By Jack Smith

Whether anyone likes it or not track owner Carl Beard has made a mess of what could have been a very good situation. If that is not clear then you are either denying reality or are ignorant of the situations that exist at Auburndale Speedway.

Nobody forced him to do harmful things to the Auburndale race drivers, Auburndale race fans, racing businesses and in general create a mountain of unnecessary enemies. Those decisions were made of his own accord.

The fact that we have decided to make sure the race fans of Florida know the facts surrounding the purchase and operation of the track is sure to make some folks mad, perhaps enrage some.

That's understandable.

The fact that I would publicly humiliate a track owner on a message board also tends to upset some people.

That's understandable also.

When a man raps himself in the Holy Bible and expresses the concept that the "Lord" is guiding his decisions with the race track on the one hand, and on the other knowingly tries to rob businesses and individuals of their services, then I say public humiliation is being too kind.

When this same man expresses verbal contempt for the racers whose money he uses to support himself then I say the man is now a hypocrite twice.

People may bash me, think whatever thoughts they want, I don't care about that. What I do care about is that the racers, the fans, the business owners who support and contribute to the sport and entertainment of racing don't get screwed over by greedy, self-serving mongrels.

If J.T. Beard (AKA CARL BEARD)wants to take responsibility for the mess he has created and begin to deal honestly and fairly with the racers, the fans, the business owners who support and contribute to the sport then I say, great.

The sport of stock car racing really can't tolerate too many more track owners who don't have the future of the sport at heart. The days of greed machines is at an end.

Owners should make a ton of money if they pay their staffs good, run good shows and deal honestly and fairly with the racers, the fans, the business owners who support and contribute to the sport.

If they don't do the above they do not deserve the respect or loyalty of the racers or the fans.

As I have said many times in the six years KARNAC.com has covered the racing scene in Florida, KARNAC.com is not here to promote race tracks.

KARNAC.com is for the fans, the articles are written mainly by fans, the message boards and chat rooms are populated by fans and moderated by fans.

The agenda: yes there is one.

The KARNAC agenda is to provide news and entertainment to Motorsports fans, and hopefully as a result promote Motorsports. The thousands of photographs and thousands of pages of news and the tens of thousands of posts on our message boards are testimony to the fact that we are achieving the purpose.

Sometimes the news is nasty to report and sometimes the entertainment goes right over some people's heads.

Nobody (in their right mind) likes to report bad news.

Sometimes it becomes necessary to bring about change for the positive.

In a editorial I wrote in December 2001,"John Barker - Bought and Paid For?" I defended both the speedway and J.T. Beard in the wake of a story published by the Ledger(Lakeland, Fl newspaper) written by John Barker.

On Independence Day I met with John Barker at New Smyrna Speedway and I told John that he was right about a lot of what he said in his article. A bit embarrassing but, hey news is not always clear cut black and white, there are always those grey areas that creep up on you.

And in news the guy with the facts ultimately wins. Barker had the facts and I didn't. In fact John also assured me he was not an "old codger".

As stated earlier, whether anyone likes it or not Carl Beard has made a mess of what could have been a very good situation.

Hopefully he will have the courage to fix the mess.

Only he can.

We'll begin to explore the "mess" next.

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