“Wheel…Of…FORTUNE!”  God***n do I hear that ALL too often in Vegas.  Sittin’ across from one right now in terminal B.  Sum’bitch never paid off to the hopeful snackin’ on a buffalo burrito with a full spin.

Sunday morning, headed back to the Santa Clarita Valley for another Sunday night roll in the weeds with the Freak Nation.  And from a weekend at the Drag Strip, I’m taking a mound of dessert storm in my nose.  Part of the gig.  But, watching a series flounder like Sport Compact drags is not.

Not sure quite what to do about it.  Not sure any sanctioning body does.  Is it an unrelenting pounding party or straight-up racing?  The rigs can run, no doubt.  The ladies can twist it for the stick horses, no worries.  But where in the hell is the Freak in the stands or hovering in the pits?  Shi…

The SpeedFreaks have been shootin’ the juice to THIS moose since day one.  But a Freakin’ shot in the arm can’t get this puppy on steroids. 

It’s got all the drama, all the personalities of the WWE on nitrous but you just don’t see it.  I can match the Rock, rattle and roll one to one with Nextel Cup, Indy Car or badminton.  THEY’VE all got drama, feel good stories, villains and criminals.  A felonious badminton stud?  Give me an hour.

Major League Soccer's got’em!  And, they learned a le$$on after decades of trying to fit the NFL logo in its business model.  MLS was the high school track star trying to wear Carl Lewis’ jock.  Not enough meat in the package to hold the wrap…ya dig?

Major League Soccer, after years of trying to fill in pro football stadiums, collectively hit their head on the cross bar and came up with the notion to build playgrounds friendly to the fans.  Thirty-thousand seaters where they can now say, more often than not, the two most valuable words in pro sports, SOLD OUT! 

It has happened this year and it’s NOT just the size of the venue.  These multivitamins with tree trunks for legs, getting paid the equivalent of a stumbling accountant at the Utilities Commission, they come early and stay late.  Talking to the fans, talking to the fans and talking to the fans.

Would this solve the Sport Compact crisis?  Dunno.  But it would put these bundled up stick figures with helmets in the middle of those who came to see’em.  After the races or between the races, put Scranton, Ibarra and Hartford in the stands with Doc’ Charles talking to the folks.  That’s why they pay their crew chiefs $6.50 an hour, to take care of the rig while the pilots are chit chattin’.

Am I saying to go out and build a ten-thousand seat Sport Compact drag strip?  Nope.  Well maybe not nope, but not just yet.

Give these pioneers a platform to jump off of and not a plank.  Don’t burying them in a ‘House Party’ or deep in the Big Gun’s field.  I say shine the monsters up like the Bride of Frankenstein and show these New Wav’ers off like a woman with a new set of bolt-ons. 

Be proud, not bashful.  Fly the colors, tute your horn or any other kind of metaphor that might rouse the trouser train.

Flat out, someone from the inside needs to grow a grocery sack full of F.U. and show them off to the world.  Come on, lay’em on the company conference table with a phat, fresh Sport Compact inlay. THEY will come if THEY are real.

A sold out Rose Bowl for the Woman’s World Cup Final in 1999?  Sh-yea!  You talk about a sack full of F.U.!