BUZZ SODEMAN The Buzzman BUZZ SODEMAN / SPECIAL TO THE PVT The Pahrump Valley Speedway is Buzz Sodeman's "Oval office." His hours will resume at 7 p.m. Oct. 21; it's the last night race of the season on the quarter-mile dirt track. Advertisement

My office is the dirt quarter-mile oval at the Pahrump Valley Speedway; it is also a classroom.

I have learned more during the nearly three months about the history of racing here in the Southwest than I did during my previous stint as a "motorsports specialist."

One thing that I have known or at least realized is that small local racing facilities and dirt track racing have been, are, and will always be the backbone of racing.

I will take this philosophy one step further and broadly proclaim that I actually enjoy watching local race programs more than I enjoy NASCAR.

This is especially true after seeing the highlights of Sunday's Nextel Cup race at Talladega. NASCAR has created its own problems never more evident than the debacle in Alabama.

I have always thought the ultimate goal of every driver was to win a race, especially his or her first win. Isn't that why someone like mini stock driver Bubba Ray exuberantly celebrates his first feature win? Would he have received the same media coverage if he had helped someone else win? I doubt it. So what's my point?

Championships are suppose to be earned, not bartered for by teammates. NASCAR's stance on limiting the amount of drivers a team can field doesn't go far enough. Instead of limiting the teams to four, it should be limited to just two. There should be no team orders.

The Nextel Cup championship is so important and so lucrative that drivers I once had some semblance of respect for have turned me skeptical and an aloof fan of NASCAR.

Mark Martin asking drivers to allow him to lead a lap for those additional five points for leading a lap, Jeff Gordon complaining because his teammate won't just move over and let him pass, "doesn't he know that I'm in the chase?"

It's also time that Dale Earnhardt Jr. fans deal with the fact that he is not Dale Earnhardt Sr. and will quite possibly not win a championship.

Shame on the fans that have on two occasions littered the track with beer cans and garbage just because they aren't happy with the results. They certainly did their best to perpetuate -- not dispel -- any stereotypes that are attributed to people that inhabit that area of the United States.

Some people in Las Vegas think that we here in Pahrump are "backward or different," but at least it gives me a sense of pride to see that most of the Pahrump Speedway crowd accepts what happens out on the track.

The fans here, for the most part, can be seen placing their trash in the receptacles around the track. I have yet to see a hot dog wrapper blocking the airflow into a driver's radiator here in Pahrump just big clods of mud.

One last comment on NASCAR before I take on other issues. NASCAR needs to do away with its "owner points" system.

Drivers should have to qualify on their own merit, not be guaranteed a spot. Hasn't it always been a "run what you brung" mentality? NASCAR has created "cookie cutter" drivers and a cast of prima donnas.

Apparently some Pahrump Valley Speedway race attendees have questioned my racing background, so let's put that to rest, once and for all. I have been "around" racing for over 50 years. I watched drivers like Mike Eddy, Bob Sennecker, Iggy Katona and Joy Fair before they were stars in the ASA series. I was a regular attendee at as many as four local tracks in the Saginaw, Mich., area; one had my father's cousin as a flagman before they stood in a flagstand.

He stood in the middle of the track and waved the green flag and then ran like hell for safety. I remember when the "Australian pursuit" was an integral part of every racing program; how many regulars at PV Speedway know what kind of race this was?

I worked at the defunct TriCity Dragway where I was the starter. More recently, I began covering races for the news media when I worked at the Mohave Valley Raceway and previously with the Pahrump Valley Speedway.

Lastly, my "real office" wouldn't be such a hazardous dump site if it didn't have so much history-related literature that I draw upon during a race season.

Speaking of history, I received a letter from someone who had read the article on the Craig Road Speedway and its ties with the Pahrump track.

The purpose of the article was to highlight the similarities of the tracks, not highlight specific drivers. To the best of my limited knowledge, Phil Mann never raced out here in Pahrump and the documents that I had access to never made reference to this Craig Road racer. Many of my articles are designed to make the reader smile and this reader's smile turned into a frown sorry.

If there is one thing that Dave Hall and I agree on, it's that most of my racing articles are "racer friendly."

This isn't always easy as there are several competitors that make my fingers cramp up if I have to put their names in a results column they probably know who they are, at least one driver does.

I am very aware that whatever I write can have national exposure, especially with the "informational highway." I have a sister-in-law in New York who really isn't a race fan but who likes the way I write.

She pulls the articles up on the Pahrump Valley Times Web site (www.pahrumpvalleytimes.com).

I know a driver down at Mohave who received some sponsor money from someone in Florida who had read an article that I wrote about this mini stock driver. This individual felt that if a writer took the time to recognize a mini stock driver, then he was going to help this guy out.

In closing, I had never been booed before, not even when I participated in school sports, and was taken aback when one individual chose to use the track as his arena for self-expression.

At first, I was upset, then I was reminded that two of the greatest forms of flattery are imitation and being booed. The reality is that these individuals who choose to "flatter" you must be reading my articles or at the very least is having the article read to him.

I appreciate the freedom for you to express yourself and I hope that you continue to buy the paper.

Many of those who physically confronted me had never even read the article -- case closed.