Mountain Speedway

Yesterday my friend Walter and I decided to go to Mountain Speedway – a 1/3 mile asphalt track in the Pocono Foothills of Pennsylvania. It turned out to be a bad choice. While the track, pit area, and grandstands are nice. The rest of everything wasn’t all that good (besides the show Eric Beers put on). This was a 3 division show (features only) that cost $20 to get in. Being it was a “big race” for them, the price didn’t bother me that much. The speaker system was horrible, the only working speaker was way in the pits and no one could here it, yet they insisted on doing driver introductions. Maybe if the track has closed caption we’d be OK. As it was I couldn’t here a thing the announcer said. The food wasn’t anything to brag about and a little over priced. However, it wasn’t “NASCAR-priced” so it wasn’t too bad. I wish I could say the same about the officiating. It had to be the worst officiated/ran race I’ve seen in a long time (if not ever). A trained monkey would have done a better job. Check that, an untrained cat would have done a better job.

A 3 race show shouldn’t take 7 hours to run! Every time their was a caution, the flagman would just stand there doing nothing for about 10 laps (sometimes more) and then maybe try to line them up. Of course, the officials had no clue where to line anyone up. I’ve been to about 125 tracks, and I have to say this was the poorest run one. I can’t wait to read what Guy Smith writes about this debacle in Area Auto Racing News as I spotted him as we were leaving.

The only saving grace was the show Eric Beers put on. He started on the outside pole but something went wrong with his car on the start so he had to go to the pits. He rejoined the field in last place and by lap 24 he passed 22 cars and was in second (and all the passes were clean). It took him about 15 more laps to take the lead and it held on from there. Eric put on one of the best performances I ever seen in an asphalt mod.

It is a shame that the officials are so bad, as the track itself is pretty nice. I’ve only been to Mountain twice (last time was about 3 years ago – I should have learned that time as it was a poorly run show then too(but I don’t remember it being this bad)). I don’t plan on making a third trip to Mountain unless I want to be tortured or if they get some new management.