[BKSG1198]

Thanks Pete for the kind words! We truly do try to make the racers feel as if they are home when they come into the gate! Hopefully you can make the Pig roast in a few weeks, a little closer to you in VA.

It's taken a few days for me to fully recover from this past weekend's events. To say the words amazement would come to mind. With 7 total classes (TD & TS Combo, SST, SG, SC, Juniors, Pro & Super Pro) we had 373 total cars for Saturday & 303 for Sunday. We made it down to the finals in 3 classes on Saturday (Giving 2 TT to all the .90 classes) but, hit the hard 11pm curfew and moved them to Sunday except Super Pro who decided to split. We basically did 2 smaller divisional races in 2 days and finished both of them.

As far as the future goes, I try not to be negative and would love to say the .90 portion was great and I really do appreciate EVERY RACER who attended. We know times are tough, gas is high and tracks are closing left and right. I was told that last year the $250 entry to win $12,500 was too high so I figured for $170 entry to win $5,000 guaranteed we would have had us packed out to the sand trap but, it fell short yet again on a picture-perfect weekend...nobody could blame the forecast or rain this year. We did have racers as far as Florida, Virginia, South Carolina and Wisconsion all attend this weekend so thank you for traveling to attend this great event, I hope you all had fun!

I have sat back the past 4 days and talked with my crew about the future and the one thing they say to me is "I don't blame you if you decide to not do another big $$$ race after this year". Maybe next year we do a $225 entry for $2,000 to win and a Wally because that seems to be what everyone wants. I wish I had the answer but, I appreciate you all that came out and supported these events. I can probably say that if there is another Dave Stine or .90 Nationals that we will go back to a simple format of pro-rated on the payouts. I have tried for 3 years to give you all what you wanted with the payouts, the D1 fee goes up $25 people are texting me, calling me, screaming and hollering that they are done with D1 races but, still show up. We have tried everything from $10,000 / $5,000 in 2021 to $12,500 / $10,000 to win in 2022 to $5,000 to win in 2023 and the car counts were just not there except maybe year 1. I am Definity not a "sky is falling" type of person because I know there is plenty of .90 racers out there and willing to travel, maybe the announcement of MG having another D1 race made people stay away because now they are planning to be there in 2 weeks (Hope it don't rain). I can say if Atco closing wasn't a wakeup call that we're going to need to travel, we need to support every track owner, we need to start supporting promoters who are risking their own livelihood to put events on for you the racers then it might be time to call it a career or go bracket racing.

Trust me, I know a lot of my loyal people I spoke with had said that they had previous plans because before the news dropped that Atco was closing it was MG, Atco, Atco, Cecil for many in the .90 world and with it being a non-points event they decided to watch the wallet and go on vacation or stay home.

I don't know what the answer is and would love some feedback cause we all shook our heads when IHRA did it, got no support and some of you I spoke with still hold grudges against the NHRA racers for not attending the $5,000 to win races at MIR and other tracks.