Do It ... Tonight (Saturday May 30th)

[Mako Koiwai]

Go to the TORC short track Truck Races at the Perris Lake Fairgrounds this Saturday evening. Terrific hard fought racing ... this is a full contact sport! I don't doubt those trucks have 800 hp ... they really eat up the terrain. The Rio's and Kiesel's were there. You can see Brian Robertson at work. He's every where ... with two Kumho models in tow. Entertaining crowd ... probably lots of Right Wing company for our Political Paddock pundits. Good variety of midway food and beer.

I'll try to get some photos up later this morning ...

[Mako Koiwai]

[Mako Koiwai]

[Mako Koiwai]

More shots here: http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/2009-a ... c-racin-g/

... imagine the shots nicely saturated with good blacks ... like I see in my Photoshop!

Rio's thought the racing was awesome ...

[Bob Pl]

You can pay for tickets at the gate, yes?

Sounds like fun.

[Mako Koiwai]

yes ... one of those things one should experience at least once. Like pro-drag racing ... you've got to experience the sights and SOUNDS!

[Jonathan Lugod]

More shots here: http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/2009-a ... c-racin-g/

... imagine the shots nicely saturated with good blacks ... like I see in my Photoshop!

Rio's thought the racing was awesome ...

seb rocking the turtle neck action :gpower:

[Mako Koiwai]

Incredibly hard fought races tonight! We saw Rita, Gary T, Ms. Robertson, Laurie R ... The Kiesel's were there again rep'ing their gear at the bandstand.

[Steve Ekstrand]

I'm wondering how the fencing will do catching something 2-2.5X as heavy as a sprint car.

[Mako Koiwai]

There was one delay when one layer of fencing started to come off near the main grandstand. And one large light stanchion got knocked over. The fencing is very heavy duty ... with something like 9" metal poles holding them up. I assume those poles have been driven very deeply into the ground.

Out on course it's a bit scary. I would have loved to have had a spotter/Karen with me when I was shooting the cars going away from me!

You can see the thick steel poles holding up the fencing in the background.

[Bob Pl]

It is pretty interesting racing, sort of off road meets demo derby. The best race was the mini trucks IMO but I don't understand one of the officials calls. The second place truck got taken out & flattened a tire. It seems like the officials went yellow long enough to let the guy go to hot pits and change his tire & they slotted him back to 2nd for the restart???????

Kind of like a stewards decision in an F1 race favoring Ferrari?

Last race (the highlight of the night) was 7 or 8 trucks with breakdowns eliminating all but 3 (and one limper) that paraded to the finish.

Still worth the drive, saw Rita, Brian, Lori, GT, and Keisels.

Thanks for the heads up Mako.

Oh, and the dirt does fly up about 10 rows into the stands. LOTS of vendors.

[Steve Ekstrand]

The economics of this would seem to require a lot of sponsorship to balance. The small venues and big overheard make gate revenue nearly irrelevant I'd think. What? $70K maybe in gate?

[Mako Koiwai]

... photos here: http://public.fotki.com/makofoto/2009-a ... c-racin-g/

[Kurt Rahn]

Great shots, Mako! I especially dig the ones with the Monster Toyota belching flames out the exhaust...perfect for a night shot.

[Bob Pl]

The economics of this would seem to require a lot of sponsorship to balance. The small venues and big overheard make gate revenue nearly irrelevant I'd think. What? $70K maybe in gate?

It was taped for rebroadcast & the gate was not huge, I'm gonna guess 7000 but could be way off. Vendors/sponsers were large presence.

[Mako Koiwai]

Here's the TV Schedule. Last nights races will be on ABC, June 7th at 5 PM

http://www.torcseries.com/schedule.php

[Giovanni Jaramillo]

Lots of AMSOIL sponsorship decals!! AMSOIL big into this sport and also drag-boat racing, as well snowmobiling.

[Sebastian Rios]

The economics of this would seem to require a lot of sponsorship to balance. The small venues and big overheard make gate revenue nearly irrelevant I'd think. What? $70K maybe in gate?

Yeah, I was thinking about that too...Big budget racing, semi trucks full support. I guess it's the TV coverage that makes up the difference?
PAS is only about 20 minutes away for us, and the kick off party was in Corona, it was a no-brainer to go; I'm glad we did, it was great! :king:

[Steve Ekstrand]

Its unusual for TV to pay anything to small sports. Often the sports have to contribute to production costs or guarantee advertising slots get filled. But they do it, to get the exposure to bring in the major sponsor support. It costs the LPGA tour $425K per telecast. But without covering that they wouldn't be on TV. And without TV how do you have BIG paying sponsors. Part of the sponsor agreements will almost always be a requirement to buy TV ad time on the telecast.

[B K]

Do they still have the mandatory yellow?

[Bob Pl]

Do they still have the mandatory yellow?

yes.

[Rick Brown]

Looks like it was fun. And only 15 minutes from my house. But given a choice between watching racing and doing it (Lone Pine), I'll take doing it.