Another year down, and no Ponca City

ck1racerx

ck1racerx

PR Addict
After a nearly 40 year run of NMA national Championships it is sad to think that Ponca City is gone. Yes, I know they still have races there, but you know what I mean. The week before Loretta's use to mean Ponca City for a lot of us that races in the 80's and 90's. Now it is just nothing.
I called Ron Hendricksen a few months ago to see if there was any plans to bring back the NMA. Sounds like nothing is happening and he is too old (his own words) to work on it again. Having huge events like Ponca, World Mini and RM cup, it is nuts to think nothing can be done to resurrect it to past glory or even better.
He told me about the lawsuit between the NMA vs. the charity that owns the grounds. It was a classic case of two groups looking at nothing but the money and now the sport pays the price.
Ron said that he thought the downfall of the NMA and the events was from the manufactures pushing their team riders to NOT race at Ponca and save it for Loretta's. I asked then why not move the date to mid winter or some other time. They still had contingency from all the manufactures so I did not buy the story of the team riders.
Whatever the case, it is weird to think that event, let alone that organization is gone. And it looks like for good.
 
I always thought of Ponca as a stepping stone to Lorettas. Nothing against it as it still was an amateur national. I also always liked being able to say that I got top three in a qualifier. It was cool when smaller tracks around here would get big crowds for qualifiers. I remember TV Land always having a little larger than normal crowd and those races were always fun. It never seemed as "serious" as Lorettas but it was still fun to hit the local stuff leading up to it.

I keep reading stuff like this on here about tracks, promoters, sanctioning bodies, ect. Going in the opposite direction from when I used to race religiously. What happened? Did the sport really "die" that fast? I'll always be a racer at heart but it's really sad to see some of this stuff happening.
 
I believe Loretttas is hurting the local scene. I see people's names in the qualifier and regional results that live in different areas that i never see at a local event. there are a lot of people that do the LL stuff and practice and nothing else.

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John, you're late to the party on that statement. Every three weeks there's a heated thread that makes just that point and turns into 5-10 pages.
 
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