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Permalink Reply by Bricoop on
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Written by Norris McDonald of thestar.com
Robby Gordon Calls Me Out
1. People are really excited about Stadium Super TrucksMy wife is not an auto racing fan. Yes, she has a passing interest (that’s code for: she humours me) but it’s not her cup of tea.
She stopped going to Indy with me three years ago after she couldn’t find a book store downtown. The concierge at the hotel suggested she take their shuttle out to the airport, because there was one there.
Never again, she said.
But she did attend this year’s Honda Indy Toronto in July and was all excited when I got home after writing up my stuff.
“I just love the trucks that go over jumps,” she said.
“What about the IndyCar race?” I replied.
“It was okay,” she said, “but those trucks were better.”
I have a friend who’s a walking encyclopedia of auto racing. When we first met, he rattled off my record in the supermodifieds. He knew stuff about me and my race cars that I didn’t know (mainly because I wanted to forget most of it).
He is particularly enamored with sprint car racing. In fact, he once owned a team and one of his sons was the driver. After this year’s Honda Indy, he sent out a group email about attending on Saturday after a trip to see the King’s Royal race at Eldora Speedway in Ohio fell through:
“Here comes the surprise for me,” he wrote. “I'm about to leave the grounds following Indy practice and I hear this ungodly roar and then see these trucks flying through the air! I saw the (Robby Gordon) Stadium Super Trucks around the grounds earlier in the day and thought, ‘What a stupid gimmick.’ It turned out they were everything racing is supposed to be — an assault on the senses, and fun! I enjoyed the heck out of those things.”
He was talking about Robby Gordon’s trucks and they do put on a great show. Gordon, of course, drove Indy cars in CART, raced in NASCAR Cup and Busch (it will always be Busch to me), nearly won the Indy 500 when it was the IRL 500, competes most years in the Dakar Rally and now owns and promotes this crazy truck series. And when I saw promotes, I mean promotes – something I will return to later.
Now, I have a friend, Phil Boyle. I met him, I think, when he was about 10. Or he seemed about 10. He was always around racing and making friends with all the important people. Now he’s all grown up and married and the father of Russell, who drives one of those trucks.
Before this year’s two races, I helped to stir the pot a bit by interviewing Paul Tracy, who is now as good a TV announcer as he was a racing driver. Paul has coached Russell from time-to-time. Paul’s father, Tony, was — shall we say — demanding when it came to his son’s racing. Paul told me to put in the newspaper that if people thought Tony Tracy was crazy, then Phil Boyle is 10 times worse. The story got some buzz and Russell got some sponsorship.
Now I hear there are sponsors asking about supporting Russell in 2017. Robby Gordon himself has taken him under his wing and is helping him land those partnerships. If Russell Boyle turns out to be as convincing as Robby Gordon, those potential sponsors don’t stand a chance.
I know this from personal experience.
At this year’s Honda Indy, the Stadium Trucks raced just before the main event. The top three finishers and Gordon himself came into the media room after the race for interviews. Unlike most of the other reporters, I’d opted not to go out to the IndyCar grid because I was writing a blog and figured I could pick up any pre-race comments or information off the TV, which was on the air by that time.
Except the sound was turned off because the truck racers were using the media room PA. This would have been okay except there was exactly one guy asking questions ad nauseum and they were mostly repetitious. After hearing yet another driver talk about how much he enjoyed racing those things, I’d had it and went and asked the media room organizers to give the boot to Robby and his boys and to turn up the sound on the IndyCar telecast.
After they finally cleared out and I started to attend to the task at hand, I caught something moving out of my right-side peripheral vision and who should be heading straight toward me but Robby Gordon.
“I hear you think we overstayed our welcome,” he said.
“You did,” I said. “They have a press conference room for series like yours and I don’t know why they brought you in here because it’s a working press room.”
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, “but I have news for you. We’re going to bigger than these Indy guys can ever hope to be. I get more emails about the truck series in a day than those guys get in a week. When their race is over, go out and ask people on their way home which race they liked best. You’re going to be surprised.”
I didn’t do that, of course, but based on the reaction from my wife and my sprint-car-loving buddy, Robby Gordon might very well have been right.
And to really be on to something, too.
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RG on at 46:00 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HqpENKxdnCQ
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Permalink Reply by Mike Kenyon on
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from Jim Beavers Down and Dirty show today, Sara Price starts at 73min mark. Interesting interview.
http://www.downanddirtyshow.com/price-hynes-riley/
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listen for the TOG shout out during Bill Hynes 's segment
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