G2 Radios presents The Waterford Speedbowl Message Board

twice a year now...

All good points but problem lies with one little word every valid point begins with. IF!!
Yea IF waterford had staffords counts they would have the best show. I agree but they dont.
Yea IF they all ran ACT type with minimal inter-track changes would be alot more cars. I agree but they dont.

I really dont know the exact rule differences but in the sk's nobody runs all 3 execpt Keith and he has 3 different cars. TC runs 2 with 2 different cars so they dont have to make any changes to race. Heck the way its been lookin if thompson was to make a rule change stafford could end up with 35 and thompson 5....lol maybe that why they wont make the change.

Well Teddy drives 2 different cars because he drives for 2 different teams as does Kieth... and when the money and resources is there to have cars designated to run certain tracks why not? I mean do you think Hendrick Motorsports uses the same car/chassis for Daytona as they do for Martinsville? No because they do not have to its pretty much the same concept at the local level.

Again not trying to bash the track but i do not think the car count issues at Thompson lie with the rule package they have... in my opinion it is a sign of poor management and officiating... Not sure if anyone else noticed it but they had decent car counts in all divisions except the TIS Mods until Mike Chapman was brought in to over see the competition, from what i have heard from several drivers that run Thompson its so bad they tell the drivers how to drive and pass and where to do so and where not to from the tower... No driver wants to be told by an official how to drive his race car or where he can and cant pass. If you ask me that would just be annoying to constantly have someone talking in your ear you dont want to listen to but your forced to cause of the 1 way communication rule.

Thompson's rule package for the SK's is a huge part of the problem. Just their choice of running the Edelbrock 7101 intake and that 7 1/4" 2 disk clutch is going to make people shy away.

You can bolt on the intake but most motor guys are gonna want to change the cam also and buying that clutch that can't be run anywhere else also is a huge downfall. You're talking about building a motor for Thompson or building one for Stafford that will be OK at Thompson.

In addition to the intake and clutch, Thompson has slightly different crankshaft rules. Also with the Hoosiers, times have picked up, so some teams have actually be taking gear away. You can take a Stafford car or Speedbowl car (if you change gears) and run at Thompson and run in 7th, but you can't take a Thompson car and run it elsewhere without major changes. It just isn't worth it.

Then take the next failure at Thompson, their own tube chassied LM division. The Speedbowl's hand was forced to try something new because the LM car counts were up and down, mostly way down at one time. Thompson seemed to be doing fine, changed all the rules and the class has slowly dwindled to nothing.

They did much the same with the Street Stocks/Sportsman. They ran the motor rules crazy and cut the field in half. You might not be able to blame it all on that but it did create a division that still had a car count but a huge difference in the haves and have nots under the hood over the past 10 years.

Thompson's rulebook is as much to blame as anything else.

Well...its friday and let's see what happens that the 'bowl tomorrow. Its going to be a nice day (possible shower) but there should be a lot of cars (hopefully)....I hope the 35 tightens up his car so he doesn't get too "louse". We don't need to see anymore mishaps. Remember ancient speedbowl proverb "Say NO to driving 3 wide". Have fun and I will be rooting from turn 1!

Looks like even Staffords car counts are going down week to week.

Of course they will gradualy drop. Guys get wrecked or only run part time and such. Same as the bowl only difference is they have a much bigger field and can absorb losing a few here and there. They wont drop down that much though as a whole. they will have they're bad weeks but have the best counts all year long. The bowl does do a pretty good job with what they have. Look at thompson they cant even get cars to show up for 11,000 total purse for reg night race. That just shows it is not all economy. Most teams choose stafford,then the bowl,then they call it a day or go to thompson a couple times and say forget this place.

That's true, every year you see a few Stafford cars come down to the bowl to race once or twice. But you hardly ever see a Thompson car come down.