Interesting item...
I was reading the
Raceway News free paper that they hand out at E-town (May 21 edition) - I direct your attention to page 8, the text of which I copy below:
Mopar Atlantic Nationals Destined to be an Unforgettable Event
The staff and management of Raceway Park are committed to bringing the Mopar Atlantic Nationals Back to its past glory of the 1990's. Many factors have contributed to what might be conceived as a downhill spiral including poor weather and the changing climate with the Mopar enthusiasts. Many new ideas are being discussed and gone over, some of which are tried and true ideas from the glory days of this event including the $10,000 Hemi Shootout, late model Mopar muscle classes and more. The track is committed to the success of this event. Many people will be working on this event to ensure it will be a must-see in the Mopar world. All Mopar racers, show participants, fans and vendors who have comments or ideas are welcome to email the track at info@etownrcwy.com or call 732-446-7800. We will also be monitoring the moparts.com message board. 
Once again, we are committed to bringing the the Mopar Atlantic Nationals back to prominence.So there you have it... not exactly a full-page ad in
The New York Times, but it seems like someone cared enough to put the statement in print somewhere...
I will be the first to mention - having been involved in arranging the Moparts.com hospitality tent for this event for a number of years now - that the event organizers (Jack Koziol in particular) have been very responsive and accomodating as we have moved and expanded our spaces for this event. Raceway Park management clearly is supportive in this capacity, as the vendor registration and space allocation and so on always seems to be handled very well - access to the track and vendor areas is good, and there's plenty of room for everyone - so unless any other vendors have a comment here, I'd personally say this area is not the weak spot.
The racing generally seems to be well participated in, although noticably lighter in entries this year - as I am not directly involved in racing, I hope others reading this might expand on whether there can be improvements in this part of the event.
From my perspective, the biggest improvement needs to be in including some "attractions" as has been done quite well in years past - I remember Garlits, Muldowney, Ekstrand, Maverick, Landy and Riggle all being there (including machines) at various times over the events history - granted, as the years tick by, there is not an endless source of living legends that continue to be available (or still with us
), but there's got to be a few possibilities still out there... sorry, Galen Govier just doesn't cut it for me as a attraction...
Maybe getting some involvement with D-C would be a good idea...? ~What with the new retro Chally due out soon(?), you'd think they'd want to mingle it up with those that sort of at least remember what one was... and could talk it up enough that Mikey Mustang might think about jumping ship.
Any other ideas for this show....? Remember, they're "monitoring"...
- Alan
