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

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 12:16 am
by 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 ...

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

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 9:07 am
by Mako Koiwai
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Re: Do It ... Tonight (Saturday May 30th)

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 9:25 am
by Mako Koiwai
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Re: Do It ... Tonight (Saturday May 30th)

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 10:32 am
by 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 ...
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Re: Do It ... Tonight (Saturday May 30th)

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 11:05 am
by Bob Pl
You can pay for tickets at the gate, yes?

Sounds like fun.

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

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 11:29 am
by 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!

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

Posted: Sat May 30, 2009 6:11 pm
by Jonathan Lugod
Mako Koiwai wrote: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 ...
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seb rocking the turtle neck action :gpower: :lol:

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 12:56 am
by 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.

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 9:57 am
by Steve Ekstrand
I'm wondering how the fencing will do catching something 2-2.5X as heavy as a sprint car.

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 10:41 am
by 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.

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 11:26 am
by 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.

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 1:54 pm
by 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?

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 2:00 pm
by Mako Koiwai

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 3:45 pm
by Kurt Rahn
Great shots, Mako! I especially dig the ones with the Monster Toyota belching flames out the exhaust...perfect for a night shot.

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 5:31 pm
by Bob Pl
Steve Ekstrand wrote: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.

:)

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 7:34 pm
by 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

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

Posted: Sun May 31, 2009 8:22 pm
by Giovanni Jaramillo
Lots of AMSOIL sponsorship decals!! :) AMSOIL big into this sport and also drag-boat racing, as well snowmobiling.

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

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 9:17 am
by Sebastian Rios
Steve Ekstrand wrote: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:

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

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 10:16 am
by 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.

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

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:05 pm
by B K
Do they still have the mandatory yellow?

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

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 6:41 pm
by Bob Pl
B K wrote:Do they still have the mandatory yellow?
yes.

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

Posted: Mon Jun 01, 2009 7:15 pm
by 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. :D