.

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If you go to Atco, Maple Grove, Englishtown, or any race in D1 there will be an attendant in the bathroom.
I just ignore them, that's the easiest thing to do.

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i love MIR. just ignore the attendents, i think that is a joke.
i do have a question, in the semi's of stock, there was a red mopar that backfired through the scoop, i looked in the scoop and said ok. spin it over, no fire... you looked a little worried, hope you won that round, who was this? and a black mustang stocker barley made it off the track, everything ok?

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Hey Keith!
That was me that backfired. Thanks for checking everything out for me!!! No, I didn't win that round. Lost to Craig Marshall, I couldn't run my dial-in ran a 11.17 off of 11.14. Thanks again for checking on me!
Jamie Southards

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damn, tuff round. sucks when something like that happens, all straped in the car and no one around! been there before...

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I would like to put MIR on the schedule for next year. One question, are there hotels close by? That is one issue we have with not having a motorhome/trailer with LQ. We have family an hour north of the track but......
Now the question is do we go in the spring for the divisional or in the fall for the national??? Seems the spring gets a lot of rain. After a 10 hour tow, I dont want to sit around in the rain. Although there is always beer to be drunk.....hmmm!!!

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We stayed in California Maryland which was 25 miles from the track, or 30 minutes. We stayed in a Super 8 but there was a Sleep Inn about 3 or 4 miles up the road, closer to the track. The Super 8 was ok, the room was clean and it wasn't in a "bad part of town". It wasn't my favorite hotel we've stayed it, but it wasn't the worst either.

There was stuff in Waldorf and La Plata too - which is the on the other side of the track from where we were - but they were more expensive and they did not accept pets.

From memory it seemed everything was 15-25 miles away from the track through

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>> there was a red mopar that backfired through the scoop

ah-HA! Wayne County tuning! So that's how she's going so fast! ;) j/k Congrats on another really strong weekend, Jamie!

Tricky weekend for dialing... Terry and Myron didn't cover 3rd round either.

What'd you do Keith? Didn't get to do more than wave when you went by on the golf cart. You still tinkering with the Stocker idea?

Re: A fun time at MIR
 

Chip,

Theft is a problem at most of the tracks.

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Man! You need to race with us more often. MIR and Jackson (if there's a Thunder Jam show) are the only ones I worry about.

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I was parked on the same row you were Angela and saw those same 4 suspicious guys just hanging around near the edge of the woods for about 15 minutes. Not long after they left two cops were eating dinner on a golf cart near the back of my trailer and I told them about the guys...they said they would come back and check on things every now and then. There have been numerous stories of theft at MIR especially on the spectator side.

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got hosed in the semi's, seems funny some cars need 3 burnouts! oh well, that's life. i have not done much with the dodge, won street in it at capitol couple of weeks ago, gave me the $ to get to MIR. go figure...

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>> seems funny some cars need 3 burnouts!

Seems to be an ongoing problem at MIR. A Nitro Funny Car almost lost it on the burnout, as reported on CompetitionPlus.com: "KING'S WILD BURNOUT- Mitch King raised a few eyebrows and probably the blood pressure of some of the starting line workers during his burnout early Saturday afternoon. One of the rear tire's on King's Corvette Funny Car grabbed the pavement instead of smoking the tires after rolling through the water box and the car quickly turned sideways, going up on two wheels before he gathered it back in and regained control.

"I was told they didn't squirt enough water down," said King. "One tire was dry and one tire was wet. Luckily I caught it pretty quick and didn't hit Paul (Smith, crew chief) or we'd all of been in big trouble. It was pretty hairy from where I was at and I asked them on the radio if they wanted me to back up and do another burnout and they said 'no just go'."


Randall Cantrell broke an axle in the burnout box, first round of the SSS runoffs. There were a lot of guys having trouble in the burnout box this weekend.

>> i have not done much with the dodge, won street in it at capitol couple of weeks ago, gave me the $ to get to MIR. go figure...

Well, cool! Good job!

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Great! And to think someone else may have been driving this hooptie........... ;-q

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I'll be sure to keep that in mind next year. Michael is right, the only other place I have worried about our stuff was at Carolina during the thunder jam. We take Max with us and she stays on her lead in the trailer when we are not there, I suspect her presences might scare some potential theves away.

Scott made mention of them letting anyone rent a golf cart, seems like that might make it easier for someone to load up on stuff and get out of there quick.

By the way Tracy, which side at MIR is considered the spectator side...the side we were on or the other side?

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Johns Golf Carts needs to go bye-bye. Everybody on golf carts gets a bad rap because of him. He will rent to anybody and they pile people on and ride around like they own the place.


Jeremy,
Buy my trailer and you won't have to worry about Motels.
Chip

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I hate to see someone lose business, but I have to agree with you Chip. There is no reason for spectators to need a golf cart in my opinion.

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And by the way, Chip, you never answered my question - why are you getting rid of that trailer?

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Angela,
I may sale everything, take a year off and regroup. It may be time to go in a different direction. If I can't I'll be at the first race next year just like always.
Chip

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The Spot-A-Pots were clean, use those. The attendants are a pain in the *** at all tracks. I leave them a quarter or whatever change I have. Maple Grove, Atco, and E-town have these folks too, also not needed.
The racing was great, MIR is anice track. I drew a tough first round, but, I had a great time.

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Sounds like someone else I know. Midlife crisis? Sale everything and regroup...you can't be serious. Quit talking crazy before you get slapped.

Spot-a-pots? New name to me....they stink inside, it will make me gag. Only in emergencies. By the way, I noticed on the other side of the track the guy at the porta potties had roped them off so you had to pass by him.

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The burnout box not only didn't have enough water in it sometimes, it was the roughest I've ever seen at any track! Luckily I finally figured out how to make it work.

I think Chip is having another knee-jerk reaction that he may regret....again! (Just a theory. I could be wrong.)

The line forms behind Angela to slap Chip! :p

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I had alot of difficulty in the burnout box as well. I don't like to stop in the water to "blip" the throttle. I have only had that cause water to drip down on my tires at the line. a little more water would have been a great help.

Angela,

The spectator side is the side the MSD trailer, tire trailers and Ice Cream trailer was on!

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I knew that was coming!!! lol You need to talk to my dad about that one.

Keith, how far is Capitol from you??? My uncle lives an ear shot from there. literally, I heard them running a couple weeks ago when we were down there. We still need to catch up one of these days.

Jeremy Erny

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We really enjoyed the race at MIR i wasn't expecting to do as well as i did but we had a blast... i wasn't sure about the people coming up through the woods mike longhany told me and dad about them so we scooted down to the trailer and i watched them hover around scott macys trailer so i rode the golf cart over there and they kinda scattered away but stayed around his trailer so i hung around till they left and told angela when she got there to check all their stuff to make sure it was all there. it was weird how they all just went around our trailers down there and hung around like no one would notice them. keith, that was my mustang that barely made if off the track nothing was wrong with the car it was only my second national event and i was nervous/excited to be going to the finals thanks for the concern though didn't win but i sure loved the whole weekend..too bad it couldn't have been me and you in the finals jamie but we both had a great weekend. hope to see everyone at the Rock

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hey Brandon congrats on the RU..........

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thanks bobby ill remember it forever..see you in a few weeks

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It was good to hear you had a successful weekend Brandon - we were hoping to find you and Jamie had run off since you are both good friends of ours. Best of luck at Rockingham...but please fall on the opposite side of the ladder than us - ha ha ;)