Wing Side Up 3/16/09

Oswego, NY 03/16/09…..I have heard several times that our society is aging more gracefully and that the live span of the American has been greatly extended. If we can afford to stay alive we can certainly plan on enjoying a lot more sunsets and plenty more bench racing sessions.

That’s a pretty good thing all in all. Us younger folks get the ribbing from the ‘older’ crowd that we don’t know so much as we think. That’s probably ok because in reality we don’t and I, for one, am glad they are here to teach us.

I’ve learned a lot over the years from my mentors. I’m wicked grateful for the things the wise old sages have taught me. I think what bothers me the most is the fact that we don’t seem to be replacing these legends as they finally run their last lap.

There was a time in supermodified racing where most of the people who were doing the racing were in their 20s or at the oldest their 30s. In fact most of the people involved were a whole lot younger then on average than they are now. From announcers to tech officials to starters and scorers the group was young and full of youth, ready to take on the world.

Now it strikes me as pretty scary when I get to the garage on the race car that I sometimes try to work on and I get ribbed that I’m the young guy at 41 years old. In fact, I’m the YOUNGEST guy other than the car owners son to have worked on the car in a while. I wonder how many other teams face this same issue.

I was appalled that there wasn’t a supermodified in the Gator Racing News Motorsports Expo this past weekend. My first reaction was to blame the Oswego Speedway, and while I can’t say that I think they shouldn’t have had a something that at least attempted to represent the DIVISION that they are the “Home of”, I know that I have to look a lot deeper than that to explain why this happened.

I think it goes back to the whole age factor again. It’s a lot of work trying to get one of these cars around and ready to race by May let alone the second week of march for a car show that doesn’t pay a purse. I have to believe that as the nights wear long in the garage that the veterans, lets’ call them, start wanting to close up shop a little sooner than they did even 10 years ago when they were a little more excited about getting a car ready to roll.

It seems very probable to me that nobody was much in a hurry to get the cars ready until they need too and again, when you get older, you’ve got a little less of that sense of urgency. So even though Oswego Speedway asked car owners to help out, it wasn’t as high on the list of things to accomplish as maybe sitting in the easy chair and watching S.U. go for the Big East championship.

I wonder where the new blood is going to come from. We’ve got a few, and they sure are exciting to watch. But I’m worried that there’s not a lot of attraction for young racers that don’t’ know anything about the supers to want to get involved with them. Remember, I’ll say it again for those that haven’t heard me bark it yet, there was a time when there were a lot more people who wanted to race supers than not and there was a pretty big reason why. Money.

Time was the money was good compared to the costs and it was attractive to all those younger guys. Money today doesn’t go as far and sometimes I wonder if maybe the younger crowd would rather spend that money, wherever they get it from, on more instant gratification than learning how to machine birdcages on a Bridgeport, or figuring out the physics of a split axle.

We’ve talked a lot about what I think we could do to promote the DIVISION better, but maybe we need to look not just how to promote it but who we are promoting it too. Really, what reason do you have to put down your iPod or your Wii to go to the races? It’s a different generation now, we have to figure out how to reel them in before it’s too late.

If you’ve got ideas on how we can do that, we want to hear about in the comments section below!

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