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Sunday, July 20, 2008
Toledo tragedy hit home at Kil-Kare
Moments before the Buckeye Winged Sprint cars took the green flag for the Friday, July 18th feature at Kil-Kare Raceway, it was announced that driver Terry Gibson of LaRue, Ohio had been killed in an accident at Toledo Speedway that same day.
Gibson was racing in a similar Sprint Car event in when he was involved in a 4-car crash. Online reports say the rear end of his racer hit the outside retaining wall at about 110 mph.
Each Winged Sprint entrant at Kil-Kare had a black strip of tape that ran diagonally through their car number in tribute to Gibson.
As it turns out, another Gibson: Zach, from Richwood, Ohio which is merely a hop, skip and a jump east of LaRue was racing in the Kil-Kare event.
Zach, who won his heat race and then went on to thoroughly dominate the feature, was Terry Gibson’s nephew.
After the race, with Zach still visibly shaken as he tried to get out of his bright-yellow 00 sprint car, it was announced that Terry Gibson had been Zach’s uncle.
In a fitting tribute, every member of the Kil-Kare audience gave Zach a standing ovation.
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Open Wheel Friday at Kil-Kare
I’ve found a new racing series on Friday, July 18, and I truly enjoyed it.
The Buckeye Super Sprint Car Series put on a terrific show at Kil-Kare as the headliner for the Xenia facility’s Open Wheel Friday event.
Qualifying laps over 120 mph with lap times under 12 seconds, on that tiny little paved track was simply amazing.
And when’s the last time you’ve seen 26 E-modifieds at Kil-Kare? Those guys put on quite a fun race as well.
The midget racers were fun, and the Thunder Roadsters’ first trip to Kil-Kare added plenty of excitement as well.
I do have some questions for my friends at Kil-Kare Raceway, though:
1) Was it really necessary to drive around the track for 15 minutes with a member of the Chrysler family waving to everybody from inside a Port-O-Potty strapped to a flatbed trailer? We got the idea that there’s a trailer race coming up on Friday. The idea sunk into our heads after the first lap. Honest! And if it was a stall tactic for whatever reason, the fans deserved an explanation for why they were waiting so long. As one fan sitting near me so aptly put it: “I didn’t pay $15 bucks to watch some fool run around inside an outhouse…. Let’s race!”
2) Why do you bother announcing while the racing is going on? I mean, I realize that you have loads of background and information on the drivers, their sponsors and their teams. But as quiet as the track’s sound system is, why bother? We can’t hear you. You sound something like this: “Joe…” -VRROOOOOM, ZOOOOOM, ZOOM - “… left foot in…” - VRAAAAAM, RAAAAARM, VROOOOM, ZOOOOM - “….plumbing…” VROOOM, ZOOOOM, SCREEEEECH, VROOAAAM - “…his baby g-” ZOOOM, VROOM, CHUGGA, ZOOOOM…..”-4 mph.”
Which leads me to my next question, and this could be directed at any local racetrack or drag strip I’ve ever been to:
3) How difficult is it to print a list of who the drivers are and where they are from? Or to even post a list for fans to print out on their own on your Web site?
Sure, there’s always the possibility that there will be a late entry who will show up on the day of the event. But the rest of them — especially for a special show like Open Wheel Night — they’ve booked their ticket to race weeks in advance.
You knew they were coming. It would make sense to print out an entry list, not only for the fans but for us media types, too.
Kil-Kare’s race program for Open Wheel Friday listed names of its Regular Program cars. No list of the Ford Focus Midget drivers, Thunder Roadsters, Buckeye Winged Sprints, Vintage Auto Racing Club or any other open-wheeled series was made available.
Yet you had all this info that I think you talked about all night long during the race (but couldn’t hear). That’s just odd.
One of the key reasons newspapers cover sporting events is to get locals and the news they make in their pages. Without hometowns listed next to the drivers, us writers have nothing to show our editors to prove why we want to come out and cover your event.
And it’s good for fans, too. What’s more fun than rallying behind a local driver that you’ve just learned hails from your hometown?
AND it helps the drivers and their teams and sponsors. If you list who they are, people will place a name with a car number and a result. And potential sponsors from that driver’s area may take notice as well.
Overall, the Open Wheel Friday event was quite a fun time, and I heard several fans say that they hoped the open-wheelers would make a return trip to Kil-kare. But a better speaker system, availability to driver information, and fewer outhouses on the track would’ve made the night even better!
