COMMENTARY-Reactions from Kansas City
Kemper Arena in played host to the first ever "T'was the Migets Before Christmas" special in Kansas City on Friday and Saturday. Indiana's Bryan Clauson held off Missouri native Brad Loyet to win Saturday's A feature and $10,000 check.
My Take...
-It was a brutally cold night to be out doing anything, including indoor racing. In order to help with ventilation, Kemper's doors were propped open, making conditions inside the arena extremely cold!
-I thought the track prep crew did a nice job of keeping a nice race surface. The dust was held to a minimum, and they opened up a top groove for the midget feature to allow more cars off the bottom. I think the top and bottom grooves gave everyone more space and fewer cautions as a result.
-Tony Stewart provided on-track supervision, and even did some of his own shoveling as he assisted the crew with track prep between races.
-It's hard to calculate fan attendance. Kemper is a large arena, and with people sitting spread out, it's tough to guess how many fans were there.
-I heard stories of fans walking into the arena without purchasing a ticket. That's not good news if you're the promoter!
-Lots of bent nerf bars and bumpers!
-Eagle Raceway's own John Klabunde was running well in the second B main when he was knocked out of the race. Prior to that, Klabunde was running well and was in contention for a transfer spot into the A feature.
-Brad Loyet looked strong throughout the night and raced winner Bryan Clauson hard throughout the A feature. Loyet was able to pass Clauson, only to bicycle a couple laps later allowing Clauson to re-take the lead.
-JJ Yeley had to have been disappointed with his performance on Saturday. Starting on the pole, Yeley faded to fourth where he would eventually finish, but was never a factor for the win.
-Dave Darland had perhaps the worst heat race of his storied career Saturday. I'm not sure how many cautions were in his heat-my guess is at least six. Unfortunately for Darland, he was involved in every single one of them.
-I wasn't at Friday's show, but it sounded like a disaster. They raced until 2 am and finally had to suspend the show, running the midget feature on Saturday morning.
They did a much better job on Saturday of hitting their 11 pm curfew, as the A feature concluded with ten minutes to spare.
File these under "Things to do differently next year"
-Wider push bars on all of the four wheelers.
-Give the event staff some type of identifiable apparel.
-Tighter security at all the entrances.
-Secure a title sponsor.
-Fewer classes of cars.
And Finally...
Overall, it's hard to give this show any kind of grade. For the first time out there was bound to be growing pains. I'm sure the Chili Bowl went through the same thing when it first started 20 years ago.
If they run this show again next year, I'm sure it would go off much better. I have to credit the promoters for the guts it took to put an event like this together. Success or failure, they tried to give the fans an extra fix of off season racing. If there's a 2009 edition of "T'was the Midgets Before Christmas" I'm sure I'll again find my way to KC to check it out.
Posts
