TIM OLSON THRILLED WITH ASAMT PROGRESS

Source: Kevin Ramsell
Date: 01/14/2008

Olson, the ASAMT President and co-owner of I-94 Raceway in Sauk Centre, MN, is someone who rarely does interviews as he feels his work is better served behind the scenes working in the pits with the drivers and teams and assisting in the tech area. He recently sat down and shared his thoughts of the 2007 season and some of the plans for the 2008 season.

“I think we have exceeded our expectations from what Steve (ASAMT VP) and I thought,” Olson recently stated. “We were going to be happy with 30 cars average at each event and ended up with a 46 car average per event, so that was awesome. The drivers, the response from the sponsors, tracks, fans, along with everything else doubled our expectations.”

In 2007, the ASAMT had a total of 165 drivers earn points from 11 different Tour events. Of those, 117 of them made at least one feature start with eight different winners with 24 drivers having at least one top-five finish and 42 having at least one top-ten finish.

He feels that the Tour itself is one of the benchmarks for a weekly home track competitor to see where they stand out against the best drivers competing in the ASAMT. The rules package is designed to allow a home track competitor to come and race when an ASAMT event visits their track. “I would want everyone to come out and try it once and see if it’s any different then what they normally do,” Olson said.

Olson continued to explain where the ASAMT can be a great proving ground for the local home track hot shoe, “A traveling series will give you a benchmark of where you would stack up with toughest competition in the Midwest and I would encourage a home track hero to try our series just once,” Olson stated. “If I was a running my local track and a traveling series comes in, I would love the opportunity to try it once and show the visiting drivers that I can race against them. With the competition that the ASAMT has now where first through 30th in qualifying was separated by two-tenths of a second at many events, it would be huge for a local to come and say they competed with the best and possibly be in the top five.”

Along with the response from the competitors, Olson has heard very positive comments from the fans and sponsors as well. “Everybody I have talked to have expressed that they really have enjoyed the shows,” Olson exclaimed. “They haven’t seen that style of competition in a while. They like going out and knowing that when they show up at one of our events, that it will be a high caliber, high tempo, and high pace. It reminds them of the kind of racing they grew up on.”

Also, he feels that the fans interactions with the sponsors also help enhance an ASAMT event. “The fans think it’s neat that we get our sponsors to come out and support the events like they do,” Olson explained. “Some examples of this include bringing out the Echo Blowers and Scag Lawn Mowers, along with samplings from Kwik Trip and Hype Energy drink. The fans appreciate their involvement and in return, the sponsors have seen a positive return on their investment as the fans have purchased items directly from the local dealers that represented their product line at the track. It all comes down to our mission of giving the fans more entertainment above the racing itself and Steve has done an awesome job with this on the promotion side.”

On the competition side, Olson and the ASAMT staff are working on areas to keep the competition equal for low budget teams to compete with the high budget teams. “We are very aware that in order for us to put a good product on the track, we need to step up and do things to make sure that a low budget team has the same opportunities as a high budget team,” Olson stated. “Mike Lemke is constantly looking at what steps we need to take to keep the ASAMT competitors on a level playing field, and I think the competitors will appreciate what we are looking at and may announce at our Sunday, January 27th meeting at the Kalahari Resort.”

Many competitors have already praised the ASAMT officials for their work during the last season in making sure that they do have a level playing field. “I think we have a lot of good honest officials and there won’t be any type of favoritism. Its only going to get better from here on out and it will be fun to see what happens.” ASAMT competitor Dan Fredrickson recently stated.

The overall goal is simple, Olson would like to see the ASAMT continue to grow and feels that the ASAMT is on that route, “I would love everything to grow and I think with what has been going on during the off season, I think it will grow,” Olson said. “Hopefully, the competition will stay just as fierce and competitive and I think that the tracks and fans will see awesome races at all of the events we are at.”

See Also .:

News Index | E-mail to a Friend