Mack at The Track: Season 1, Race 1 9/4/23

by Mack Speed

Hello Valleyans and Happy Labor Day! Hopefully, you’re reading this sitting on your butt at home enjoying a day off work. The inaugural race of the Strong River Valley Mower Racing League (SRVMRL) at The Valley Motor Speedway was a success. However, it was pretty darn stressful for yours truly. We had a great crowd, but parking was a bit of an issue. My parking guys need a little training. We had people parking in every way imaginable, and we only had one physical altercation among a couple fans in the parking lot. So, that was a win; it could’ve been a lot worse.

We had around 1,500 fans, and they were a raucous bunch. We saw some Forrest and Hinds County tags, so we had people coming all the way from Hattiesburg and Jackson. But, the vast majority of the fans were Valleyans. We don’t have a grandstand or bleachers, so everyone sat in lawn chairs. Some were tailgating; they setup tents and were grilling. One tent even had a chandelier; they were probably Ole Miss fans. We had a lot of kids there, so that’s a good thing. I want the races to be family friendly.

We also had a bathroom issue. We had 6 porta potties setup, so we’ll probably need to get a few more. We had multiple kids that ended up peeing in public because they couldn’t wait in line. One porta potty was put of work because a very large man lost his balance while inside, and he caused it to fall on its side. Let’s just say that poor guy will probably never show his face in public again. I don’t know who cleaned that thing out, but God bless them.

I know we had fans betting on races. We don’t have a licensed sportsbook, so that was illegal. We’ll address this at the next race; we’ll have up signs letting people know betting is not allowed.

We had some good races. Dale Earnhardt Speed, my son, won the junior race. I doubt he loses a race this season. He’s mine, so you know that boy can race. The main race was a really good one. Jimmie Stewart won, and he beat Tony Johnson by a hair. It was really a two man race the entire race; they were going back and forth the whole race. There was a lot of bumping and grinding going on between those two. I foresee those two having one heck of a rivalry. The other racers are going to have to work on their mowers quite a bit to get them to Stewart and Johnson’s level.

Overall, our first race night went well. We have a few kinks to work out, but we’ll get them fixed. We look forward to many more. Valleyans, y’all come out to the races on the 3rd Saturday night!