By Ben Shelton
Every form of motorsports has been subject to the rigors and torment of our struggling economy for the past few years, but perhaps the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series has felt the hardships more than anyone else. It’s been a bumpy ride for the tracks, teams and sanctioning body, and as of right now it doesn’t seem that there is any clear cut answer as to when it will fully get back on track.
Maybe I’m just another yahoo with insane thoughts, but…
By: Ben Shelton
Not only do I work in the motorsports industry, but I am also a race fan in every sense of the word. Most people in this industry focus on one key area, but for me, I’ve always prided myself on focusing on motorsports as a whole. I love racing, plain and simple. If there’s a race, and I’m available, then there is a 99% chance that I will be there. Each year I announce over 100 events nationwide for just about every form…
By: Ben Shelton
If you think about the things you hear said most by racers to promoters at race tracks or in phone conversations, a few different possibilities quickly come to mind. Perhaps you first think of a racer bending a promoter’s ear about rules or bad calls. However, when I think about the most common conversation between a racer and a promoter, my mind first goes to racers complaining that a track doesn’t pay enough money to the competitors. Growing up as a fan I always thought that more…
By: Ben Shelton
It’s no secret that the past two or three years have not been the strongest economically in the history of motorsports. Whether it be the race teams, race tracks, race series, or even racing product companies, the past few years have seen epic struggles for these respective groups to stay afloat. While some insiders and enthusiasts see no end to the doom and gloom in the immediate future, you can label me as the resident optimist as I see brighter days ahead for…
By: Ben Shelton
Remember when you were growing up and it seemed like the start of the racing season would never arrive? And then once it finally did get here, it seemed like it was over far too soon. For many years, unless you were one of the lucky souls who got the chance to go to Florida during February for Speedweeks, you had to wait until sometime in April to take in the sights and sounds of racing. Then typically just five short months later…
By Ben Shelton
Growing up in the Sprint Car dominated area of Memphis, Tennessee, I’d heard tales of the famed Knoxville Raceway in Knoxville, Iowa, and how it was the holy grail of Sprint Car racing. Since I was three years old I’ve heard stories of the legends made at the track and how it separated the men from the boys. I’ve watched races on television from there at least a dozen times, and I felt like I had a grasp of what to expect if I ever got to…
By: Ben Shelton
Even though I’m now 31 years old, and I’ve been going to races across this country for almost 29 years now, I still get as excited as anybody about going to an event. I frequently have people ask me if working in the racing business makes it less exciting to go to races. To be honest, in all actuality I probably get more excited than ever to go because my love for the sport continues to grow with each day I grow older.
Even though I get more…
By: Ben Shelton
Recently I was at a racing event where a big group of fans and racers were sitting around shooting the bull before the program began. The subject came up of what has hurt racing the most in recent years. Of course the typical responses were thrown out there, such as our struggling economy, our president and hard times in general. Everybody kicked around the various issues for about twenty minutes, and I myself even mentioned a few, but there was one, and in my mind possibly the…
By Ben Shelton
Jump back in time ten years in the world of crown jewel events in Dirt Late Model racing and you would obviously notice several differences between today’s races and those in the past. You would see different chassis dominating, you would see some different drivers in the mix for wins, and interestingly, you would find that only one of the events was
sanctioned by a tour. Only the USA Nationals at Cedar Lake Speedway in New Richmond,…
By: Ben Shelton
Any time a driver hops behind the wheel of a race car, he or she fully realizes that it obviously presents many dangers and associated risks. Whether it’s the risk of crashing, fire or a plethora of other potential occurrences, racing is unarguably one of the most dangerous sports in the world. Sometimes new dangers can be created in the simplest of ways, such as a race being postponed from a nighttime event to a daytime event.
While many forms of racing, such as NASCAR and Formula 1,…
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