(Bill W) June 7, 2016 – Well it’s been a month since we launched www.OpenWheel101.com and I hope everyone is enjoying it! The positive response has been awesome whether it be online or in person at the tracks, and I have to thank everyone who has helped get it off the ground.
We’re always tweaking on the site and trying to make it better. I’d like to thank the great columnists, bloggers and race fans who are contributing to the site. I’ve enjoyed the first few interviews we’ve done with Bryan Clauson, Billy Alley, Davey Heskin and Josh Schneiderman and I hope you did to. They have gotten good reviews as well! I like to do a more human interest approach with them, and they seem to be well received. We hope to have another one done next week for you. Kris Krohn, the videographer from Knoxville Raceway is a good partner to have in doing these and I’m glad we can help him out too.
I’d like to thank Allan Holland from www.Hoseheads.com and Tom Myers from Buckeye Threads (www.BuckeyeThreads.com) for thinking enough of the site to sponsor it. It sure is needed! There are a lot of costs involved, and I would like to do a lot more interview content, etc., but we will do what we can with what we have! I have more ideas than funds right now. It will all come in time. One of my major goals was not doing a subscription system and keeping the site free, and we’re sticking to that!
In just a month, we had 12,549 visits, and some folks are sticking around for quite a while on the website. My web guy, Kyle McCullough (www.IowaWebGuy.com) says this is exceptional. It exceeds my goal of having more visitors in the first month than Monroe, Iowa has for a population (1,808), so we are good there. I hope fans are finding our “Search” feature (more on that later). I can also track how much attention our sponsors are getting, and they are getting a lot. We all know race fans are the most loyal to our sponsors. If you are interested in partnering with the site, shoot me an e-mail at sprntcar@hotmail.com and we’ll cut you a deal.
“Search” Section
The “Search” section has undergone some tweaking. Some of you on mobile devices have noticed it was hard to use that section. That has been fixed. Articles are tagged with race winner or subject of article, year, track, series, event and sometimes author. So if you search for the tags “Donny Schatz”, “Knoxville Raceway”, Knoxville Nationals”, “World of Outlaws” you will get a lot of results and stories on the site. The most relevant articles will come to the top, but we are still tweaking how the search prioritizes our articles.
I’m personally entering 2006 and working backwards with my own results and stories. It is constantly being updated, so come back later if you can’t find something now, or drop me an e-mail.
Still in Need of Fans in the Stands
We could still use some fans in the stands who would like to share their thoughts on their race night. Shoot me your observations from the track, and maybe send a pic or two to spice it up. The more, the merrier!
This ‘N That
There were 54 410 sprint cars last Saturday night between Knoxville’s National Sprint League show and Badlands Motor Speedway. I can’t remember the last time we had that many cars between the two for weekly shows. Things are really growing in the 410 ranks right now.
Friday, I headed to I-80 Speedway for the Bobby Parker Memorial with everything else a wash. Thirty-four 360’s were there in a very stout field. That was before the rains came! Too bad. I was looking forward to seeing Billy Alley, Dusty Zomer, Robby Wolfgang, Don Droud Jr., Jack Dover, Carson McCarl, etc. battle it out! It ended up being a two-and-a-half-hour one-way trip to Denny’s, but the rainbow was nice. I bet Jordon Mallett from Greenbrier, Arkansas didn’t appreciate it as much on his drive home. After racing at Fairmont Thursday and getting rained out at Jackson Friday, he was making one last stab in Nebraska before heading home.
There’s a lot of hype for this weekend’s two-night World of Outlaws show at Knoxville, and there should be! The track is pitting the Knoxville regulars vs. the Outlaws. The fans are to wear white on Saturday to make it a white out in support of the locals! Plenty of other activities are planned. I doubt many of you doing life-size beer pong on Friday night will be running the 5K at 8 a.m. Saturday morning, but there is plenty for everyone. Excited to see the fan fest including the SUMO matches paying in Nationals tickets, and the meet and greet with the drivers in the pits from 4-5 p.m. Saturday. The crowds have been awesome at Knoxville this year. Let’s keep it going!
While many of our regulars have beaten the Outlaws on multiple occasions, because we have only had one World of Outlaws show in recent years (not counting Nationals), their wins have not come at Knoxville. If you count Knoxville Nationals prelims (which you probably should), Terry McCarl beat them from his ninth starting spot just last year, and Brian Brown won his prelims in 2013 and 2014. There have only been nine stand-alone World of Outlaws shows at Knoxville since McCarl beat them in June of 2009 here as a Knoxville regular. We aren’t counting wins by Brooke Tatnell (who raced here and there in 2010) and Kerry Madsen (who is a resident) in the meantime either. There have been plenty of seconds, prelim wins and victories at other tracks, but it is time one of the locals won. Two nights this year will give them one more chance! If we fill up the stands, maybe we’ll see more shows with the Outlaws next year.
Tomorrow, I’m headed east to Lincoln Park Speedway in Putnamville, Indiana for the World of Outlaws. This falls in the “can’t miss” category for me, and hopefully, it will be the first of many visits for the WoO to Putnamville. Keep a look out for my results and stories tomorrow night after the race.
Bill Wright
Bill W Media
sprntcar@hotmail.com
Twitter: @BillWMedia
Website: www.OpenWheel101.com