02/16/2005

Announcing: Pro Stadium Lite event March 5th at the Silverdome in Pontiac, MI!

From my conversation with the event manager I was able to pretty much get this thing sorted out. We will be running two heats of 10 cars with the top 5 going to the main that will be held during the middle of the show. Their will be no pay out unless the racers as a group come together and split a pot. The pits at this time will be outside so bring a cover if you have one, however the event manager said he will try his best to find us a spot inside. You are allowed to bring pit men with you as long as it is within reason and we don’t have a mad house of people running around. I will arrive at the silverdome sometime between 9-12 to help set up the track design for our cars I encourage others to join me. The drivers meeting is at noon and all racers must attend. Their will be a Pit party from 3-5 that we are encouraged to attend. The gates will open at 5:30 and racing starts at 7. I am being held responsible for safety requirements. You will need basically everything you need for a typical race at your local track, 4 point harness, wrist restraints-side nets ( one or the other), helmet, goggles, and make sure your body is fully covered, NO drivers suits are required. Their will be no tech other than us as a group making sure we don’t have a problem with another racers car. From speaking with the event manager we are to consider this an exhibition, to see how the crowd reacts to our cars, If this goes over well they MAY consider replacing some of the quad racing with a stadium lite series. As an added bonus I was told the stadium was sold out so their should be about 60,000 people watching. This will be a televised event, however we have a extremely slim chance that we will get any air time. So lets give them a race that makes the crowd go nuts!!

If you have any questions please give me a call at 330-542-2993.

Thanks,
Ben Barkley

Follow-up info from Radical…

I spoke with Jim Moehle, the race director for the Silverdome race this morning (02/21/2005).

Here’s the latest on the March 5th Pontiac, MI race….

In addition to Monster Trucks, there will be a Pro Truck class. This is great news for us since the track will be optimized for the Pro Trucks instead of Pro Quads. What this means is that the track will be perfect for our machines! There will NOT be Supercross type jumps or Pro Quad doubles and triples!

The Pro Quads will NOT be there.

You must be 18 years old to race in THIS event. Jim wants to hold off on allowing minors with parental consent from racing at this first event.

I have been given permission to obtain a CLASS sponsor for this race. If (we) can pull it off, we could possibly obtain purse money to help grow the class. What we can do is get a company like Amsoil etc to put up the cash purse. In return, we would put Amsoil stickers on all the cars, wear their hats and shirts at the pit party, hand out sponsor autograph cards, display product etc, and the cars could be announced as the “Amsoil Lites”. Anybody up for an Amsoil “Dash for Cash”? Please let me know ASAP if you have any leads on this. I have already contacted Amsoil and Traxxas (RC cars) and left messages. It would be nice to have three or four thousand to pay all the way out to last place. Pace did this in their series and made it worth competing. Up until now, there were serious restrictions by pace that would not allow an independent sponsor. We were not even allowed to hand out sponsor autograph cards!

Another consideration is coordinating our racecar numbers so they do not conflict.
Put numbers on at least three sides of the car as large as possible on a contrasting background.

We will be self-governing our class to make it as easy as possible on Jim so we get invited back.

The class rules will be loosely based on “pace” rules, the main difference being larger engines and overall car size limits so the Drakarts can run.

As Ben mentioned, fire suits are not required, but good MX gear and pads are suggested.
You should have either side netting or wrist restraints to keep your limbs in the car.
A good driver harness needs to be used. Just make sure your car and gear is in decent shape and safe to run.

Be prepared to pit outside if needed. Jim does not yet know if there is room available inside.

We also need to discuss at some point before the race if we should pay an entry fee to be used as payback money, and if the class should be scored (payout) separately among stock and modified cars.

Please direct questions or comments to Ben Barkley (330) 542-2993

If you have any questions related to the car setup or actually racing in a stadium event, I will try to help out.

I will be there barring any blizzards!

Hope to see you all there!

Radical
radicalracing@charter.net