Last Meeting of Last Season

[archie]

[lightnin]

I've enjoyed following the nswqma this year, and have really enjoyed the great video/editing that mr. todd has spent a lot of time producing! I would love to see some one on one interviews with the drivers and a little history/ walk thru of their QM's and don't forget their crews too! I haven't posted in quite a while but that doesn't mean I'm not following the action and growth of the drivers enthusiastically!
Speaking of growth of your drivers...If I'm seeing the latest videos correctly congratulations are in order for the new nsw #1 plate holder Loren Vassal! Is Loren changing classes or retiring from racing? She said this was probably her last meeting!?
I hate to see your club lose a hard charging competitor such as Lorren. But I do think I see a few new drivers in your vids! The more the merrier!!
This summer I was at a race in West Liberty Iowa (a great 800 meter track not too far from home) and got to meet one of your very own...Gary Cassidy Late Model driver and his family and crew. they were In Iowa to race. He was impressed with the local drivers. And also the number of meetings held weekly in the area.
Here's a random Iowa fact for ya! I'm lucky to live in the #1 dirt track state in the U.S.! Iowa has a population of 2.9 million people and an area of 56,275 miles squared and has 55 speedways. NSW has a population of 6 Million people and and area of 312,528 miles squared I'm not sure how many speedways NSW has but you can tell that Iowa loves racing!!! Oh yea and we love Australian accents too!
The strange thing is that we have the "legendary" Knoxville Nationals/Speedway....but very few Sprintcar/Midget ect. speedways in Iowa! Australia and more specifically NSW is really lucky to have the luxury of the sprintcar/ midget racing community that you have!!
Keep on racin'!
Lightnin' Rod
P.S. I'd love to host anyone who wants to visit/race in corn country!
someday...I'd love to visit NSW!

[lightnin]

Me again! hey I found neat little video about my last post. It's on you tube called "iowa dirt trackin' ". It shows a lot of tracks that are in my area.

A guy with a tiny one hires a prostitute...when she sees it she says "who are you gonna satisfy with that little thing?!" He replies "ME"

Another random fact for ya: there aren't many maps of NSW with Cullen Bullen shown on them!!

here's a few dumb American questions for ya: #1 What do you mean when you say Cullen Bullen's track surface is made of granite? My idea of granite is a pile of rocks! is it rock dust, or something completely different?
#2 do Australians hate the Khardashians as much as Americans do?
#3 What the hell does Krieky mean? is it something Steve Irwin ,made up?
Later everybody!
Lightnin' Rod

[garry]

Hey Lightnin, it's good to hear from someone in the U.S. First and most importantly, no one that I know says krieky, although some of the old timers might say it. Secondly, who are the Kardashians? We've just had one here and she only stayed a couple of days, which is a couple of days too long. Now for the important stuff. Cullen Bullen is a crushed granite surface. It's great when it's damp but gets a little dusty when dry. Cullen has just been resurfaced and seems to be a little less dusty than before. Cullen Bullen is about 160 ks west of Sydney on the other side of the Blue Mountains. It's a great little racetrack, but has a very limited competitor base and virtually no spectator support. It's a club run show and as such runs on a shoestring budget. You can actually see the racetrack on google earth. Just type in Cullen Bullen Australia and then zoom in and you will see it.
Great to have you looking at our site and taking an interest in what were doing here in Australia.
Garry Biner

[lightnin]

hello friends on completely the other side of the world!!
Garry i did the google map search on Cullen Bullen and also did Narrogin, Parramatta and Sydney as well! Pretty cool! You'll have to check out my home town track Tipton, Iowa, and West Liberty,Farley,Davenport and of course Knoxville as well.
Tipton hosts the sprint invaders once a year during our fair.They're a club that runs 370 winged sprints and the locals love 'em! three years ago there was a young Aussie driver 16ish who won the main. The track is a high banked clay quarter mile (400M) that sits above ground level and has no walls. As you can imagine, a ride over the banks of turns 1 and 2 or 3 and 4 can be a real thrill! it's much more rounded and was reshaped in the last 10 years, but in the old days the cars would catch some major air!
During a heat race your young driver's rear wheels were about as far over the edge in turns 1 and 2 as anyone cares to go. He stomped on the gas, did not lose it! and if you look at the tipton track on google maps you'll see the highway that his rooster tail of dirt hit! What a show!
Questions for the NSWQMA:

Does the #1 N.S.W. go to the season's overall points winner or the winner of the "Titles Meeting"?

Is Darren Todd still driving or is someone else driving his car?

How many Vassals can drive quarter midgets?

When is Brendon gonna get out from behind the camera and show his dad and grandpa who the fastest Todd in the family is!

During the legendary Priest/Cruz/Vassal collision how much damage was done to the cars? and more importantly was everybody OK.

Why isn't Loren racing this season? Demanding fans want to know.

Is the track watered before races at Cullen Bullen how is the surface typically prepared?

[lightnin]

OK,
so I'm doing google satellite searches to try to get a feel of the Cullen Bullen area and see how far the drivers have to go to race.
that being said......
when you folks say for example i live in Tumbi Umbi is that more of a suburb than a stand alone city? cause let me tell you there are a lot of names to have to remember to understand just where in the hell people are from.
Point #2 Peter Priest you are legendary! I look up Tumbi Umbi...... I zoom in...a little more...and BOOM!...There it is...Randy's Adult World! Google verifies ...it's a certifiable Major Landmark!
Later folks!
Lightnin Rod
P.S. I went to school with "Angel Hart" (Shannon Flack-Hervey)
I had no idea that such a snob would end up Siliconed,Blonde and such a talented "actress" Tipton's population is 3000 ,not many know about her short movie career.

[archie]

I can answer a few things for you
4 Vassall’s race ¼ midgets
Wazza
Dan
Loren Steep (Vassall)
Alisha Streat (soon to be Vassall)

Loren is not racing this year as she got married

Darren Todd has had a shoulder opp he should be back on the track soon

The track is watered though out the nights racing

[lightnin]

Darren,
I hope you make a speedy and strong recovery and I'll look forward to seeing the mighty #11 with you behind the wheel in the near future!

Chris and Loren,
Congrats! I hope you two stay involved with the club! I wish you two the best that life has to offer.

Alisha,
Congrats to you too! Are you gonna retire after you tie the knot too?

Guys,
seriously..It's kinda hard to have a club spokes model if all the lovely ladies are gettin' hitched and retire! Indy and Nascar have Danika Patrick, even the sprint invaders had Natalie Sather(former Miss North Dakota). I think the next best candidate providing the ladies are all retired is Cruz....think about it.. he's a great driver, iconic and has been photographed flying upside down and sideways in his quarter midget .....not to mention he's handsome,witty,charming and I'll bet he has a great pair of legs!

[r1]

Hey Lightnin.
I have a appointment today with the Physiotherapy chick and I'm hoping she will give me the ok.if she does I will be racing next week end if I still fit in my suite(I have gained a little weight over the off season :-( unfortunatly).
I'm realy looking forward to getting back in,I gave Archie a drive in rd 1 and he did a great job for never having a race in a quarter b4,just hope he gets his car finished soon.
Cruz goes good when he can keep it on all 4 wheels and his legs will scare people away I would think :-).
Cheers........

[r1]

got the ok to race :-)

[garry]

Good news Darren. How many do you think we,ll have at Cullen. I'm hoping just about everyone except the X Man.I guess everyone has been entering by SMS. It's great to have someone like Lightnin following our club. Good aye Lightnin if you reading this. See you all next week.

Garry

[lightnin]

Darren,
Great news! Good luck to everyone at Cullen! I hope to see a lot of the new drivers as well as a few of the ones that couldn't make a lot of the meetings last year...Salmon,reitdyk and You GARRY!

Garry,
Is Dan driving your car or do you each have you own? Might be difficult to race if you didn't have a car. I should've considered that b4 I gave you a bunch of crap!

Archie,
Darren's right, you did a great job! Now..git yer arse in gear and git dat midget dunnn son!!! You're a great addition to the club!!

Priest,
I hope to see ya on the track soon! Your epic roll over kinda reminded me of the scene from the Rodney Dangerfield movie BACK TO SCHOOL where he was on the school diving team and did the "TRIPLE LINDY"....you tube it, you'll see what I mean!
After that wild ride you took I'd still be dizzy!

[lightnin]

Dear NSWQMA,
I honestly don't know why I thought the Vassal/Hall/Priest flying lesson happened recently! I gotta pay closer attention to the dates on the videos!!
Any tracks you would like to race but haven't had the opportunity yet?

[garry]

Morning Lightnin. Dan was driving my car last season whilst I recovered from some surgery which kept me out of the seat and out out of work for 3 months. I've hardly raced since the end of our 09/10 season. Can't wait to get back behind the wheel.

[lightnin]

Garry,
Great to hear about your recovery and soon return to racing! Your son can drive! Must run in the bloodline!!

Dan,
I'd hate to see your driving QM's come to an end. any chance of you returning this season too?

NSWQMA,
One thing that I'm really diggin' about your club is the family involvement and multi generation drivers. I've been working towards bringing the NSW style quarter midget club vision to my neck of the woods. I have some very challenging and unique obstacles to overcome!
When I originally posted in Quarter midget fabrication I mentioned the dream I had as a kid about smaller sprint cars racing around a baseball diamond.
I got to thinking about the (illegal) bicycle moto cross club I ran as a 14-16 year old kid. I made flags,had point standings,hand painted number plates, made tracks inside of the cow,pig,show and even rabbit barns. I had the call lists and would call all the kids . we would head out to the cedar county fairgrounds throw our bikes over the fences and race while watching out for fair board members to catch us! We were respectful of property and would bring brooms to clean up the dusty concrete as needed.
I miss the old race days and I'm proud to say that over the years a few of the younger bmx'ers have come up to me and thanked me for getting them started in their own racing careers which continued on to dirt bikes, ATVs and open wheeled modifieds.
I wanted a way to bring back the old LRP (Lightnin'Rod Productions)but I knew that the bicycle thing was many years behind us not to mention several pounds as well! This is where the dream came into play...I started researching go karts..found youth Quarter midgets, kage karts,outlaw karts... still not what i wanted.. I wanted to put older people in those quarter midgets after a few months of research I found you guys and WAQMA. I couldn't believe it . Finally I found someone who had the same dreams as I did. I really enjoy your club and try to learn as much as i can about it and the what the differences are being Australian as opposed being American are. I really want to learn more about NSW and it's people and culture. I'd be glad to answer any questions you may have about America (at least the ones I can!) For example:yes it is true that the average American male is hung one inch longer than the average Australian male...but don't be upset mates nine inches still ain't nuthin' to be ashamed of!(lol)
Now for the challenging part...Money! I have to make some drastic changes to your clubs rules to keep cost much lower. the way I see I have to make every effort necessary especially as a new class of race car competing against Legends and 4 cylinder sedans to make it the only choice for as many drivers as possible.
I had a good high paying job and got laid off about a year ago the jobs i work now don't pay nearly as much.. so I'm in the same boat as most of my bmx friends...Money is the deciding factor!!! I'm not sure if the 400M tracks that you guys run on will be an option for us for for at least a few years. The motors alone would put us out of price range for many aspiring new drivers. My goal is a lofty $500-$1000 per car... This is insanity?! If we don't start out small we'll never survive! I figure we can always upgrade as we (hopefully) grow.
My goal is to put father, son, daughter, mother, ex-driver and current drivers into cars that are very consistently competitive,safe,affordable, strictly scruttineered.....In a nutshell to quote Darren Todd "Little cars ...Big Fun!!!"
The experienced to teach the inexperienced.....to bring in and ignite the love of motor racing for the next generation!
Later Gators!
Lightnin' Rod
P.S. wish me luck my band "Flat Stanley" plays at Rhino's Wednesday night.(I'm normally a lead guitarist, but I play drums in this band)