Update on the Short Track Season with Kevin Ramsell

Midwest Racing Central contributor Kevin Ramsell joins the podcast and shares his thoughts on the racing season to date including the Midwest Tour, weekly racing programs, and the TUNDRA season opener this weekend.

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Midwest Racing Central Today is hosted by Pete Pistone and produced by Mia Pistone

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:10

Hi everybody, welcome into Midwest Racing Central today. Pete Bistoni as we continue here through the month of May. Lots of racing happening, a lot of racing yet to happen here in the Midwest. Let's bring in a voice that has been part of the Midwest racing scene for a while now. Kevin Ramsell with us here on Midwest Racing Central today. Kev, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I'm good, Pete. How are you? I kind of like this new uh new gig you got going on here, along with everything else that you have going on in your own world.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Well, we appreciate it here. You know, again, Kevin's gonna be a contributor here. We appreciate that. We're trying to grow this website, try to give some attention and spotlight here to all the racing we have here in the Midwest. And again, it's uh near and dear to both you and my heart, certainly from uh us growing up. Uh we've got a couple of uh I would say a month and a half, I would say, in the books right now in terms of some of the racing here in the Midwest. We've had some regional tours with the Midwest tour, some tracks have uh been able to get going. Mother Nature needs to cooperate. Uh, what's kind of your general sense of what what you've seen so far, Kevin? What might be coming up here in 26 in the Midwest?

SPEAKER_01 1:08

Um, you know, I'd be curious to see what's gonna happen with the uh well, first of all, at the Midwest tour, they had um they had two good car counts. They had their slinger opener with uh, I think 27, 28 cars, and then Madison uh for the Joe Shear Classic uh a couple weeks ago, and they have about 23, 24 cars. Uh there and they're gonna be coming up again in Memorial Day with um the Jefferson Speedway, one of our favorite places we like to watch racing at. And they used to be curious to see what could they get for a car count for that. The interesting thing is that the Jefferson race along with the Maston race are promoted by Greg McCarnes, who used to run the series. Now it's run by um by um um Marty and um I can't remember his last name, but Melo, yeah, Marty Mello. I had different name, but um so he um he uh he so be curious to see when he goes up to like tracks like Hawkeye Downs, Norway, when they're not Greg McCarn's promoted events to see what kind of car account he does, because you know Greg really goes out there and does a promoter's hustle, like it, like his old, like his dad, uh John McCarn's, the great John McCarnes, and he he did that promotion hustle where he went out and really got the drivers to come and say, Hey, uh this show is at my event, I want a good car account. Can you come and do this for me? So he'll reach out to your Chicagoland guys like Eddie Hoffman and other other people, Hall Schaefer, to say, Hey, can you come up here at Race at Jefferson? Uh make it worth your while type of thing. So when those events come up that are not Greg McCarn's events, I'll be curious to see what the car count's gonna be for those.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

The juxtaposition, Kevin, between the Midwest tour and then the national tour, which we're going to see here at Slinger, which we're gonna see at Madison coming up here on a Tuesday night, uh, going back and forth between the two. I mean, I think in the in a big picture, I I like the idea. How about an execution? How you feel feel that's worked during the last couple years?

SPEAKER_01 3:02

Um, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is Menard's East, Menards West, and Menard's National Series.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

How are they different? How do they look different? What what what what makes the difference? Okay, but the only big difference is a four-barrel carburetor in a national tour versus up here in a mid-west tour being a two-barrel carb, but you go down south to the southern super series and the CRA series, which run four-barrel carbs, so then you pretty much have a mimic type of thing, like you see with the with the Arca series going around. Um, I I don't know if fans actually see a difference in the series, other than the fact that it's pretty much the same drivers and a longer race with stage breaks and different formalities of how the rules are interpreted and how they do things with it. Um I I don't know if I don't know if fans are gonna really be jumping on a national tour where they if they've already been loyal to a Midwest tour, uh you know, like when they come back to Madison, they're gonna say it just looks like a Midwest tour race for it. So I I think there's I think there's gotta be some more division between what the national tour is and what your regional is. It's just like just like right now. I can watch a Menards Arca series race, and if it's east or west, it doesn't matter to me. It's a Menards Arca serca menards series race. So I think that I think there's a little confusion there with it. And I don't I I don't know if if if that's gonna actually be something that works, or is it best to say at the reach at the uh regional level? I mean, they already had to cancel their race at Dominion Speedway. I don't know if they uh weather and for some other reasons that we don't know about, but it'd be curious to see how that's going to develop as we go along. The other thing is is that the going back to like when Greg McCarnes ran the Midwest tour, there was a promotion, there was a promoter, and now we have going back to like like the way our CRA was is hi, we have our show, we're gonna bring it in. You you make the announcements, you do the advertising promotion, we'll show up and give you the show and take our money and leave. And that's I don't think that's really happening right now, and I think that's gonna lose some interest down the road.

SPEAKER_00 5:25

So let's go to the next level of super late model racing, and that's on the weekly track schedule. And we've talked a lot here on the podcast and had written about it, where lots of tracks can't run every week a super late model division because of the cost, but yet we're seeing sort of like little schedules inside the schedule. Slingers doing a triple crown, Grundy's doing a six-pack, the Alive for Five series at the Dells. I kind of feel that's a good way to go about it, and the car counts seem to be at least early on, Kevin, pretty decent when they do these kinds of schedules inside their weekly schedules at some of these racetracks here in the Midwest.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

They do, and they make them real special events too. You know, they're Memorial Race or something like that. And I think it I think it helps the fact that we got they they do have like their weekly late model division, so they still have a weekly late model to go in there. But the super late model is a higher level car, and it should be treated as a higher level. That hey, when they come in, this is a special thing that we got coming in. You know, it's not every week you're gonna have your Casey Johnson's or Levon Vandergeese, your Luke Fenhouse, Ty Majesky, or anybody else show up every week, like we saw what we what you and I saw back in the early days with Arco, where Trickle Shear and Weber and Martin all showed up every track every week, you know, every Friday night to be Shear versus Trickle mass, and we don't have that luxury anymore. So doing these uh Live for Five series, the triple crown series, I think it's more advantageous because it helps the track kind of balance itself out from a financial standpoint because you you really have to pay a lot more for those super late models that come in. So if you have a thing where you make a special event, you get a better gate for those special events that pays out, and then your basically your percentage cost is about the same as it would be for your weekly thing when it comes up for those special events.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

So then, sort of a byproduct of that is we've seen a lot of tracks take on what they call the pro late models or the big eight series late models and making them that more of their weekly kind of division in terms of the late model side. Grundy's incor incorporated that this year. How do you feel like that's going and some of the differences between track to track with that division?

SPEAKER_01 7:36

You know, actually, I think that's going real well because um people like Greg McCarnes and the other promoters have pretty much got their got those rules to be unified. Yeah, pretty much, and pretty much um almost all it and majority run pretty much the same tire to where you can go and such with it. So that I think that type of late model car with that parody of rules, you can actually um do like what the old Arco days was, where you can go and race three or four times or five times a week, type of thing. A lot of teams chose not to do that. Some teams like to race on Friday nights Madison because it gives them a whole weekend off, or they just like to go race at Jefferson on Saturday because that's when the time they can have the whole family together for it, or Sunday night slinger, it's the end of the weekend. Let's just go and race, type of type of thing with it. But there's that parody to where they can go and run a big eight series race or run a Madison or run a slinger, they just load up and the old good old Brewster Baker uh days of looking at all the week magazine and from six pack and say, What's going up next? Okay, let me look at all the week here. Okay, how about this? And now that's too far about this one. Okay, take the exit and go, type of thing. And I I think that's where it's going. And I know they're trying everything they can to make sure they keep the costs affordable with that. And a lot of these tracks have certain tire rules with it to where you can only get so many new tires per night. And I think that's what's gonna help survive those weekly divisions.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Now, you brought up costs, and obviously another cost that we're all experiencing. And I've talked to some tracks, I've talked to some fans actually and some teams, the high fuel costs, and obviously how much it costs now to get to a racetrack, whether you're any one of those three people that I mentioned. How do you think that's gonna play out if we have these costs, which are not looking like they're gonna come down anytime soon, Kev?

SPEAKER_01 9:20

It uh goes back to what I was talking about earlier with uh with the with the Midwest tour. You know, uh how many guys will show up at Jefferson and Madison versus taking a trip all the way up to Norway Speedway up in up in Escanaba, Michigan. I mean, it's don't get me wrong, I love Norway Speedway. I love going up there. It's a great scenery, it's a fun track to see racing at, but the it's a four-hour drive, and a lot of these teams are either based in southern Wisconsin or central Wisconsin. There's not many teams that come from the north down to the south in Wisconsin. So I'd be real curious to see how that is. Um, you know, I've I've heard a drive, a couple drivers who did not run the Joe Shear Classic that they normally do because of the of the fuel costs with it. It's you gotta look at from the standpoint of will the drivers attract the fans or and where will the fuel costs keep the fans away too with it as well. There's a whole different, there's a whole factor with the fuel costs, and I think that's where you where Wisconsin and parts of Illinois thrive on the fact that we have lots of local tracks nearby, so you can still go by and get your fill of racing. It's a matter I think that's gonna really hurt those touring series more down the road when they have to look at going to Hawkeye Downs or go up to or go up to uh um Norway Speedway. And hopefully Grundy is not too far for them as well, not too far from them, but that that is Grundy. Um, when they go for the Bettenhauser race later this year with it, that's usually attracts a lot of Chicago land. So you're gonna see a lot of good mix of of competitors with that as well, too. So it's it's real tough to say how long how that's gonna do. I think I think it all depends on how you manage your how you manage your finances. If you kind of sat back and say, okay, I got sponsor money, now I gotta focus. Okay, instead of buying uh six new shocks type of thing, okay, now I gotta divest this over to the to the fuel side to go there. You you gotta re- rethink your whole plan for the year.

SPEAKER_00 11:22

I want to ask you some your thoughts about the dirt side of things, you know, talking about pavement as we have, but I mean, you know, I think dirt tracks sometimes when I go to, I feel like they've got bigger car counts, I feel like they've got a little bit more support from the fans. I mean, down in my area here in the Chicago area, I've got Sycamore, I got Kanka Key, which thankfully got back to to being uh uh it was on life support there for a while, and it came back. Billy Nippenberg found someone to run the racetrack. LaSalle's doing specials down here, which again they usually get pretty healthy crowds, but then when you go north to where up you are in Wisconsin, Wilmot 141. What do you think about Angel Park? What do you think about some of the dirt track stuff out there, Kevin?

SPEAKER_01 11:57

I I I see the dirt tracks thriving. I mean, uh, the world of outlaw has got like the best traveling. If you I hate to say this because it's not what it's meant to be, traveling circus, but it is it is uh a thing where you know you load up the haulers and you got people race around. And we but I think the one thing that really helps on the dirt side is as many events as they run, how they map out that event. So it's um I think the I think the World of All Laws is doing something like a weekend where they're up in Plymouth one night, then they go down to Beaver Dam, and then they come down to Angel Park. That's the best way to go to help actually kill to take care of the fuel prices by by keeping those things regionally within a weekend, so they get more basically a bang for their buck. Um, I the Angel Park Speedway um is really making a big comeback, and it goes back to having Greg McCarnes coming in there and his his crew uh running it for the sixth year in a row. And and you look at that schedule, yeah, they got the badger midges racing there we weekly, but he's also bringing a real diverse group of other touring series coming in, like you'll get the king, the dirt kings tour, and things like that coming in. I think the variety of that is what keeps people interested, and Dirk is dirt is very unique racing. Um, you know, I've I've grew up around asphalt, but I always marvel at the quickness, the reflex, and the reflexes of the of the dirt drivers. I think that's what entices it more, is just you're you're in that wow factor, you know. That's it kind of goes like what Mark Martin said, you know, and it said to me last year, and what I just recently put in my column was you want to be you want to be marveled at their craftsmanship. It's not the craftsmanship of the way how they look, but the way how they drive. And I think dirt really gives the the fans more of a better perspective of what talented driving can be. Asphalt can be there, but they gotta take away some of their uh some of their little bad nuances lately. But I always marvel at the dirt thing, and I think that's what drives the fans back because they you literally want side-by-side racing, the the the switchovers and everything with it. I think that's you know, they I think the the only thing that's up here in Wisconsin is basically Lost Beaver Dam Raceway this year. And but the the unique thing is that uh Toch County Fairgrounds is like two or three miles down the road, and that's a nice half-mile dirt track that's gonna be able to uh basically take up that lost time there with it. So um, but you know, speaking of Midwest, Yvonne, another dirt track, take a look what Matt Tift is doing, bringing back Mansfield Speedway, Mansfield, Ohio. Now he's his his idea is make a dirt for a couple years, see how it goes. But he originally would like to bring it back to asphalt. We'll see if that happens. We'll see if that happens. I I'd be curious if he can if he keeps it at as a dirt track, and because I think right now dirt is is a good thriving money, as much as I hate to say it, there that's your moneymaker right now is dirt tracks and asphalt. I think if they clean up the show a little bit and make the things run smoother, I think that will I think that will help asphalt down the road. And also, too, the bigger product that we see on TV and that you and you and Bags talk about every morning, I think that really needs to step it up and really put on more of a show so that uh you can really relay it back to the short tracks.

SPEAKER_00 15:32

Yeah. I mean, I you're I talked to Matt Tipped about that at Mansfield. I mean, the last time I was there, saw a truck series race there, Donnie Leo won. It was on Memorial Day weekend. He'd love to bring it back to asphalt, but I think right now going dirt was kind of the way to go. Uh, I appreciate you giving us some time again. If you miss it, Kevin's going to be contributing to the website. You have a column up now talking about Mark Martin and respect and some of those things. So check that out. And uh, we'll look forward to some other videos and some other things coming up this summer, Kevin. Good to have you on board, though.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

Yeah, I'm enjoying this. And uh, I got some I got some. I like when I talk to the drivers, I like to talk positive, like to talk, have fun with them. And uh hopefully I can get those uh you know, get get some get that perspective to show what that they actually are humans and that they're not just robots talking about their sponsors. So uh I think if you see my video with uh James Swan, which I can send to you to put up, that was a fun video. That was because it was just is it was just a conversation about about life. So good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 16:28

That'll be at Midwest RacingCentral.com plus at Kevin's YouTube channel and our YouTube channel, and you can check that out as well. Kev, thanks for the time. We'll see you this summer. Look forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Yeah, look forward. Yeah, we you and I need to really sit down and watch a race sometime together.

SPEAKER_00 16:42

Sounds good. All right, all right, all right. Kevin Ramsell again, he's gonna be a contributor here for us at Midwest RacingCentral.com. Check us out now. Racing season's off and running. We're gonna have previews, we're gonna have results, we're gonna have commentary, we're gonna have photos. Stan Kiel Wazinski has joined us, the Chicago historian and reporter from around the Midwest, so we got a lot coming up. I'm Pete Pistoni, we'll see you next time, right here on Midwest Racing Central today.