Nothing is for certain, especially with a complicated weather pattern sitting over the Mid-Atlantic, but it looks more likely than not that Saturday night is not going to happen.
Flashback: The 2022 All-American 400 Super Late Model event at Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway was scheduled for Friday, Saturday and Sunday with the forecast showing a Sunday washout all week. Teams woke up on Saturday morning staring down the same forecast and promoter Bob Sargent made the hasty decision to run the entire show that night.
Everything that was scheduled for Sunday was tacked onto Saturday night. They got everything in pretty flawlessly and it indeed rained all day Sunday and teams and fans were none the worse for wear because they were all at home.
The point of this history lesson is that Bobby McCarty does not want to sit around in the rain all day Saturday, force teams to spend the extra hotel day even if Sunday looks better at current forecast time. This is what happened last year after all but McCarty thinks there’s no reason to sit around until Sunday since everyone will be there on Friday and can just get the show done early.
“It is what it is,” McCarty said dismissively of the rain during a Wednesday night phone call. “Let’s call a zebra a zebra. We’re all seeing the same forecast. We all see the rain. I just don’t want to wake up on Saturday, and it’s raining, and see someone with a ‘OFFICIAL’ shirt telling us ‘I can’t believe it’s raining, what do we do now.’
“A ton of money is being spent on this race, 80 cars, so let’s all run it on Friday and let’s get out of town before it rains. We are all about to spend a half million dollars combined on this race and I just don’t feel like we get enough consideration.
“That’s the biggest problem right now in Late Model Stock racing. That we spend all of the money and we don’t get enough consideration for our feedback. We put our blood, sweat and all of our paychecks into our race cars, and you cant have a race without our race cars, and be it the weather, rules and money, we just don’t get enough say so.”
When told about the 2022 All-American 400 precedent, McCarty loved it and said that was an example of the race teams being considered because there was no reason to force teams to come back another weekend, given how expensive that is.
“If it’s Friday, FloRacing is already going to be there,” McCarty said. “Whatever crowd you get, it’s going to be the same as it would be a day later after a rainout. You won’t lose any of the cars and you’re going to make the racers happy.
“It’s just wrong that when it comes down to tires, or rain, or so much other stuff, that 99 percent of the time, racers are the one holding the short stick. And I know with the rain, Clay has something to lose too, but this is just a matter of trying to make the most of what we all see is going to happen on Saturday.”
Matt Weaver is the owner and founder of Short Track Scene. Weaver grew up in the sport, having raced himself before becoming a reporter in college at the University of South Alabama. He also has extensive experience covering NASCAR, IndyCar and Dirt Sprint Cars.
