Going from home to the outdoor basketball court, then on to the exercise trail on Sunday night, I decided to see what it sounded like over at Winston-Salem, at the Big NASCAR event, The Cook Out Clash…
With the car radio ON, I did some scanning around and found NO local radio stations were carrying the event…Very Big Event, right here in our backyard, sort of like on the backyard grill, with The Cook Out Clash from the historic Bowman Gray Stadium, and you couldn’t get it on the local radio dial…No WTQR/104.1 FM, and they were the home of the NASCAR races from MRN/The Motor Racing Network, for many years…No race on “The Wolf”/93.1 FM, another country music station….No Cook Out Clash on WSJS 600 AM/93.7 FM, and they are supposed to be the Sports Station, and they used to carry the NASCAR races, say 5-10 years ago…No 1470 AM or 1320 AM radio, and their station owner is supposed to be a huge fixture there at the Bowman Gray Stadium, when it comes to the Saturday night races…All these Piedmont Triad radio stations, with most of them having strong Winston-Salem connections, and none of them took the time to broadcast/carry the race…
I wasn’t looking for total start-to-finish coverage, I just really wanted to hear the sights and soundS of the race, as it was being described from our local venue, there in Winston-Salem….But not to be on Sunday night…Every one of our local outlets missed the starter’s call, and we were left to look further down the highway for another tow truck to pull us into the pits, so we could get a good Turn Signal, and in the end, hear the race with all the calls of the announcers giving it their wild NASCAR descriptions…
With a Little Luck, I was able to run up the highway/radio dial, and I Found It…The race was on WAKG/103.3 FM out of the “Big D”, Danville, Virginia….Was coming in loud and mostly clear(on MRN), and I could hear the sights and the sounds of the race coming to me from the venerable Bowman Gray Stadium….Sounded good with Steve Post, and a few of the other announcers I had heard on the NASCAR radio broadcasts in the past…And to make it even a little more expansive, I also found the race on another Virginia radio station, WBRF/98.1 FM, from Galax, Virginia….
So, Sunday night was not a total loss…I did get to hear what was going on at the Bowman Gray Stadium, and even got hear it when Burt Myers, the local Bowman Gray track hero, I was able to hear when Myers got his tires knocked off, and he had to leave the qualifier race, that was being run prior to “The Clash”….
Yes, not a Total Loss for me, but it was a Total Loss for our local radio outlets, as none of them made it to the Start-Finish Line for the Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium…They were nowhere to be seen or Heard….I don’t know a whole lot about the NASCAR racing, but I know enough to find the race someplace on the radio……And we will remember the radio stations that chose not to carry the race/Cook Out Clash….
(And you might just say I should have just went home and watched the race festivities on WGHP FOX 8 TV, and later on I did…Always got to take care of a few things before you get home….Thanks)
from www.nascar.com:
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — Pole winner Chase Elliott held off a dramatic charge from Ryan Blaney to win Sunday night’s Cook Out Clash at Bowman Gray Stadium in front of a teeming, vociferous sellout crowd at the historic quarter-mile.
Adroitly working lapped traffic in the closing stages of the 200-lap season-opening exhibition race, Elliott crossed the finish line 1.333 seconds ahead of Blaney, who started last among the 23 competitors on a driver points provisional.
Elliott claimed his first victory in The Clash, which came to Bowman Gray after a three-year stint at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The driver of the No. 9 Hendrick Motorsports Chevrolet reveled in the NASCAR Cup Series’ return to the iconic short track after an absence of 54 years.
“This environment is special,” said Elliott, who led 171 laps, including the first 96, before surrendering the lead to eventual third-place finisher Denny Hamlin. “This is a place that has a deep history in NASCAR. I think they deserve this event, truthfully.
“I hope we didn’t disappoint. It was fun for me at least, and we’ll hopefully come back here one day.”