Published: July 20, 2008 10:35 pm         

Fans miss late, late finish at speedway

There was some great racing going on at Beckley Motor Speedway Friday night. Excuse me — make that Saturday morning.

It’s just a shame that what started as a packed house missed out on most of it.

By the time the final feature event finished just short of 4 a.m., the facility looked like a ghost town.

I used to think that the powers-that-be at the track didn’t get it, but I’ve finally come to the sad conclusion that they really just don’t care.

Why else would they have the racing surface in the shape that it was in at 5 p.m. Friday? While it was nice that they finally removed the rocks that had been pelting drivers, track officials and fans alike from the racing surface, it would have been better if they had done a little work on dust control.

I don’t blame the people working at the track. They are doing the best they can do with the limited resources given them. You can’t prepare a track if you don’t have the equipment.

For safety reasons, the flagman threw the caution three times during the Randy Thurman Memorial 40 because he couldn’t see the cars racing right in front of him.

That’s just crazy, especially when you spend until 10:20 p.m. watering and running in the track after completing qualifying.

Rumor has it that track officials and the Bradley-Prosperity Volunteer Fire Department were going to discuss upping the purse this week. Hopefully, they will discuss repairing some track prep equipment as well.

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The KOM Pro Late feature race Saturday morning was probably one of the best races I’ve seen this year. There were legitimately five or six drivers that could have come away with the win.

Maybe it was just the full moon.

Keith Bills and Aaron Barley put on a show late in the event with neither one giving an inch. On each restart after Bills took the lead, Barley would rattle the left rear of Bills each time they drove into turn one and when the duo were side by side, Bills gave just as good as he got from Barley. I could not assign blame to either driver for their final dust-up. It was just good, hard racing by two hard-headed drivers who were not going to give an inch to their opponent.

I asked Bills if it was hard racing or two hard-heads.

“It was a little of both,” he said. “As much as I believe that if the track throws a caution, someone needs to go to the tail, I wish the track had made a no-call there.”

Barley agreed.

“I’d say it was two hard-heads not willing to give an inch,” he said. “You can’t expect everybody to go in there and just let off for you. It isn’t going to happen.”

Hopefully, we’ll get to see more of the same intense racing in the weeks to come.

Please, though, not with our breakfast.

— E-mail:

rjett@register-herald.com