What Memories, What Memories!

About the farthest back I can go are the days of my uncle Mark Cowen announcing the races at I-96 speedway. I being the biggest fan of the U2 car at first driven by Rocky Hodges, and later by one of the Jacobs brothers (I think). I remember thinking that Rocky was about the coolest name for a race car driver EVER!!  I remember Gary Fedewa, Jody Hunt, and Bill Tyler.  Later on I remember thinking that the name Brett Mann was ALMOST as cool of a name as Rocky! On those nights that the sprints on dirt, all-stars, or what ever group was there since I was only a wee lad I would fall asleep under the counter in the announcers’ tower. Dad would go back out and watch the rest of the races only to wake me up at about 2 in the morning when we were already home. Those were the days when I thought that it was soooo cool to be out that late, now if in at the race track at 2 am I'm not a pleasant person to be around!!

I remember the first time dad took me to Eldora Speedway. It was 1995 and I was 11 years old. Dave Blaney was driving the vivran car and started mid pack. He worked his way up to the lead only to spin out while working lap traffic, went to the tail, and worked his way back up to the front and won the whole thing!!  That was the first of many trips to the world center of dirt track racing (more when Earl ran the place then now).  That was the first of many visits and hopefully many more to come!

With memories like this I hope it's clear why sprint cars are my favorite type of racing. I look forward to this weekend at CMS and hope for safe racing for all. I think that this season I will refrain from interviewing drivers that are involved in wrecks (if you don't know what I'm talking about...you’re lucky).

See ya at the track!!!

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