The Black Flag Can Make for Better Racing.

The TORC series continues to bring out great racers giving great performances. That's a point sometimes is forgotten. Racing is a competition, but for companies to spend their marketing dollars on race teams, its based upon more that performance on the track. It must be entertaining as well.

When Casey Currie goes out and wins by 10 truck lengths, its a great performance, but the entertainment is back in the pack. That's why the camera sometimes covers that instead of the leaders.

If it's a three way battle for the lead or a crazy story line line like Chad Hord rolling over and still wins, then that gets broadcast, and that instance more trucks will be viewed for due to all the contact that went on.

My point is that there's isn't enough cameras and broadcast time to cover everything that goes on. Sometimes you wonder why a fellow competitor does what he does on the track. Maybe he sees things you don't. maybe it is due to his level of driving ability, or maybe he realizes he needs to get some TV time to keep his sponsor happy.

I'm not saying that "tv time" thing is foremost in a driver's mind, but it may cross their mind after the fact.

Sometimes those kind of things can cause problems for other drivers, that's when the black flag should be thrown. The powers that be that control TORC and the TV production have said thay don't want to bring out the flag because it deters from the TV show. I can go along with that, but it can be applied properly so there isn't massive carnage during race. The prime example was PRO-4x4 Saturday night. the last 10 laps only 3 trucks were running to the flag. Fortunately, they stayed running together to makesome kind of show out of the last half of the race.

In PRO-2WD Dan Baudoux got t-boned so hard it knocked his drysump tank and battery broke off the mountings andthe oil supply side hose to the engine was basically pinched closed. Fortunately the ignition quit before he could run the engine out of oil. The ignition box was also dislodged as well.

If TORC isn't careful, the racing grid will be getting smaller not larger, then you don't have a tv program that's remotely entertaining.

There is a definitely line between good hard racing, and overaggressive driving that creates "in-focus" coverage.

The question is when will be first time TORC/USAC use the black flag.

See you in Crandon.