Possible Dragweek 2020 track cancellation

[AlanCasida]

I just read on Dragzine that Summit Motorsports Park might cancelling their entire season. I imagine some of you racers closer to Norwalk know about this but they said some announcement is coming by mid week. Not sure how much this would affect DW. It might be kind of hard to get another track by now plus figuring out another route. Real bad for local racers and businesses. Here is the link:

    https://www.dragzine.com/news/summit-motorsports-park-reportedly-not-opening-in-2020/

[thatdarncat]

Some people here are on Facebook and have seen this, and some aren’t, so I’ll put this here for those that aren’t - the question of whether Drag Week will be going on this year has been coming up often, including last week. Here’s a screenshot of Keith Turk from Hot Rod’s answer to the question just last week. I take it to mean, big picture Drag Week is going to happen, stay flexible means there could be changes, and I’d take that to mean it could even include a move to different track(s) if needed, or a different arrangement of order of tracks during the week. That’s all just my interpretation. Time will tell.

[TomP]

One of the replies below that article says just today the guv'mint announced they are easing restrictions. Probably still to something draconian and unworkable but Drag Week would be a simpler one to meet the requirements or restricting spectators compared to larger events. Unless they do something silly like restrict them to 20 people max.

A Costco store can have hundreds in a much smaller enclosed space but of course Bill Gates owns 1.36% of them (over six million shares) and owns none of the race track.

[thatdarncat]

Here’s the latest from Keith Turk as of 2:45 PM Central Time today.

[cjshaker]

The listed events that Norwalk announced being canceled are pretty major events that draw big crowds in the stands. I'm hoping that smaller events don't suffer the same fate. Drag Week crowds are anything but "crowded". There's barely a couple hundred people in the stands during the events, at least that I've seen. 200 people at Norwalk could maintain at least a 30' distance!

I've been concerned about this for a while, but have been holding out hope that things will ease up by then. Michigan is the one that would have had the biggest problems, with their draconian Governor continuing to not allow any business to open that they didn't deem "essential", or for anyone to leave there house to do anything that might be considered "fun" (unless it's her husband), but now is supposedly easing up on that....next week. Apparently her husband is sick of being stuck at home with her..lol

I think the best incentive to keep DW alive is that there's no way Hot Rod is going to want to refund all that money.

[cjshaker]

After looking at Norwalks website (still hard to think of it as Summit Motorsports Park), it's just more confusing. They say they are not having any race schedule this year, but event listings for Friday T-n-T events are still up, as are several others. So I don't know if it's just major events, or if everything is being cancelled. Guess we just have to wait till Wednesday to find out.

[AlanCasida]

I saw a message on FB from the track owner and he said he decided last Friday to cut his losses and suspend the season. He was in the process of contacting the different entities that had events scheduled when the news leaked out. He said a formal announcement will be made on Wednesday.
I copied this from his FB page:
On Friday, May 29 at 2:30 pm (EST), I came to the realization that with 83% of my revenue lost for the year, that it no longer made financial sense to attempt to open and run the risk of losing anymore money for the year. Instead, I thought, I need to cover up and live to fight another day. With my path now clear, I began the process of making calls to the parties who needed to know in advance of an announcement. Unfortunately, my decision was leaked and blew up this morning. I apologize to so many that found out through a rumor piece instead of a message directly from me. A formal announcement will be made on Wednesday.

[cammerfe]

Queen-governor gretchen of Michigan largely threw in the towel yesterday (Monday). Michigan is coming back to life

KS

[Falcon67]

Dragzine says both Route 66 and Summit have cancelled the remainder of 2020.

https://www.dragzine.com/news/route-66-raceway-cancels-remainder-of-2020-season/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=route-66-raceway-cancels-remainder-of-2020-season

https://www.dragzine.com/news/summit-motorsports-park-reportedly-not-opening-in-2020/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=summit-motorsports-park-reportedly-not-opening-in-2020

[TomP]

Add to that Sears Point and Gateway and Gateway is supposedly permanent.

[cjshaker]

And what are they going to do next year when the virus returns, as viruses always do?

A rhetorical question, obviously. But a very real question at the same time.

[Nightmist66]

Sept. 15th track is now National Trail Raceway in Hebron, OH.

https://www.hotrod.com/events/drag-week/

[Russ67Scode]

So I have a question for you old drag week participants.  I took the car on a 70 mile road trip and my 20 gal fuel cell was 122 deg  not sure why fuel is that hot but I need to do something before I drive it 200 miles!

[TomP]

Is there a return line to it?

I see Sears Point is running today, so they have not shut down, just don't have the NHRA nats.

[Russ67Scode]

Yes AN-8 return line  thinking about using an B & M transmission cooler (plate type) in a cooler of ice on the return line