Friday, June 10, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

JEFF WOLF: Bullring desperately needs full-time GM, or Bigfoot

Happy 30th birthday, Bigfoot.

Instead of extinguishing candles on a cake with exhaust from its 1,500-horsepower engine during Saturday's Night of Destruction show at Las Vegas Motor Speedway's dragstrip, Bigfoot can just CRUSH IT!

The event at the dragstrip from 8 to 10 p.m. should not be confused with the stock-car racing that night at the speedway's Bullring, which could use a Night of Destruction.

The main attraction at the dragstrip is a battle between monster truck godfather Bigfoot and its cousin Snakebite. The show also will include Las Vegas-based Nitro Altereds driven by Rick Hough (Nanook) and James Generalao (Impatient), wheel-standing legend Ed "Outlaw" Jones, and a pair of jet dragsters.

Also featured will be drag racing's backbone: NHRA Sportsman racers.

But the star of the night will be Bigfoot, which will be making its only Las Vegas performance this year.

Maybe Bigfoot driver Dan Runte will let me borrow the big Ford so I can drive it over the Bullring during the weekly NASCAR stock-car program.

Wonder if it would pass technical inspection in the Bullring Bomber division?

It would be tempting just to drive 'Foot to the Bullring, pull up to the shiny pace car and threaten to flatten it unless the speedway starts making major changes in Bullring operations.

Now is the time for speedway general manager Chris Powell to live up to his commitment to make the three-eighths-mile oval Bullring a priority.

No more baby steps. It's time for Bigfoot steps.

Especially in light of this week's news that Mesa Marin Raceway in Bakersfield, Calif. -- a popular half-mile oval that opened in 1977 -- will be turned into a housing development after this season, according to bakersfield.com.

What better time to make a serious commitment to put the Bullring in the upper echelon of short tracks.

I'm tired of hearing Southern Nevada racers say how much better it is to race at Irwindale Speedway near Los Angeles.

I'm tired of hearing Southern Nevada racers and fans complain about the Bullring and knowing most, if not all, of their concerns are justified.

"We used to have water-balloon fights in the pits," one veteran racer told me at the Bullring last week. "We had fun here."

Now there are occasional fistfights.

The Bullring needs a manager -- a full-time manager -- and not a yes man for Powell, who has enough to worry about operating the speedway to be concerned about daily Bullring business. Powell needs to find someone to grab the Bullring by the horns and then let him do his job.

Mike Stafford, in his rookie season as Bullring competition manager, might grow into his job. But racers and fans shouldn't have to wait another year for major improvements. And besides, Stafford's position is only part time.

The Bullring will lumber along until the reins are handed to someone with the background and demeanor of a manager like Joey Mancari who understands racers and the racing business.

Mancari left his job at the speedway a few years ago because he refused to be a Powell puppet. Yet Mancari was good enough for NASCAR to hire a couple of years ago to run its regional Southwest stock-car series.

The Bullring needs a general manager who is allowed to be the general manager. That person needs a budget to promote the track, power to be creative and money for a prize fund that doesn't come primarily from the sale of tires and fuel that racers buy at the Bullring.

Powell gambled four years ago when he hired Chris Blair to be the speedway's senior director of drag racing and dirt-track operations.

Blair had never run a dragstrip, though he was well schooled in racing. But Blair turned the dragstrip into the best in the country, and those who race there actually seem to have fun.

Powell could use the same foresight to put someone in charge of the Bullring.

It needs a big change. Now.

Please do it, Mr. Powell, Bigfoot and I don't want to turn that pace car into a tin can.

Jeff Wolf's motorsports column is published Friday. He can be reached at 383-0247 or jwolf@reviewjournal.com.