The State of OUR sport; Past, Present, and Future

A continuing series of interviews through the eyes of YOU, our Teams, Promoters, Tracks, Sanctioning Bodies, and Fans…

Let’s create more pictures like this……

Massive crowd at T-Car 1969

Part 2: Through the Eyes of Champion Speedway's Les Kynett

On December 27, 2005 Les Kynett, promoter of Champion Speedway, kindly took some time out from his busy schedule to give us a promoters insight to our past and future. Les really looks back to our past, the “glory days” of short track racing. And I think there are a number of points we can seize from our past, and apply it to our future.

I’m going to warn you in advance, this is not going to be very pretty. I’ve left this mostly unedited as 2 people just rap about racing. It’s frank, and it’s brutally honest. Neither of us have an agenda, only the love of this sport we share.

There are some issues you may find offensive. Janet at Racing West and I discussed it, and felt it was ok to present it as it is part of the bigger picture. We discuss Altamont Speedway at one point, (a track Les promoted), and we really need to be very thankful to the great people at Riverside for taking on this track this upcoming season, but as Les will point out, have some extreme challenges ahead of them. We need to give them all the help we can. (I’ll be up there this season Altamont). I’ve read the posts here at RW and it seems they are doing the right things. They’re working with their teams, and the teams are working with their promoters. That is exactly the point of this series of chats.

As you read this you will find that Les is more than just a promoter, but a sincere race fan for over 50 years. He clearly is a fan of the sport along with all of us which I think you will find not only re-freshing to know, (coming from a promoter) but also gives value to his words.

By the end of this I hope everyone see’s how important it is we all (tracks, owners, teams, drivers, officials and fans) pull together and REALLY appreciate what we now have, will be getting (thanks Collins and Destefani families, SRL/ASA, Riverside Motorsports) and what we need to accomplish together. Give and Take. We have a long, long way to go.

The Interview

Andy: Tell me about yourself, what’s your background, you’ve been promoting for a long time, where did you start?

Les: Sure, The racing bug bit me in 1952. My Dad worked in the clubhouse concession at the old San Jose Speedway on Tully road. And this was one of Bob Barkhimer’s promoted tracks at the time, and it was one of the very first of the Nascar tracks, sanctioned by Nascar on the West Coast. I took a job selling Crackerjacks and Hershey’s in the grandstands, and I got to make a couple three dollars on Saturday night. And then the racing bug big into me real hard, and from that day on I’ve been involved in some facet of auto racing. In 1958 I was the assistant concession manager at San Jose Speedway as well as the Watsonville Speedway. So, I would travel over to Watsonville, on Friday nights and get all the concession booths ready for racing, and then come back to San Jose on Saturday, and pretty much do the same thing.

I became a racing photographer in the late 60’s and early 70’s and traveled, oh gosh, all around Central and Northern California tracks as a racing photographer on an amateur basis. I was able to get enough prints out for the local promoter, for the courtesy of allowing me to come in and sign on the pit gate as a photographer. That just further entrenched by interest in auto racing.

In 1982 I became the announcer and the marketing director for advertising sales for then what was the old T-car Speedway (Tahoe Carson Speedway) in Carson City Nevada. I was the announcer from around 1982 to 1985 and then we purchased the track in the Winter of 1985 and opened in 1986 as the new Silver State Raceway. We ran Silver State Raceway until 1990 when a fellow by the name of Larry Burton came up from Roseville California and made us an offer on the Speedway and property. We really didn’t want to sell it, but Larry had been a former driver in the Sacramento area, and promoter of the Roseville Speedway. And at that time he felt he wanted to get back into the auto racing business and move up to Nevada. Quite frankly he and his group made an offer we just couldn’t refuse.

So, in 1990 we turned over the operation to Larry Burton. Larry had successfully run the track up until about 1999. Some serious health issues had hampered Larry’s operation, so he asked me to come back. In the 2001 season as he had leased out to the track to another group for its operation. They had no experience in promotion or race management so Larry asked me if I would come back in 2001 and reorganize it for them, which I did. And we turned it around quite well. It was a very successful season, lots of sponsors, lots of cars, lots of fans in the stands. And they continued their operation in 2002/2003 with other managers at the track and quite frankly it just made another turn for the worst. So we came back in 2004 and 2005 season and operated the track for Larry. At the 2005 season on September 27th it was purchased and escrow was closed. The speedway was closed down and all of the property the speedway sat on, the 30 acres as well as the 140 acres surrounding the speedway were set for home development, which is currently now underway.

A: Oh, so it’s already under way.

L: Yes, they’re clearing land and doing various things out there.

A: Who built the speedway originally?

L: It was originally built in 1963 by Barney Pedersen here in Carson City. He had no experience in running a speedway, but enjoyed auto racing. He hired a fellow by the name of Ted Walker who was a boxing promoter here in the Carson area who also had no experience in running a speedway or auto racing. But the owner Barney Pedersen had told Ted to go on down to Sacramento and look at West Capital Raceway, look at San Jose Speedway, and also Stockton Speedway, and see what he could do at duplicating those successful operations and bring it back up here to T-Car Speedway (Tahoe Carson Speedway). So Ted did that and quite frankly from about 1964, their first full year of operation through his last year about 1972 as promoter they had VERY very successful years. Packed grandstands, they were doing a tremendous job. Of course in those days if you wanted to watch an auto race you had to buy a ticket to see one, you couldn’t just turn it on television like you can today.

A: Yes, things are a bit different today.

L: Do you know who Bob Barkhimer is?

A: No, sorry I don’t.

L: Bob is a former midget driver with the Bay Cities Racing Association back in 1937 when he was a young man. And, then he became a promoter of midget auto racing right after the war years about 1946 or so. He acquired other tracks in California and Oregon. At one during the 50’s.....TWENTY ONE tracks were under his operation.

A: Wow, 21 Tracks!

L: Yes, that’s huge. Bob was also the first Nascar sanctioned and track operator in the Western United States.

A: This is what years?

L: His track acquisitions started in the late 40’s, and then primarily in the 50’s and 60’s. He had a total of 21 tracks in CA, Oregon, Washington and Arizona that were under his promotership.
So Bob was the guru here in the Western United States, even more popular than JC Agajanian, And they were the best of friends by the way. Do you know who I’m talking about?

A: Oh sure, just went to Turkey Night a few weeks ago.

L: Absolutely. The point I was making right here as a young boy working at San Jose I idolized Bob Barkhimer. He wore real nice pair of gray dress slacks with wingtip shoes if you know what I’m talking about.

A: Oh you’re just a little before my time, but I think I know what you mean...

L: Highly polished, he had a white shirt with French cufflinks on, he dressed like a million dollars. And at that time I did not want to be a race car owner or driver, I wanted to be Bob Barkhimer.
So a great deal of my influence was generated from the years that I’ve known Bob Barkhimer. It was just reinforced in knowing him. And I won’t say that he was my mentor, but he was certainly the person that I looked to as the optimum of race promoters. Well respected, ran great shows, huge audiences, big car counts, I mean everything was the way it should be.

AD: Wow, I never knew the name. Agajanian of course I know from Ascot here in LA. I’m getting some great racing history here. I feel we have a lot to learn from our past. This is excellent.

L: Well I like I say, those are some things that if you didn’t know, now you know that he had 21 tracks in operation. (laughs)

A: We’d be lucky to have 21 healthy race tracks in the country right now.

L: Yes, and rumors abound that they are going to shutdown the Southwest and Northwest tour.

(turned out to be the entire Elite division of course)

A: Yes, that’s been rumored and seems to be what is going to happen. That is actually one of my questions to you. What is your reaction to that kind of announcement? Where is our short track sport headed?

L: Back in the 60’s if you were with your Mom and Dad and went to an auto race, you had to buy a ticket to see one. You couldn’t turn on television and see one. In the late 60’s you could turn on Wide World of Sports and 3 months later get some clips of the Daytona 500 along with Ice Skating or whatever else they had on the segment then. So you really had to be in attendance to get your fix for auto racing. And that’s why auto racing in the golden years of the 40s, 50’s, and 60’s, and even early 70’s, was so big as far as local Saturday night attendance, at the local tracks. It’s because you had Stars, and you had Idols, and you had drivers that started their careers at one speedway, and pretty well stayed at this speedway through their entire racing career. They didn’t move off to the higher echelons of racing as they have done here in the last 20 years.

A: Well definitely everyone's goal is to get to Trucks, Busch, and Cup. That’s changed a lot. Is there a solution? Is there a way to get back to that point?

L: You know, as a promoter, I think it’s outgrown itself. It’s just like when the radio came in; it was great for people who wanted to listen. And we made life real easy for them by making the portable, or the transistor radio, that they could carry to the beach or wherever. And then when television came in, it pretty well eliminated radio as it was known, during its golden era. And the same thing with Saturday Night short track racing. It has lived a life of glory from the 50’s, 60’s and even into the 70’s, because we had local heroes. We didn’t have television to satisfy our need and our thirst for watching an auto race. We had to buy a ticket to go see one. We used to have race cars towed to racetracks on open trailers, rather than box trailers

A: Yes, you’re reinforcing many points I’ve been hitting on recently. One thing affects another.

L: Oh yeah, all of this adds up. Boy I remember the old hard tops on trailers leaving the local service station. You could drive anywhere around any town in America during the week or Saturday morning, and see an old hard top or an old jalopy being worked on at a Flying A gas station. And if you were inclined to like auto racing, your reaction was “WOW THERE’S A RACE CAR, THEY’RE RACING TONIGHT”. “You know! That’s a hard top, that’s a midget, that’s a sprint car, they’re racing tonight.”

Well now we’ve disguised them all from the fans. They’re not worked on any longer at corner gas stations because of course; we no longer have corner gas stations. They’re in race shops hidden in industrial zones in the cities, so the general public doesn’t come by like they used to. And, when they’re transported to and from racetracks, they are hidden inside massive car carriers.

A: Yes I agree. Our race cars are hidden, and our teams are hidden. Why we need 100K giant haulers for a late model is beyond me. Not very long ago at little Saugus, all the cars, including the Tour cars, came in with a pickup truck and open trailer. My idea, if you have all that extra cash lying around..........Race more cars, put one of your interested crew guys in a street stock returning value to your sponsor. Anyway, I’ll hold my costs rant for later..

L: It all adds to the ingredients of why the Saturday Night short tracks as we know them, are dying. I don’t believe there is a revitalization of that. And it’s not to say 1 or 2 tracks here or there can’t get rejuvenated. But the 21 tracks that Bob Barkhimer originally operated, I would venture to say that 15, maybe even more than that, maybe 18 of the 21 are no longer even there.

A: Wow. (very depressed wow)

L: The tracks are gone, there’s no longer a track there.

A: So this downward trend has really started a long time ago?

L: It started when the industry of auto racing started to spread its wings. Nascar in the late 70’s and early 80’s started it’s growing. They started to bring it out of the Southeastern part of the United States as a “good ole boy” type of weekend event. They exposed it to other parts of the country. Magazines covered it such as Speed Sport News and Auto Racing. And I have all the subscriptions of Auto Racing from around 68 through 75. It started hitting the newsstands and you could read about Donnie Allison and Bobby Allison, and you could read about Freddie Lorenzen and stars of that Southeastern segment of sport that was strictly locked to that part of the country. All of a sudden their names are being broadcast all around the US. And then they are starting to race at Riverside. WOW they’re out here in California now. And all of a sudden sponsors started taking note and the Tide car came in, ya know, a box of Tide painted on a race car. (in amazement) And Nascar started its massive growth, and once that started it generated a whole different family of race fans. Now keep in mind years ago in the 50’s and 60’s your Mom and Dad take you to a race. So you as a young boy or young girl grew up on Saturday nights, watching those races as I did. And that’s why I am a die hard race fan. But today’s family they will watch it on television, on Sunday, together as a family. And then if it’s near them, in Fontana or Phoenix, they’ll make the venture to go to the track. But their interest is in the stars of Tony Stewart, Jeff Gordon, and Dale JR. They don’t know Ron Hornaday SR. and they don’t know Clem Proctor, Roman Calzynski, Sargents, Pombo, and Palmer. Do you know who I’m talking about?

A: Sure, knew Ron Jr of course before he moved back East. Roman I watched many, many times on the Tour.

L: Today’s fans aren’t getting fed through the local tracks. They’re getting fed through television. And they’re not looking at Mario Andretti, or AJ Foyt, or any of the guys there were legends in the 50’s and 60’s. They’re looking at the legends today they see on television.

A: You’re not painting a very rosy picture of this at all.

L: And I guess I can only be somewhat of an authority in my opinion. Now I’m an authority, of my opinion, keep that in mind. Because I started in 52, and here it is 2006, so I’ve seen the whole gamut of how it’s gone. I’ve owned my tracks, I promoted tracks, and I’ve taken tours out on the road with Indy drivers, former Indy drivers, driving Supermodified for us. And, I have seen the trend. And I bucked it for many years. I would tell my wife “I can’t believe we only had 2000 people in the grandstands here at Denver” (I can hear him banging his hand in exasperation on the table) “when we had Billy Vukovich III, you know, he’s the Indy rookie of the year” ”How could we only have 2000 people”. Now that was 1990, and that was one of the middle points of Nascar’s growth. Because from 1980 to 1990 they were really growing. And in 1990 they were ready to take off. I was expecting to see fans there that were the followers of open wheel, midget, sprintcar, and modified races at that track in Denver. We promoted a 2 day show there, a Friday and Sunday show. 30 cars, supermodifieds, led by Billy Vukovich III. And we had others on our roster that year but Billy was the highlight for those drivers. And we had less than 2000 people in a stadium that held 6000. Now if we would have reversed that, and brought it back to 1960 and had his grandfather, or father Bill Jr. as our driver, we would have had 6000 fans. Because their quest for auto racing could only be bought through a ticket. So TV has done a great deal for the promotion of auto racing, but only really in one segment.

A: Right, agreed. I ask this then, Can tv save the Saturday Night Shortracks?

L: No, Nascar has already made that commitment. They’ve made all of their tracks that they are going to be sanctioning races at go to lights so they can race Saturday nights. Now the reason they want to race Saturday nights is that they can grab a better TV audience on Saturday than they can Sunday afternoon which is traditionally a family day to go boating, mow the lawn, have a BBQ. So they can get more people at the track, more people to drink beer on Saturday and then have Sunday to re-cooperate. Get more people to stay home on Saturday night and watch it live, and still have a family day on Sunday. Plus, if it’s rain on Sunday they have to race Monday of course. Now they’ve sold all the tickets, so the promoter is ok ticket wise, but the guy that has all these thousands of hot dogs, cokes, beers, and cotton candy, he’s dead. But, if it rains on Saturday they’ll hold it on Sunday and still do a concession business. In most cases your concession business is equal to, or exceeds the front gate.

A: Sure, I understand. I work in the entertainment business. The popcorn and hot dogs are what pay the bills at the theaters themselves.

L: And if Ray Wilkins Sr. were alive today, he certainly would be a testament to that.
(We believe Sr. passed away several years ago, unconfirmed)

A: Wow, I didn’t know the name of Sr. It was Ray Jr that ran Saugus.

L: Right, well his dad started it.

A: Ok, never knew that.

L: His dad was a concessionaire primarily, as I was a concessionaire primarily. That’s how I kinda came through and entered into it, from the concession standpoint. There were many Saturday nights at San Jose Speedway when they would have 3000 fans in a stadium that held 4000 fans. Their front gate was X amount of dollars. And the concession gross would be TWICE the front gate.

A: That’s what really pays the bills. It’s the reason you have any entertainment complex like Staples Center, etc.

L: Theaters are a typical example of that. If someone were to ask me, do you want to be the race promoter of this Irwindale, or the concessionaire? Well if I want to wear a nice pair of slacks, and some nice shoes, and a French cuff shirt, I’d like to be the promoter and be recognized as that. But if I really to make money, I want to sell hot dogs.

(Big laugh from both of us)

A: So what does our future hold in your view? Are the cool smaller tracks like Carson, El Cajon, Saugus going to give way to only the nice new facilities like Irwindale?

L: Well I’m not even sure that Irwindale, which is a state of the art racetrack, can really continue to operate only as a racetrack.

A: Hmm, this is actually something I’ve mentioned before. Somewhat going back to the good ole days where we shared a track with horse racing, community center, a multi purpose facility open during the week also.

L: And I’m only speculating, because please believe me, they are “state of the art”. But I know their attendances are not what they would expect them to be sitting in the middle of 13 million people.

A: No absolutely, I am amazed in a city of 13 million we can’t fill 7000 seats on a consistent basis. Many people don’t even know it’s there.

L: They were getting nearly as many at Saugus in 1975 than they are in 2005 at Irwindale. And you were there probably, weren’t you?

A: I started going as a kid with my dad, right around the mid 70’s, (yes I again confirm your story of how we all started going to tracks) and pretty much tuned out until we moved to Santa Clarita in the mid 80’s. We loved it as a great family place to go. The small kids have fun, the middle kids can run around without getting into a ton of trouble, and it’s fun for the adults too. Today my “addiction” is stronger than ever.

L: Well the privately own racetracks are closing down you know. Mesa Marin, with the Collins family, moved out for housing, and the same with this racetrack here. Stockton will be closing; it’s a privately owned racetrack. The property is much too valuable to let it continue on and earn even a marginal amount of money from front gate and concession, as it used to earn back in the 60’s. So that will go by this coming year. You’re left with some fairgrounds tracks around, and of course the overhead is covered by the state or the county that operates the track and funds it. You know, Santa Maria could be the next victim to go under.

A: Yeah, Ventura which is local to us always seems in danger. They did start a “save the racetrack” campaign that seems to be making progress.

L: Fairgrounds track, yes.

A: It seems to be mostly insurance issues it seems at the fairgrounds. They don’t want to be on the hook for a 2 or 3 million dollar lawsuit.

L: Yeah, you know I think fairgrounds require that you carry about 5 million in coverage now. And it used to be, if you had a million dollars of insurance you were insured against Katrina!

(Big laugh again)

A: Right, a million does not go far any more, does it?

L: If you come in today asking for a million dollars, your carrier is going to say “are you sure that is all you want”? That just covers someone falling down in your grandstands, not a wheel going over the fence. And then you say “the premium on 5 million is how much”? And they tell you, and you go “wow, I can’t do that”. I mean as a promoter I knew that I was under insured, but I was just cringing as to an $1800 Saturday night premium for 5 million in liability coverage.

A: Geez, the problems just mount up, don’t they.

L: And that’s off the top, it used to be $200 would give you 300,000.

A: Unbelievable, I mean the challenges of running a track are amazing. Myself, as just a fan, I know the pressures from everywhere are constant. I don’t believe you guys get enough credit, I really don’t.

L: It’s very difficult to maintain today. To maintain that as a business, especially if it is your primary family business, if that is the only way you earn money, VERY DIFFICULT. We do earn money by going out and selling sponsorships, billboards, and sponsor “night at the races”. And I’ve always been successful at doing that where I was involved. But the bottom line question keeps coming up. “Les if I buy a billboard for 1000 dollars, how many people does your stadium hold”?
“Well we can seat 3000”. “How many do you get out there Saturday night”? “Well we’re about 600”. “Well Les, that isn’t a good investment for me to have a billboard out there”. So you find that your loyal billboard and race night sponsors are renewing the billboard or their sponsorship BECAUSE OF YOU, not so much what the advertising exposure will give them.

A: You are mirroring comments I’ve made exactly. You need to give them “return on investment” and “low cost per contact”. You have to have television to do that. Unless you have one of those very rare sponsors that just love racing to spend the money for the billboard, banner, program ad, and racecar.

L: Well that’s right, that brings a whole different volume of costs involved. “How can I get television”? Gosh, they are not going to pay me to televise it, I’m gonna have to pay them. Cause they are not going to be able to sell sponsorships to my little track here. It’s a viscous circle. Usac is having a devil of a time, the IRL same, Cart, the old Cart, the Indy Series racing is having a devil of a time in attendance's. And, when they have a devil of a time in attendance's, those sponsors that will be the name and title sponsor of the event, or a billboard or a banner sponsor, presenting sponsor, are saying “You know, the crowd was 9000 in a stadium that holds 150,000, when Nascar comes here it’s full”. And they know these things because Nascar has approached them and said “Hey, when we run Texas we have 200,000 people in the grandstands”. “Two hundred thousand”! And then the IRL comes right behind them and says “we should have an attendance of about 30,000”. And the guy is thinking “where are the other 170,000, why aren’t they coming to your race”. “Maybe I better step up a little bit in my budget if I want to be a race sponsor.” “Go with Nascar rather than Usac, IRL, Champ Car, or another fledgling series.”

A: When I started following this sport, Cart was bigger than Nascar. Me, I don’t go to cup races any more. I hate the costs, the crowds, the fighting for hotel rooms. I’d rather go to your track, to Irwindale, to Mesa, to Orange Show, ANYWHERE. I get much better value, hang with the drivers and crews, AND I get better racing. I can almost go a whole year to any of our tracks, in exchange for one Cup weekend. When I can, I’ll also sponsor a car or two. Its terrific fun and I think we’re missing that in marketing to new fans.

L: I wish there were more people out there that had that attitude because then we wouldn’t be talking about a problem, and that is really a problem today.

A: That is a brilliant point you made about how we hide our drivers and cars nowadays. Also, I think you’ve re-affirmed a lot of the points I’ve felt. The drivers and teams not being as visible is VERY important. They don’t take them out of the cars except for Victory Lane (I do understand they need to move the show along). Many drivers and crew guys have become my friends and we hang out, I help with the car a little bit. (very little) You kinda become part of the sport. We’ve got to get back to that at some point.

L: And in most cases, the local newspapers still does not give the local track the kind of Monday follow-up and Friday pump for the race on Saturday, as they should. You know, years ago at San Jose I remember Al Pombo who was the big guy from Fresno. He drove the old hard tops and then into the modifieds, and the ultimately into the super modifieds. He started his career in 51 or 52 in Fresno, and came to San Jose every Saturday night. And then he would run Kerny Bowl in Fresno Friday night. He stayed with that kind of racing his entire career. So when you came out on Saturday night for the new season, you could except to see Al Pombo. But now, these young kids who get 1 or 2 years of experience, they move on in their career to something else.

A: Sure, I paid every Saturday night I could to see Hornaday run in the “glory days” of the Tour.

L: You mean the Ron Hornaday SR.

A: No I guess...(laughing) I mean the son (we both laugh) Carelli, Sedgewick, Calzynski, those guys. And today we have some fantastic tour guys I love to watch too.

L: Absolutely, you would love to see them race. They were heroes with fan club followings and people brought banners and praised the good guy with the white hat, and they booed the black hat guy. We don’t have that any more. We don’t have enough fans to create fan clubs because there is not a building of local heroes.

A: They’ve moved on, and never came back.

L: And in many cases. You’re tracks can’t afford to run their premiere division every Saturday night. So they mix it up, they run their premiere division every other week for 10 races rather than 20. That hurts your fan attendance.

A: Yes, I definitely notice when Super Lates or Lates don’t run. You can see the difference.

L: Yeah, absolutely. And, the operation costs are still there. Insurance, the lights, the security, the garbage bill. The whole thing is still there.

A: It’s hard, I really do get it. One of my constantly nagging points, racing in general, and I mean from the West clear down to the Hobby Stocks......IS TOO EXPENSIVE. I have very spirited discussions with a crew chief friend about this.

L: The expense factor is huge today. You can’t go to the wrecking yard like you used to and get replacement parts, or even have the auto wrecker sponsor you and give you the parts.

A: Sure, if you’re spending 2K to run a Late Model at Irwindale, how do you possibly make those finances work?

L: What do they pay to win 1K.

A: Something like that. And that’s if nothing goes wrong. Obviously, as a promoter, your purse has to reflect the racers costs in some manner. So you’re spending 10K or more to get the Late Models to run. How about if we just cut the costs down 5 percent....Let’s start there.

L: That would help.

You know, here’s another thing to dwell on. Very few people will talk about it, and I’m only going to talk about it because I’m trying to be as realistic about the information that you need for your story as possible. Whether you use this thought or not is up to you. But this a true factor, that very very few promoters or people will even talk about or mention, sportswriters or whomever. The danger in auto racing, even though the cars are going faster today, is not as it was back in the 50’s, 60’s, and 70’s. There is a segment of people that want to see horrifying crashes and wrecks. And they are disappointed today when they don’t see as many horrendous crashes and fires as they saw 35 years ago. And that’s a hard one to say whether it’s true or not true. Because most people will say to you “Hey I go to the races, yeah a crash once in awhile is fine, but I go to see wheel to wheel racing”. Well they do, but they are stirred up when there is some horrifying wreck in front of them. They don’t want the guy killed of course, but they want to see those things happen, and that stirs them to come back the next week, believe it or not. There is a huge segment of fans that are stirred by that emotion.

A: Wow...(long pause here)... I’m not going to disagree with you on this. I think it’s there, no question.

L: To illustrate the Talladega or the Daytona race when it goes virtually yellow free at either one of those tracks, it’s a yawner. But people are waiting for what broadcasters now call “The Big One” to happen.

A: Right, the anticipation alone.

L: Yeah, the 14-22 car big one that will turn somebody over. And when that doesn’t happen, there is a whole bunch of people that are disappointed. What should be 10 car races for the last 10 laps wheel to wheel, it was overshadowed by the fact it was pretty well yellow free. And people like to read about someone, and this is terrible to say, at least it is food for thought, people like to read about someone who was injured. The press was huge when Dale Jr. was burned out here at Infineon Raceway. The stories were huge, everybody was buying magazines, and buying USA today to get an update. I mean and that is almost provable that you could say if Tony Stewart was injured here in a practice crash, any publication that would carry a story after that wreck would be accelerated at sales.

Here’s more bad news...Racing Wheels closed after 44 years. (West Coast racing newspaper Vancouver, Washington)

A: Yes, I saw that. I wasn’t familiar with the publication for some reason.

L: I pretty much have every issue from 1962 on.

A: You’re a fan like the rest of us. That’s refreshing to hear, coming from a Promoter.

L: I knew the folks up there well. He called me several times this year asking me to advertise. I said you know I just can’t justify the cost of your ad, and the circulation of your paper to sell enough tickets just to cover the cost of the ad.

A: Just for a basic fan like me, your website helped a lot to know what was going on in Carson. I checked in weekly at least.

L: Yeah, and we had a terrible website. (Big laugh)

A: But you had one.

L: We did have one...(big laugh) but it wasn’t a good one.

To be continued...

This is the end of Part 2 in our series. The interview with Les Kynett continues in Part 3 coming right up...

Andy Daddario
Saugus, Ca.

Comments about my article can be sent to andydadd [at] yahoo.com