LINCOLN, Calif. – Silver Dollar Speedway in Chico, Calif., raced March 13 when California tracks were canceling faster than a virus can spread.
Ocean Speedway called off their Friday show while tracks in Madera, Bakersfield, Hanford, Tulare and Placerville canceled practice sessions or races. Some tracks have canceled races as far in the future as early April, and nobody knows how long this trend will last. Being in different counties and dealing with different fair boards can make a difference.
California Governor Gavin Newsom has changed what was a recommendation to mandatory by calling for the cancellation or postponement of any events that would create a gathering of 250 or more people. Apparently 249 or fewer people are a safe amount of people for an event, but 251 people are not. This will be the law at the least until the end of March.
Kern County Raceway Park still raced on Saturday. but without the planned King of the West-NARC winged 410 opener as part of the paved/dirt track dual show.
Dennis Gage, promoter of Silver Dollar Speedway as well as Marysville Raceway, saw no problem with the political decision on crowd size, as he raced the Friday night show with a limit of 250 fans in the stands.
Ones first reaction might be that decision would guarantee a big losing night when the accounting was completed. Gage noted that, “I think I have a good chance of breaking even. Whether good or bad, the track will get a lot of publicity.”
His contract with the fair board is structured in such a way that his costs were significantly lower with a small turnout, plus there was a back gate strong enough to offset the front gate to some degree.
Gage was locked into racing earlier in the week with promises made and he intended to keep those promises when the fair board approached him about canceling. A compromise was struck that March 13 he would race, but not the following two Fridays.
Nobody was turned away at the front gate and more than 230 were in the stands. The governor’s number is logical for a crowd in a confined space, but the stands could hold twice that many with everyone still observing social distancing.
Yes, that is the new buzz phrase, social distancing. Keeping six feet away from anyone else is expected to safeguard from getting any virus. A more logical crowd limitation number for grandstands would be a percent of the capacity. A gathering of 250 in the Merced Speedway stands would be about five percent of capacity, but much closer to 20 percent at Marysville.
Chico, Calif., had a chilly and windy night, but officials were on their A game and the show was complete by a very nice 9:20 p.m. A field of 33 winged 360 sprints, along with 23 dwarf cars, supported what could be the last chance to race for a while.
After enjoying the ASCS national format last weekend, it was back to thrilling invert four, take four heats where the fastest qualifier in each eight-lap race did not need to pass anyone, just don’t go backwards.
Heat winners, plus the four fastest qualifiers to finish top-four, went to a redraw to set the first four rows of the 40-lap main. Justyn Indiana Cox, and yes, that is his middle name, redrew the first row and led all 40 laps for the win.
With the first yellow coming after 21 laps, traffic had several opportunities to throw Cox off his game, but other that some closing by Sean Becker, Cox was able to again stretch his lead once clear of the traffic.
Becker occupied second for the last 32 laps with every potential opportunity to apply pressure negated by Cox stretching his lead when needed. Shane Golobic was third ahead of Chase Madjic and Blake Carrick.
The dwarf car main was taken by Ryan Winter. Bringing a 23-car field to Chico on a Friday shows how well the division can draw competitors. Last Sunday at Petaluma there were 42 dwarf cars, of which 32 were from the Redwood group.
The division seems to have grown as opposed to the opposite that so many divisions have done over the years. Maybe the dwarf car world has some ideas about keeping the car count strong that other divisions should consider.