I guess maybe you really don’t know someone until push comes to shove, but I’ll leave that story for another time.

Before I get too far into this week’s rambling… Allow me to speak about something which is very dear to my heart because of the passion I’ve had in its building, a slight change if you will. I will no longer be involved with Drag Racing Edge magazine. There are new owners which supposedly are going back to print, print which ceased back in November for us. This also includes the website, of which you may have noticed some things changing in the production of my Blogs. We however, could not come to terms for me to be involved and I can’t in my mind find myself working in that environment. It’s been a great run dating all the way back to the Drag Racing Action days, but if you happened to have read my editorial in the last print issue, I repeated the words of Grandma Wilkerson who said, “The beginning is scary and the end sad, but the middle is what counts.” And I’ve had a great “middle.”

But as I also stated on that same page back in November, “you haven’t heard the last of me.” I’ll be working on that next chapter and in the meantime, these Blogs will continue thanks to great sponsors like Artisan Coffee. (Cheap plug: If you’re a coffee drinker, I urge you to sign up for their Coffee Club Racing Team and receive discounts on their coffee. Yeah, you’ll enjoy the coffee too!) I’ve had too much fun writing and enjoying your comments after each to give it up. What’s the quote, “When one door closes, another one opens?” I’ll always keep the faith and set up for that next door opening.

Now back to the regularly schedule program.

Unfortunately, due to several reasons, I wasn’t able to attend the Southern Sportsman Shootout for Super Stock/Stock racers in Georgia. But I spent way too much time watching the action on MotorManiaTV. It looked like a great turnout and I hope everyone there enjoyed what has become the norm at many of the high dollar bracket races.

The bracket racers have been enjoying that type of atmosphere for a long time, while the class racing contingent has relegated to running almost seemingly boring national or divisional event. Obviously when you going rounds and winning, it’s certainly not exactly boring. But there is much more to events than just who wins and who loses.

Let’s face it, there is only one big winner at a race, but events like this enable more than just that one person to at least walk home with something. Of course, I’m sure Aaron Allison, Joel Warren and Joe Santangelo (the eventual race winners) had an even greater time than others, but from the many big dollar races I attend and speak with the participants, for the most part everyone leaves happy. And what better success for a race than to have everyone leave in that manner?

Things such as awards for Best Losing Round Package and the like have been the standard at bracket races and now the SS/Stk crowd can see what makes the big bracket races so inviting. Besides a bunch of random awards, it just takes a little thinking outside the box for other things which makes a race fun. There must have been a vendor on-site who offers grill cheese sandwiches. I heard it announced that in the first round of qualifying on Friday, anyone who scored better than an .025 reaction time earned themselves a free sandwich. I listened pretty intently to the MotorManiaTV broadcast, which was free to stream, as opposed to the many pay-per-view broadcasts, in addition to the MotorManiaTV crew doing a great job showcasing each round of racing.

For the time being, you can always reach me at johnd@drcraceproducts.com and I’ll see you at the races. Race on!

I will miss your articles John. Good luck in your new venture!

Their loss I believe but I like your attitude about it. Carry on doing what you do John.