Time for 60 Minutes of FEAR

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

— Albert Einstein, (attributed)
US (German-born) physicist (1879 - 1955)

By Scott Whitmore

It’s time for a big, big event at Evergreen Speedway — the 60 Minutes of FEAR on Saturday. Here’s a little something I wrote about this top-tier figure-eight event last year (when I was still welcome at the Monroe track) … and which surprisingly still makes some sense this year:

Figure-eight racing is equal parts art and science, with some luck and a healthy dash of pure adrenaline thrown in for good measure.

This Saturday Evergreen Speedway’s Super Figure Eight division takes center stage for the first of its three marquee events this season: the 60 Minutes of FEAR.

This marks the 16th straight year for the 60 Minutes of FEAR, in which drivers compete against the clock and each other to complete the most laps around Evergreen’s figure-eight track in one hour.

“I think it’s just the fact of being able to run for that one hour, seeing how many laps you can get in,” said John “Cowboy” Carlson, who won the race last year and in 2006, when asked what made it special. “Most of our races are short; they’re over in 15-20 minutes. It makes it fun to try to run these longer races.”

... Formed in 1966, the year after figure-eight racing was introduced at Evergreen Speedway, the racer-run Figure Eight Auto Racing (FEAR) club managed figure-eight racing until (2008), when the drivers were required to join NASCAR. As a member of the NASCAR Home Track program, all drivers at Evergreen are required to be members, and FEAR was transformed into a social organization.

Fans of figure-eight racing know there is much more going on than just driving fast and not getting hit. Drivers have to turn both right and left, continuously, on a relatively confined course and usually while surrounded by other cars. Add in the danger of the intersection — called the “X” — and the need to avoid hitting or being hit by other cars.

On Saturday, the racers will do that — turn left, shoot through the intersection into the right-hander, come out and race back to through the X into the left-hander, avoiding other cars all the while — for an hour.

“Shooting that intersection, seeing if you can do it, it’s like getting a thread through the eye of a needle,” Carlson said. “Anybody can shoot the intersection and wreck … It takes a perfectionist to shoot that intersection with other cars and get to the other side without (ital)getting wrecked.”

Carlson added that three-time division champion Vern Deitz told him the reason the series is popular with the fans is the entertainment value of watching cars run through the intersection.

“It’s an art,” Carlson said. “That’s why a lot of people don’t do it.”

The very first 60 Minutes of FEAR in 1994 was won by Ricky “The Kid” Deitz, the son of the Vern Deitz.

…

You guessed it: I’m a big fan of figure-8 racing — actually from the first time I saw a heat race at Evergreen Speedway. I grew up in a small town in the Midwest that also happened to be the site of the Tri-County Fairgrounds. There was a small dirt track at the fairgrounds that was used for harness racing, except for once a year when it was used for a demolition derby.

Here’s another little something I wrote last year:

Figure-eight races are not demo derbies, but to be truthful these days I’d much rather watch a full field of drivers racing through the intersection ¬while barely avoiding contact than a demo derby. A good figure-eight race, with plenty of close calls in the X and tough passes around the left- and right-handers, is a real crowd-pleaser …

OK, OK, so I’ve done my part to make it a greener planet by recycling some of my own writing (Ed: Yeah, that’s one way to look at it … another would be to say you’re getting really lazy). So what’s up with the above Einstein quote about being crazy?

Because I also wrote a piece last year taking to task the promoters at Evergreen Speedway for not appreciating Figure 8 racing and racers enough. That came after the Figure 8 Nationals, which I didn’t attend — my working relationship with the promoters had deteriorated to be unworkable by then — but heard a lot about it after the fact from drivers and fans. I made my views know in print: Figure 8 racing is a large and very important part of the history and traditions of Evergreen Speedway and deserved to be treated as such.

Time has passed. This tough economy we’re in has put a dent into local racing and racers. Car counts in some divisions at some venues are down, others seem to be doing the same-or-better. Entry level divisions, no surprise, seem to be doing best of all.

Through it all, I’m wondering how the 60 Minutes of FEAR will go. Will there be a good turnout? Will the racing be good? Will the promoters learn from their mistakes of last year, and put on a show that celebrates and honors the tradition of figure-8 racing? Or will it be more of the same, but with the expectation that somehow it will be …. different?

I hope not.

Scott Whitmore is a freelance writer who spent three years covering motorsports inthe Pacific Northwest for The Herald in Everett, Wash. He can be contacted at scott@scottwhitmore.net