Mike Swims, who was eventually inducted into the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame in 2007, did a television interview before the first Bristol dirt race with broadcast partner Speedvision. He knew that when the dust settled at the first event at Bristol, people would be talking about it long after.
“I just think it’s a tremendous step in dirt racing tonight, mostly for dirt late model racing,” said Mike Swims. “United Dirt Track Racing Ass’n’s Hav-A-Tampa Series has been in existence for eleven years, this is a major step and I think some people are going to take notice to this crowd tonight, the kind of show these guys put on, it going to be amazing.”
With success in events comes hard work, dedication and the promotional ability in which Mike, the crew at Bristol Motor Speedway and everyone associated with the event had. Even successful events have blemishes, which is a common theme anytime you’re promoting an outdoor event.
Rain showers plagued the days preceding the mega-weekend which led to track conditions that caused several issues in Saturday’s finale. Fans were also kept out of the bottom 15 rows in the bleachers due to dust concerns and broken wheels in the main event on Saturday became a burden to race teams.
“When the moisture started coming back, the race track had some rough spots in it and we hadn’t been anywhere where we ran those speeds constant with that banking so the race track was insanely fast,” McDowell recalled.
The newly formed surface took the track from its original 36 degrees of banking to a newly formed 24 degrees.
“Where the holes and dips were, that was the culprit on the wheels breaking and obviously we’ve never had that problem,” said McDowell.
Freddy Smith and Chub Frank, a pair of stalwarts in the sport made history by leading the field of 30 cars to the green flag for the start of the inaugural Living Air 100, in which Mike Balzano led the historical opening lap. Balzano went on to lead until lap 34, when troubles with a broken wheel knocked him out of contention for the win.
McDowell talked about his run in the $20,000-to-win feature on Saturday night.
“I recall running third behind when Balzano was leading and (Shannon) Babb was there too and I saw they were running through the holes but that’s where the traction was, where the most grip was in the rough spots in the race track as it is today,” McDowell said. “When he (Balzano) broke that wheel, I actually took note of that and thought man I can’t run through that because there’s going to be an issue here so I was right there where I could see it and then Shannon (Babb) broke a wheel as I recall.”
In fact, McDowell would play victim to a broken wheel during the mandatory fuel stop at lap 50.
“They let anybody that had a visible crack in the wheel change it and mine was cracked,” stated McDowell. “What was so odd at those points and times of racing is we had a right-rear tire that was a different construction, it was what they called an LSB construction back then so it had a stiffer sidewall that we would use on higher speed racetracks but we didn’t actually have that for that reason, we weren’t prepared. Fate had it that we had that thing there for a spare and we put it on so it just worked out for us but I stayed out of the holes for the rest of the night.”
Speeds were in excess of 118 mph for the qualifying efforts held the night prior, while speeds in excess of 130 mph were reached in the feature, adding to McDowell’s sentiments that it was unlike anything the race teams had ever seen before.
Cook remembers the speed and compared it to Eldora Speedway in Ohio.
“It was fast. It was the fastest thing we had ever ran on,” Cook said. “As a driver, when you go to these big tracks you’re always intimidated by the size of the track, I don’t care who you are, especially when it’s against the wall. Eldora was the biggest place we had ever been to, well when we went to Bristol it was like bigger and faster but the intimidation wasn’t there because the groove was in the middle of the race track, so if something happened you had a safe runoff spot.
“I remember we had Cornett Ford motors at that time, it was the biggest thing we could get (laughed Cook) but I remember that also put Real Wheels on the market too because a lot of the wheel companies sent letters out saying their wheels wouldn’t hold up for there. They recommended buying a heavier wheel and we was able to take the wheels we had, our lightest weight wheel that Real offered and was able to go up there and had no issues. Those were some things I remember the most coming out of Bristol which was the parts and pieces that held up. We was running big old heavy springs that we had never ran, along with doing things we had never done before.”
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