By Ken Wagner
September 28, 2009

I know it’s hard to believe, but the stars were aligned just so and there I was without a worry at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, courtesy of one D J Everett, watching door slammers. Not just any door slammers, but the NASCAR truck series was in town and my grandsons thought it would be fun. I passed on a 3 hour drive for the Victorville sprints for the 30 minute ride to the big track I had never before been to. A family affair, but you’ll notice Mrs Wags didn’t stir out of her world.

For my pics Click Here. For Doug Allen's best Click here.

No. I didn’t turn to stone or anything weird at the large paved oval, but it was an outing with two of my grandsons and we had fun. D J brought me a scanner to use so I was able to listen to the network and individual driver chat, and watch the girls and the uniquely NASCAR crowd. Yes there were rednecks, and country boys and country girls and even people like you and me. They drank more than me, but seemed to be watching and trolling for 146 laps of less than titillating time non-stop.

Given it was my first NASCRA experience since the Riverside days, I was interested in what 35 trucks could do to entertain me. I realized that it wasn’t dirt and shouldn’t expect much, but Johnny Sauter was the class of the field after Todd Bodine won the pole. Not once, twice or three times, Sauter came back thru the pack 4 times to win this one. Each time he pitted, he just plain rolled em’ up in his wake and was never threatened by anyone but his teammate Matt Crafton near the end. Several notable names I had heard were running, including Ron Hornaday, Ricky Carmichael and Mike Skinner. But, none had a thing for Sauter as he did like they do on these big tracks, keep it to the floor and hope they can snail pass everyone like he did.

The intro’s before the race went on and on as they introduced the dignitaries and the drivers, but the two showgirls who were hooked to the city official who was the Grand Marshal never got off the racing surface, so you couldn’t tell if they were pretty or not. There was one racy time when Hornaday was leading and Bodine passed him, only to have Hornaday take it back, where there were moments of racing, but that was before the first time Sauter blew by them to take charge.

The race was delayed nearly an hour while a bank of lights could be relit. You could sure tell it was a NASCAR race because the minute the green flew, they stood up, and all the other time during everything else they sat and saw everything just fine. Not when they raced, oh no, up everybody, you can’t believe how great you can see standing in front of the short people! So, instead of trying to stand on my seat to see, I would kind of look down to turn one and see them go thru there and around the back stretch until many laps went by and they finally sat down. Needless to say, I saw only a portion of the 146 laps, thank goodness, and concentrated on listening to the race radio reports, so I knew who was stringing them out nicely behind or ahead of.

It was a large crowd of around 40,000, so there were plenty of people to watch (girls) and plenty of drunks to enjoy, so it wasn’t a total loss. They say the trucks are the best NASCAR event at LVMS, so I don’t know that I want to see the big boys there. There were a couple of spins, but luckily no real crashes, as they spun around and around for the 2 plus hours. It was an experience, but one I’d rather see from my living room while I did other things in between action periods. Being free made it easier on the budget, but I would probably not do it on my money regardless.

As you can imagine, there were a lot of cars in the huge parking lot to get all the foot traffic home so it took a while getting out as we toured the inner streets of the raceway and never did get on the freeway until we were downtown. It took longer to get out of the raceway than it did to drive there from my house. I saw a few familiar faces and one even said “Wags, what are you doing here? Good Question as I missed Blake Miller’s 5th in a row at Victorville. Well I can now say, been there, done that! Obviously a lot of people enjoy that kind of action, but its back to the dirt for me. Never say I didn’t try, but we still have the best racing on this planet with our sprint cars and I want it to get better and attendance to grow starting NOW!

Yes Blake Miller continues to rule the roost at Victorville with teammate Ronnie Gardner running third, so the dark blue Gardner cars must have been doin’ just fine. The results are below, but note some of the interesting names that raced like Bob Ream Jr, Billy Felts, Cal Smith and Bruce St James. Billy Sr?

I know this is a very important time in our racing for the future and I have one question for everyone involved as “the” meetings for 2010 go on. Ask not what the Sprint Car Racing can do for you, ask what you can do for Sprint Car Racing! Hmm, where have I heard that before? It’s all true and things work if you just try. We need unification, we need more sponsor money, we need everyone to go forth and multiply! We need to think how to make it better and to increase interest in our racing. We need attendance to go straight up and help the promoters bring in the sheep. Our sprint car racing needs your help and every one of you can do something. We have the best racing, let’s all prove it.

I’ll probably be at Ventura this week to enjoy the annual Jim Kierce Memorial race for the VRA Senior Sprints. Come check it out. If I can drive 6 hours, you can show up, it should be worth it.

360/410 Wingless Sprint Main Event At Victorville 9/26/09

1.) Blake Miller 93, 2.) John Aden 7a, 3.) Ronnie Gardner 93j, 4.) Bob Ream Jr. 8, 5.) Cody Williams 44, 6.) Austin Williams 2, 7.) Tom Stansberry 75, 8.) Cal Smith 39, 9.) Seth Wilson 17, 10.) Heidi Tresler 3, 11.) Royal Adderson 40, 12.) Tom Grunkemeyer 36, 13.) Ed Schwarz 5 14.) Lance Butler 2b, 15.) Billy Felts 39f, 16.) Johnny McCall 77, 17.) Kenny Perkins 0k, 18.) Mike "Hubcap" Collins 04, 19.) Robert Ellis 76, 20.) Ludvig Solberg IV 84, 21.) Bruce St. James 7k, 22.) Craig Alexander 54 DNS