Drag Illustrated Issue 178, September / October 2022 | Page 132

✖ DRAG ILLUSTRATED ROUNDTABLE ✖
FRANKLIN AND KORETSKY AGREE THAT RACERS AND FANS CAN DO THEIR PART TO HELP TRACKS SUCCEED BY RESPECTING THE FACILITIES AND THEIR EMPLOYEES .
prep , the glue , the ambulance service , the safety side of it . Because the sport has taken such a step , the costs have increased . That ’ s great because [ progress ] is what we want , but it increases costs . If you just look at entry fees 20 years ago to now , there ’ s not much difference .
If it costs two dollars more at the gate , then hey , it costs two dollars more at the gate . It ’ s not because anybody is lining their pockets . It ’ s because costs are going up . Most recently in our country , we ’ re seeing inflation everywhere . Well , why isn ’ t it hitting racetracks the same way ? It is . Everybody just has to be aware of that .
The other thing is just taking care of the properties that you ’ re on . You ’ d just be amazed what happens . People come in – and it ’ s not all of them , so this isn ’ t to label a racer this way – but there are some that come in and just completely trash the facility and leave stuff behind . We ’ ve had engine blocks left behind . It ’ s amazing . I think it ’ s no different than how probably most of us were brought up : just respect other people ’ s property and respect what the racetrack is doing to put on events .
That is equal with the respect we have for the racers for showing up . I feel like we have the responsibility to give racers a good place to race . Racers should have to have the responsibility
of coming in and doing their part as the racer .
And that goes to the spectator as well . In today ’ s world , it just seems like there ’ s a “ you owe me more because the gate costs this .” Again , there ’ s not anybody putting that direct to the pocket . It ’ s paying all the other things that it takes .
I just think to preserve racing , it takes a group effort of everybody doing their part . I ’ m not saying blow your money , but if you paid to get in and you buy a drink and you buy a hot dog and you don ’ t leave more of a mess than what you brought in , that makes it a lot easier for everybody to be able to afford what we ’ re doing and keep the costs from escalating . BARTUNEK : I think the biggest thing is you can ’ t expect everything to be fixed overnight . That is one thing that I definitely realized . When I bought the place , the people that I met that raced there were instantly on me . “ When are you doing to do this ? When are you going to do that ?” Unfortunately , you have to put out the fires that are burning first before you can attack the next stuff .
I would tell a racer we ’ re trying to do our best to get everything fixed the best that we can . They just have to kind of stick with the guy . If a guy isn ’ t doing nothing and he ’ s just taking your money and the place is going into the ground , that ’ s one
thing . But if every time you come there you see they did something here , they did something there – like us – give it time .
We ’ re always trying to make something better for the racer . It ain ’ t just necessarily better for me . I benefit from it as far as getting more cars , but I try to make it so when the racers come to our place , they see that we ’ re trying to make things better to make our racetrack one of the premier racetracks . KORETSKY : What I ’ d tell everybody is help keep the track clean and throw your trash in the trash cans . When you have paper all over the place after a race , you ’ ve gotta tie up too many people picking up the paper before you cut the grass . When you cut the grass and you run over a piece of paper , it shreds it into a thousand pieces . Now you ’ ve got paper all over the place . That ’ s one thing .
The other thing I ’ d like to see is I hope the racers don ’ t hammer their stakes down into the asphalt when they set up their tents or awnings . That leaves a hole in the asphalt , then the water goes down into the hole . The next thing you know , the asphalt is coming up when it gets cold with our bad winters . It ’ s just little things like that that racers can do to keep the facilities looking nice . DI
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