Live Radio, Internet Radio and Lauren Wallace

Our radio show "ON PIT ROW" has a new home. The move has been planned for some time now but tonight was move-in night.  We now broadcast the show live from historic Toledo Speedway in Toledo, Ohio, USA.

Toledo Speedway opens the 2007 racing season this weekend with the ASA Late Model Series, very similar to  NASCAR Busch Series cars.  Weather permitting - and Steve has already promised no weather problems - Saturday will be filled with thunder of another origin.

Steve and I have been doing this ON PIT ROW shtick for about seven years now and the show is pretty comfortable for both of us. Today was different.  I know that I felt a pressure that I believe was brought on by the fact that we would now, be broadcasting our show from, what I would call, a shrine.

Toledo Speedway is a beautiful race track. It's a fast half mile high bank - just exactly what many of our callers and e mailers tell us NASCAR needs - and it has history. For 46 years some of the greatest drivers in motorsports have run here: Indy 500 winners Al Unser and Gordon Johncock and NASCAR stars Bobby Allison, Benny Parsons, Rusty Wallace, Ryan Newman, Mark Martin and more.

All I wanted to do tonight, was not sound stupid. You know, sort of to honor the place. Next week, we get back to normal. Well ....

I think the first hour and a half went OK. I felt like we had a good flow to the show. No major technical  problems surfaced, always an issue with live radio. We were cruisin' and our next guest was one of our favorites; Matt Crossman from The Sporting News.

Matt was terrific as always as we discussed several of the current topics affecting NASCAR and baseball - yeah baseball - then, since we had not had a response to our weekly trivia question - we challenged Matt to answer said question. 

And he did answer it. Correctly, too.

The problem was, I asked the wrong question. Matt and Steve IMMEDIATELY knew that the question was wrong - unfortunately, proving that I, in this instance, was the idiot. Ah, well, comic relief.

We all laughed. Hard. You just can't beat live radio sometimes, for laughs.

Starting this Thursday, lords of the Internet willing, you will be able to hear ON PIT ROW on the Internet on Thursday nights, at racetalkradio.com. We are excited about this and hope that you will find the time to check out the show and let Steve and I know what you think.

Finally, am I the only NASCAR fan that can't get enough of the Lauren Wallace commercials for Geico?  I wanna be like Lauren. Or is it Warren?

Comments

[marc]

While you mentioned all the "nationally" known drivers (you missed Joe Ruttman and Norm Nelson) that have competed at on the high banks of Toledo I feel compelled to list a few that I grew up watching at the Benore speed plant.

At the head of the list has to by Joy Fair who dominated at Toledo and Flat rock (MI).

Iggy Katona, "Moose" Myers, Jack Bowser, Danny Byrd, Bob Senneker, Ed Howe, Harold Harold, Sr., Ed Hage etc, etc all had great success at Toledo.

Geesh, you guys make me feel old!

[charlie]

Yeah, I shortened the list a bit. Kasey Kahne ran here and Ken Shrader usually makes a show each year. I make myself feel old too. How about Rollie Beale? Great USAC racer from the sixties.

[Steve]

Doing our show live from Toledo Speedway is quite different than what we were used to. The downtown Toledo restaurant we previously broadcast from couldn't care less that we were there. They wouldn't allow us to feed the show through the PA system and the background noise was rediculous. It was a bit different with the show being heard over the Toledo Speedway Bar and Grill PA and having real race fans in the audience actually paying attention to what we were saying; whether it was correct or not. Plus we didn't have Jason there to smooth out the transitions or help with a larger load than usual of live reads. Lots of thanks go to Scott Schultz and the whole Toledo Speedway gang.

Now if we can just get those extra 100,000 seats put in and start petitioning for a Cup event.

Steve

[michael]

Having Michigan roots I think this is awesome

[charlie]

Thanks Michael. We'll try to hold up our end.

[marc]

"How about Rollie Beale?

And Mel Kenyon.