Oglethorpe Speedway 17 July 2009

For the first time this year (and I hope not the last) I had the chance last night to go out to Oglethorpe Speedway, the .5 mile clay oval in Pooler, GA. After some rain delays and dinner with the family I finally made it out there shortly after 8 PM. I took a scanner along and listened to the officials on both their frequency and the "Raceceiver" frequency which is used for the officials to talk to the cars.

461.500 - Oglethorpe Speedway Officials
454.000 - Raceceiver (Officials to Cars)

The racing was wonderful and there were some great battles for the lead in all of the classes. There was some boneheaded racing as well. The driver of the 29 car in the 440 class got his first victory; it was pretty cool to see him do a reverse donut in front of the grandstand (the 440's are front wheel drive, so you have to use reverse to do a proper donut)! The 6 and 20 cars in the Pure Stock class were black flagged and parked after abusing each other over last place, the result of a previous coming together on the track. I was watching the race for first, which was a terrific fight at the time when I heard race control get increasingly emphatic with the 6 and 20 to stop beating on each other. I look back to the end of the field and there they were pushing and shoving over last place...

Unfortunately, the Street Stock class was cut short because the rain returned about 3/4 of the way through their race during a caution period. The officials polled the drivers at first to see if the track was still good and they restarted. Eventually the rain began to fall harder and the track just became to slick to race on so it was stopped and called an official race. The Late Model race was postponed until next week, when they will have a double 20-lap Late Model feature.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net

ALMS to Two Classes in 2010?

http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/76994

I saw this article on Autosport's website earlier this week. The idea is that the American LeMans Series may go to a single GT class (GT2) and a single Prototype class (P2?) class in 2010 with the idea of helping the series survive during this economic downturn. This may not be a bad idea. GT1 is obviously going away. Aston Martin and Corvette have been the main competitors in GT1 the last few years; Aston has been gone for a couple of years and Corvette is making the move down to GT2 now. P1 is currently an almost all Acura show although there is a slight chance that Audi may come back later in the season and it seems Peugeot will come back for Petit LeMans.

I would rather watch ALMS than Grand Am any day. If this idea would keep the series strong and enable us to see proper GT and Prototype racing then I'm all for it.

Mac McCormick III
kf4lmt@comcast.net