On March 4. 2006 I went to my first race ever in Mississippi (actually, it was the first time I was ever in Mississippi for anything). The race I went to was the Frost Bite 50 at the South Mississippi Speedway. I went to the race with a friend as a side trip during a long weekend in New Orleans. This was the first race ever for my friend, and I appreciate the fact that my friend came along with me and was a good sport about it, even if it wasn’t the most enjoyable experience for her. Since we didn’t have a lot of time in New Orleans, we didn’t rush over to the track and showed up an hour late — which happened to be just on time for the first race. The track was packed full of people — so much so the stands were full and they were selling tickets for $10 a piece instead of the posted $15 because they couldn’t guarantee you a seat. We paid our $10 a piece and found a place to sit down low near turn one. The track surface was pretty good, and while not the most efficient race, once they got started they ran the show pretty well. However, it still was just too long because of all the divisions they had racing. My friend commented after we had been there for 3 hours (which was 4 hours after the races were supposed to have started), that she thought she was going there “to see a race.” By that she meant that within 4 hours of starting time, the feature race should have been run. I agree. This is why it is hard to get people to start being regular fans. While I think my friend may humor me by going to a race with me again (at least they say they will) I’m sure that dirt tracking race didn’t find a regular fan. I really think tracks need to get races done at a reasonable time. As my friend pointed out there were kids sleeping in the stands that should have been home in bed. Races just should not be 6 or 7 hour affairs. I don’t mean to slight South Mississippi Speedway as they actually were probably better then most tracks. It really just is an industry epidemic. Anyway, if you are more of a hard-core racing fan, and you are in the area, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend visiting the track, as it really wasn’t too bad. I have now seen a race in 33 states (and have visited 42 overall).
My 2006 season race watching stats are now:
Races: 6
Tracks: 3 (1 new)
States: 3 (1 new)
BTW: New Orleans was really nice this time of year. Many things are still closed, and there is still a lot of damage, but the French Quarter is pretty much up and running. I didn’t get to the ninth ward, but you could still see alot of damage. However, what I did see in New Orleans didn’t match what I saw along the Mississippi Gulf Coast where basically whole small towns were gone. Like I said, I didn’t get to the most damaged sections of New Orleans, so maybe they were just as bad as the Mississippi Gulf Coast.