TWO RACES, ONE IDENTITY, NO PROBLEM FOR THE DUCK
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The ability to be fluid with one’s schedule, especially when there’s forecasted fluid expected to fall from the sky made for a long day at the Duck X Productions No Mercy 8 Drag Radial event at South Georgia Motorsports.
Impending rain from Hurricane Nate forecast for late Saturday and much of Sunday called for a drastic makeover of the event schedule forcing Q-1 session on Wednesday and three more on Thursday. Friday’s eliminations pared most of the fields down to eight cars, and in the top of the line category Radial Vs. World, four cars.
“Hey we’re on a fly by the seat deal here,” Long admitted. “We do whatever we feel is in the best interest of the racer. And so I mean it’s just like Thursday, we gave up about $16,000 in testing money to be able to start qualifying. Everybody’s here, they come a long way and I’m not going to let them sit here in the rain for two days.”
Long figured that since the whole gang was here, they might as well be productive.
“This is more like radial week anyway,” Long explained. “They’re here already, 90 percent of them are here already, so it’s go ahead and get it on. And I am sure everybody would rather qualify and get into some eliminations than they would to sit here test, test, test and then just sit there in the rain.”
It’s simply Duck’s Race down in Valdosta.
Long, the popular Drag Radial event promoter from Crystal Springs, Fla., has made his events the drag radial version of Woodstock.
The key word in this proclamation is races, the plural of race.
Long has two distinct races, Lights Out each February and No Mercy in October.
In a sense, Long has given the events their own identity by default.
“I always felt like February is more like a balls out deal, we’re going to try to set records, go crazy, whatever,” Long explained. “And I felt like October with the weather being hotter and everything it’s still everybody getting together. But to me it’s more like keeping the field as tight as it was on the one, and then the other one is more like… And you’ve got to remember too, No Mercy has about half the fans that Lights Out does, it always has. Because everybody isn’t snowed in up north. They’re building obviously, October gets bigger and bigger. But the February race is more fans, less cars. The October deal is usually more cars, less fans.”
Unlike a father of two successful children, they are not loved equally. Long’s got a favorite.
“February will always be, I’d always figured as my youngest because it was my first one 2010,” Long said. “You got the perfect weather usually for it as far as setting records and going fast. And I don’t like sweating to death. Plus there’s no gnats here in February.”
Long said he stages the events at South Georgia Motorsports Park at the most aethstetical times of the year.
“You have got to remember Florida and Georgia, you can’t really do anything in June, July, August or September really anyway.” Long explained. “So you’re almost, for everybody to go down on radial tires and all that, you kind of, you’ve got that October to March swing. So basically that’s why we keep it.
“Believe me, I wish it was six months and six months instead. This one from now to the other, you’ve got to remember, you’re October right now, November, December, January, February, you’ve only got four months really.”
Long certainly has the popularity to stage a full series of these events at other locations, but for him, two is plenty.
“Even if the third [also at SGMP], and I don’t consider this a full race anyway, the third race in March, the $101,000, it’s more of, it’s one class, it’s just a little shootout deal, and there’s no money taken at the gate, we don’t have to worry about any of that,” Long said. “We don’t have to worry about all the trash being dumped, the security, it’s just more of a little shootout deal. But I’m not really planning on doing anything else except for the two that I’ve got.”
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