Trackside with Rick Minter

   Martha Swims and Turk Norton, two people that were a big part of the local racing scene for years, passed away recently within days of each other.  Both meant a lot to me.  Martha Swims, the wife of Mickey Swims and mom of Mia Greene and the late Mike Swims, has been described as the matriarch of Georgia short track racing. I couldn’t agree more.  I’ve repeated often how the late Hence Pollard, co-founder and long-time promoter of Senoia Raceway, got me into the writing business by giving me season passes to races at his track.  But Martha was the first one to pay me for compiling racing results and sending them to newspapers and radio stations.  One night at Dixie Speedway in the late 1970s she called me aside, thanked me for what I was doing and handed me $75.  That amount of money may not seem like much to some today (It does to me), but it was much appreciated back in the day.  I wrote stories for Dixie and Rome speedways...

  One of the most interesting aspects of last week’s NASCAR race at Atlanta Motor Speedway was the noise made by Chase Elliott’s fans at the track.  The AMS crowd was kind of slim, something I attribute to running the race in the hot afternoon as opposed to under the lights when it was much cooler.  Still, every time Chase made a pass for the lead or won a Stage, there was a noticeable roar from the grandstands.  In his winner’s interview on TV, Elliott gave a shout out to his noisy fans.  Chase, like his dad, has a way of making fans feel like he’s one of them. It helps that he’s good behind the wheel too, but there are a lot of drivers that are good behind the wheel yet draw more boos than cheers.  I believe race fans at all levels of the sport are drawn more by the personalities of the drivers than the equipment they drive or the tactics and strategies of the races themselves. (Sports car racing might be an exception to that kind of thinking.) ...