Kaz Grafix Photo
Greg Cybulski, Winnipeg, Manitoba (September 21) The Northern Lightning Sprint Association was celebrating it’s 5th season of racing in 2013. Instead of fanfare and excitement for this milestone, the season resembled a death watch for a car class that held much promise.
The culprit for a 50% decline in this year’s Lightning Sprint numbers may have been a gamble by Red River Co-op Speedway management to move the fastest car class at the 4/10 mile oval track from it’s Thursday spot to presumably speed up Thursday nights, plus bolstering the Monday night program.
The membership of the Northern Lightning Sprint Association was not happy about the move and voiced their concerns to Red River Co-op Speedway.
What’s wrong with Monday night racing? Absolutely nothing from a racing perspective.
There are always explanations for minor fluctuations in car counts such as rising costs of racing and personal reasons, including family and work schedules.
Many of the drivers and their teams are Monday to Friday workers with families. RACING IS A HOBBY. Paying bills is not.
Balancing work schedules and family time can be enough of a challenge during the week without adding racing into the mix.
According to one speedway source, there appears to be systemic issues which could reveal a greater problem.
Prior to the start of the 2013 season, NLSA founder and past president Darren Pallen was upset about the Monday night move, but not necessarily for the reasons you might expect. “Contrary to what some people may believe, the Thursday night issue is not a too-many-classes problem at Red River Co-op Speedway”, commented Pallen. “What they have is a very serious production problem, and it has continued unaddressed for many, many years. You can’t run a live-event without a format and a plan. Fix the production problems first, then you will find out how much time you really have to run a show. Moving a class is not the answer, you need structure before all else.”
Despite it’s claims of speeding up Thursday racing, the speedway’s program is still running beyond 10:30 PM many nights.
Since it’s inception a few years ago, Red River Co-op Speedway’s Monday night racing program has been looked upon as ‘Racing Purgatory’ by many. Until this season, the only mention of Monday night racing was if you were in attendance at the Thursday program. To the best of my knowledge, Monday nights were never publicly advertised until 2013.
This would be the equivalent of a business being open 7 days a week and publicly advertising that they are open weekdays from 9-5.
No advertising means no crowds which limits team sponsorship from companies who want their products and services shown to race fans. You can already see where this is going.
The result is an organization that once prided itself on averaging 12-14 cars on Thursday nights to being reduced to a very lean 6-7 cars on race night.
Although this happened to the NLSA, any car class that would have been moved to the Monday night slot may have experienced the same fate.
The way I see it, the management of Red River Co-op Speedway is largely responsible for the current dilemma of the Northern Lightning Sprint Association. The experiment was a bust. Not only have they almost killed a car class, but they are still running late doing it.
Is Red River Co-op Speedway the only reason for the NLSA’s decline? No.
The speedway’s Monday night move appears to have been the catalyst that changed a once tight racing group into a fragmented one.
Now it’s time to do the right thing and help the NLSA return to where they were before the speedway decided to mess with a good thing.
The NLSA as an organization must regroup and remember why it was started in the first place, before it’s too late.
The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Northern Lightning Sprint Association.
This is something that bothers my self, I will make this clear I am speaking on MY OWN and in my own words. There is a pod cast that does nothing but bash and bad mouth every class of racing on Monday nights with exception of the b mods, and yet that is ok to voice it in a public manner on a internet live session. Then a article was written by a author and spoke with his own words, interviewed a selected person and asked his views on why things have changed and his thoughts on why. Then this is viewed as bad publicity by a track manager….. Yet what was on the pod cast was the exact same thing thoughts and opinion of selected individuals, there is a lot of facts not being told by the track manager and what was in the above article. There was a great class of racing started by a person with a vision, there was team work and friendly competition. That is what is being missed in both what the pod cast had to say about racing by Greg in this article, thought is was about getting to get to race on a said night and put on a show for the fans. Where did that thought process go? It’s use to be about the fans not how much money the track was making, if the show was great the fans came back next week cause they wanted to see who would win next. If the fans came back the track would make more money, the thoughts and ideas on how to make things better for the show should not be left up to a select group in a race shop. Let the race fans pick and choose what they want to come back and see each week, thats my view on these two now issues. If someone wants to agree with one side or the other on this article or the pod cast, they should be allowed to with out being harassed and threatened by a particular person because of their beliefs.
You are incorrect, Blair. Greg did not look to me to speak on the Speedway’s behalf, nor did I speak on the Speedway’s behalf. I spoke on behalf of myself, and I stand by my comments to this day.
These are the facts: the Lightning Sprints were one of the fastest (if not the fastest) growing classes in history at Red River Co-op Speedway. The average weekly car count was impressive, regularly outpacing classes that have been there for years with clearly no growth or even growth potential.
What makes me sick is when people say that the Lightning Sprints shot themselves in the foot. This was the end result, of course, but the class certainly did not fire the first shot. In 2012 the Lightning Sprints had fifteen cars; in 2013 they once raced with four. Something sure changed, and the Lightning Sprints were not responsible for that initial change.
Now, Blair, you are free to think that I was mad about the Monday move because I founded the NLSA in 2008. And you would be correct. It was a terrible disappointment to see the Lightning Sprints move because I know for a fact that we have more than enough time to run them. In fact, this class is on and off the track faster than any other.
At the risk of blowing my own horn (and please understand this is not my intention), I have worked for the world’s largest live entertainment company for fourteen years. Our properties include such events as Monster Energy Supercross, Arenacross, IHRA, Monster Jam, Disney On Ice, and several others. Now, this certainly does not make me an expert, Blair. In fact, I feel very lucky to work with some of the best people in the live entertainment industry.
But I will say this: I know how a live-event should go. Every event I have worked on a professional level has a pre-show production meeeting and a written format which is followed to the letter. The written format includes a great deal of event-specific information, and it is critical (read mandatory) to running an efficient show. I don’t need to expand on this any more because Pat Mooney and myself have beaten this to death over the years (especially on our Prairie Dirt Digest podcast). Pat has also worked tons of events and in my opinion really knows how it should go.
The problem is, Blair, we still don’t have a written format at Red River Co-op Speedway. We also don’t have clear job descriptions, which makes it tough for everybody to know what direction to go in.
As employees, we can’t be on the same page because there literally is no page. And this is why I stand by my comments. When things as simple as our intermission vary from 15 minutes to 26 minutes (because there is no set format), we burn up a ton of time. Yet somehow this concept escapes people. I just don’t understand it. Give me back that extra 11 minutes and I will guarantee you I can run a Lightning Sprint race.
Thanks for reading this and I hope this clears up any misconceptions that may exist out there.
Very poor article Greg. You obviously chose to do this with out all the facts and I am extremely disappointed that you looked to the founder of the NLSA organization to speak on the Speedways behalf.
There were many factors involved and you missed all of them. This is the type of reporting that is detrimental to racing and I am completley dumb founded you would write such an erroneous piece.
Add to the fact that you ask me for a press pass so you can get in for free every season, rubs salt into the wound.
Very disappointed in you
Blair