Notes scribbled on my coaster from the EP Delta Kitchen and Bar downtown on Memphis's Beale Street. Home of great Southern Fried Chicken.

I keep hearing from racers and other experts about traction control being used by NHRA nitro and Pro Stock teams, and just about the time they have me convinced I watch a race like Dallas on TV or Memphis in person. I watch pro racers with sometimes a sponsorship on the line blow the tires off in the “good” lane and lose a race. And I know that if they did have traction control either it doesn’t work or they are just too stupid to use it. Forget it, folks, if traction control was available and worked we wouldn’t have had a one-lane racetrack at Dallas. Hell, track operator Billy Meyer would have handed them out like party favors to save the reputation of his track.

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How come the NHRA makes such a huge deal about the three-race Western Swing earlier in the year and virtually nothing is said by their crack PR machine about the marathon their pro teams are subjected to between September 15 and October 15 when the teams have four consecutive races at a time in their season where money, parts, and crews are already stretched to their limits.

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I’m hearing just as many complaints about the 2010 NHRA schedule as I’m still hearing about the 2009. But the most curious change in the schedule for 2010 is to move the Memphis race to August from the October date. Have any of the folks who made that move spent any time in Memphis in August? You talk about MISERABLE, that would Memphis in August!

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You don’t suppose when the NHRA moved the Memphis race to August at the time they figured the track was going to be sold and that NHRA and the track are in the last year of their NHRA contract, do you? That would enter into the decision making, wouldn’t it?

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It has been a while since I attended an NHRA national event when I decided to attend the Memphis race. I had forgotten just how bored you get when the Safety Safari is repairing the track after it has been oiled down. I stood on the starting line at Memphis on Saturday in front of a pretty good crowd waiting with them in silence (for the most part) for the racing to continue. Oh, they ran a few commercials on the big screen and the lame-ohs with the toss-the-ball-in-the-slick were working, but for the most part the audience was expected to entertain themselves. Why not play some music, hook  Sirius Satellite radio’s blue collar comedy into the PA, hire a stand-up comedian -- but please do something to entertain people who have paid 40 bucks plus parking to be entertained.