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| A NEARLY PACKED GRANDSTAND WAITS FOR RACING. (2008 PHOTO BY TOM GILLISPIE) |
By
Tom Gillispie
TRJ
Editor
ELKIN
— It was 6 o'clock Saturday at Friendship Motor Speedway, and they
hadn't begun racing on the fresh dirt. It got 7, 7:30 and even 8
o'clock and still no racing.
But
no one was complaining outwardly, and fans were still coming in at
8:15.
They
wanted dirt racing.
Jimmy
Boles of Mount Airy said he came just twice to races during the
four-year asphalt era at Friendship.
"I
didn't care for that asphalt racing," Boles said. He looked
around and added, "I believe there is a bigger crowd for this
than when it was asphalt. I came here when it first opened, and I
know quite a bit of people who are coming back."
Billy
Griner of Elkin said that he, like, Boles, came twice to asphalt
races at Friendship.
"I
didn't like it," he said. "I like to see them sling that
mud, turn left and hang it out."
Ronnie
Hefner said that he got tired of asphalt racing in which maybe two or
three cars vied for the lead all night.
"It's
more competitive on dirt," he said.
And
everyone, drivers, officials, crewmen and even fans, get dirty.
Happily.
"The
one thing about a dirt track is that you (fans) don't have to take a
bath before you come here," Roger Bell of Traphill said
straight-faced. "You can do that when you get home; you're going
to get dirty."
Early
in the evening, Griner said that there was a bigger car count than
they'd had on asphalt.
"There
were no cars here when it was asphalt," said Griner, who worked
on a race team in the '90s at Friendship. Where did the cars go?
"Probably Ace (Speedway in Altamahaw) or Hickory (Motor
Speedway)," he said.
Bell
said he got disgusted with asphalt racing.
"I
wish they'd never went to pavement," he said. "They tried
to get too big too fast; there were more fans at lawnmower races than
there were right here."
The
parking lot was full of cars; fans were sitting on the beds of trucks
backed up all around the fence, and fans were parking just outside
the property fence beside Highway 268. They just didn't get to see
feature races.
Promoter
Phil Hall said that there was too much water on the track from
afternoon showers, and they spent the evening trying to get the track
right to race. Heat races and qualifying got in before lightning and
heavy rain came through after 8:30.
Hall
and his partner, Dennis Wood, said they were thrilled with the crowd
and the car count. Wood estimated the crowd at a little over 1,400,
and he said they had 22 Fastrak cars.
Judy
White of Elkin was among the many fans sitting patiently on truck
beds.
"I'm
glad it's back to dirt; I hated the asphalt," she said. "We've
probably been coming here eight or 10 years, but we came to very few
(asphalt races).
"We've
always had this parking space; we came here every week when it was
dirt."
White
said they have a cousin, C.J. Lyons, who was supposed to race U Cars
for the first time on Saturday night. She added that she and her
husband are dirt-track fans and are going in June to Eldora Speedway,
an Ohio dirt track owned by Sprint Cup star Tony Stewart.
"It's
in the middle of nowhere, and we have to drive eight hours, but we
love it," she said.
Danny
Money of Statesville, Bradley Campbell of Union Grove and Michael
Trivette of Ronda came to Friendship together. No surprise. Money and
Trivette are cousins; they're all friends, and they've gone to the
races together for years.
"We
grew up coming here," said Money, who learned about the
re-dirtying of Friendship six weeks earlier on the Internet.
"They
should never have gone to asphalt," Campbell said. "They
lost on that deal."
Money
looked at the swelling crowd and added, "They have a good
turnout tonight. There were probably a lot of people who were just
waiting for it to go back to dirt."
The
drivers' meeting was around 7:30, and a few cars went out to pack the
track around shortly afterward. An orange 03 car driven by Daniel
Moss of Elk Creek, Va., probably made the most laps Saturday night,
and it probably got the muddiest.
Mickey
Blevins of Marion, Va., had come down just to watch Moss race.
"(Moss)
raced here when it was dirt," Blevins said. "He went to
Wythe (Raceway), but when he heard it was going back to dirt here, he
decided to come back here. He likes it here."
Blevins
was asked if he's going to keep coming back to Friendship.
"Probably,
if gas don't go to $5 a gallon," he said, making a face.
Everette
Cox of Dobson had watched trucks haul dirt and dump it on the oval in
March; he was back Saturday night, wearing a black Friendship Motor
Speedway cap that he said he hadn't worn in years. And his smile was
firmly in place. Cox, like the hundreds of others, were patiently
waiting for racing.
"Dirt-track
fans are more patient than NASCAR (fans)," said Mike McNeill, a
dirt-track fan from Walkertown who has also been attending New 311
Speedway in Pine Hall this year.
"Most
dirt tracks don't have curfews, so they can take as long as they want
to," McNeill said, then added, "As long as a monsoon
doesn't come in."
Christina
Carico and her boyfriend, Harry Hash, had traveled from Independence,
Va., along with Carico's daughter, Courtney, Courtney's friend,
Amber, and Harry's son Mitchell. Hash had been a dirt racer at Wythe
Raceway in Rural Retreat, Va., and at Rolling Thunder Raceway in
Ararat, Va.
Carico
was standing under cover from rain, happily eating a funnel cake.
"It
doesn't bother me to wait," she said. "As long as they
don't wait and cancel. I want to see them race."
Alas,
not Saturday night.
"We
got a little behind on the water deal," Hall said. "We'll
do better next week. We made some mistakes; we had nobody parking
cars. But we'll regroup, have a staff meeting this week and go from
there."
Hall
said that the track will honor the opening-night ticket stubs on
Saturday, April 26.
And
the dirt-track fans, as patient as they are, likely will be back next
week.
CONTACT: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.
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