Is "Madhouse" True to Short Track Racing?  Maybe

There's Not Really This Much Mayhem - But The Characters

Are Just Like Scores Racers at Tracks Throughout The Land

By Mike Twist, Editor - Speed51.com

The History Channel program Madhouse, which is a reality series focusing on several asphalt drivers who compete weekly at Bowman-Gray Stadium (NC), debuted last Sunday night.  In the near week since then, the television show has been the buzz around water coolers, over the phones and on Internet Message boards among race fans.  Most racing writers have weighed in on the program as well, so I might as well give my two cents worth about it.

Madhouse had nothing to do with short track racing, yet it had everything to do with short track racing at the same time.

One of the drivers featured on the show, Tim Brown, put it even better during the first program.

“You may have seen racing, but you haven't seen racing like this,” said Brown.

He's right, I recognized the sport that I love so dearly on the show, but I can't say that it was entirely familiar to me.  I've never been to an actual race at Bowman-Gray (although I have toured the grounds for an off-season media event), so I can't attest to how true to life the show is in showing racing at the track.  I've seen the attendance figures,- which are unreal for a short track, I've walked the track myself - and can see how the only way to pass someone with a high-powered Modified is to slam them with your front bumper and I've heard about the fights which have seemingly led to more injuries at the track than racing incidents.

But I also have to wonder just how much the show's producers hyped up the drama and mayhem.  Before the opening credits to the show even ran on Sunday night, we heard references to rednecks and wrestling.  We saw video of people cussing and fighting….multiple times.

Now, I've seen plenty of cussing and fighting at short tracks throughout the years, but that's not even close to what the whole short track experience is all about.  If it was, why would anyone pay $10 or $12 every Saturday night to sit in the stands of a track when they could venture over to their local courthouse when family court is in session and see the same thing for free?

Then again, some of those appearing on the show could be future customers of that legal system.  You have to wonder just what the young child, looking to be about the age of a first grader, who looked at the camera and chanted “Junior Miller Sucks!” has ahead of him in life.  Maybe he got his mouth washed out with soap after the show aired…but somehow I doubt it.

I wonder what it was like to watch the show through the eyes of someone who had never been to a short track race before and I wonder just how close to a staged sport like wrestling, it all appeared to be.  That can't be good for short track racing at all.

But what was good for short track racing was the fact that the show did manage to tell a good tale about the characters of the sport.  It teased at telling their personal stories and I expect to see more of that throughout the rest of the series.  While fighting with Junior Miller was shown to be a big part of Burt Myers' story, the show also managed to also show his devotion to fatherhood, his love for his wife, his admiration for his father and his sheer desire to win races.  We also got to see Chris Fleming work the lanes at an auto auction - earning his pay for the week so he could go racing and observe tough guy Junior Miller playing with his small dog in a loving and caring way - showing a softer side of a complicated man who all too often is only seen as a outlaw.

Ken Squire once said that short track racing worked because fans wanted to pay their admission to see ordinary men do extraordinary things.  I think that Madhouse showed that well.

We got to see plenty of the extraordinary part - from seeing Tim Brown spelling out his name for the camera so the world knows he is to Burt Myers telling his brother Jason that he couldn't hear him “through all of my trophies on the wall” at their shop.  That was no shortage of showboating to remind us while many fans think that they could possibly strap into a racecar and tackle the not-so-high-banks of Bowman-Gray, there are a select few who actually mange to do it…and even fewer who do it well.

And to some degree that formula works anywhere there is racing.  I couldn't help but to think that the whole storyline of Junior Miller vs. Burt Myers could have easily applied to Ted Christopher vs. (Fill in the Blank) Keith Rocco, Jimmy Blewett, Donny Lia or Andy Seuss.

The show also gave the newbie fan a good peek at the economics of short track racing.  “At the end of the year, everyone ends up broke,” was a phrase heard early on.  But some racers end up broker than others and that's not always visible from the stands.  We saw Tim Brown's top-notch equipment and the Myers' stacker hauler contrasted with Chris Fleming building pieces for his Modified from parts in the scrap bin at his modest shop.  Not surprisingly, the race featured this week has Brown winning with Fleming finishing a distant second.  Fans learned that money buys speed - and we all knew that for years.

So I'm torn about Madhouse.  In a way, I hate how the focus of the mayhem oversimplifies our sport and lowers it to the level of professional wrestling.  I hope that the viewers of the show watch it intently and see what really happens.  There is a lot that you can learn about short track racing from the show - if you pay attention and see past the obvious clichés.