I went to my first race when I was 4 days old. I went straight from the hospital to the racetrack to watch my dad race. I don't remember much about that first night 🤣, and I've been in love with auto racing ever since. Actually, I pretty much love any form of racing. My friends used to kid me that if I seen two ants on the sidewalk, I would stop and see which one got to the next crack first, and that's pretty accurate. I made my first real racing game when I was 14. It was different than anything else I had seen up that point, and used charts to tell which drivers advanced or had trouble. But I wasn't sure anyone besides myself would enjoy it. Over the years, I've made several other racing games, a lot of them based on that first idea, but I've had a few other ideas along the way. I never even thought about producing any of those games because I wasn't sure anyone would buy them. There are so many games and even racing games out there, that I knew I had to come up with something different, unique, and marketable before I could ask anyone to spend their money on it. That idea started the night of the 50th Anniversary reunion at the Boone (IA) Speedway. My Dad won the first feature ever held at Boone in 1967. As I chatted with, and seen other legendary racers there, it hit me that these guys need to be remembered, so I thought that was the idea I was looking for to create a game that would set mine apart from others. The only problem I had is that I didn't have an idea on how the game should play. Most of the other games I created were comparing the drivers in the game to each other and each year, I had to create a game that I could add new drivers that fit in with the current ones in the game. The best game design (in my opinion) I had seen to that point that involved real drivers was the Avalon Hill, USAC auto racing game. It was a good concept, but to run a simulated Indy 500 took several days. A few years ago, I made a "Legends of sprint car racing" game. It took some of the ideas from my chart game days and made it to where I could possibly add drivers as time went on. Again though, to roll for every driver, for each lap took way too long. I've seen other games that use real drivers’ names, but I have played pro wrestling games through the years, and a couple of them have got in trouble for using some of the names. One game I have played for years is from Filsinger Games and is called Legends of Wrestling. I have a couple friends that help with getting new wrestlers, and if they could get a wrestler to sign a "release" form, then they could use that wrestlers name and image legally. The cards have a drawing of the wrestler on the front and a game card on the back. As time went on, I thought more about that day in Boone. The only thing I don't like about the wrestling game cards is that to know anything about the wrestler, you must look in the handbook that came with them or look them up online. My mind went back to the Legends of sprint cars game, and I started thinking of ways to condense it so it wouldn't take up much room on the card. Then the idea of figuring out a way that you would not have to roll for every driver on every lap hit me. That's when I came up with the "Action" numbers idea. With this idea, you would only have to roll for half the cars each lap. I added the "Passing" and "Defending" ratings to further separate the drivers and to add some creativity to creating a game card. Two drivers might be exactly the same over the course of 1,000 rolls, but their game cards look completely different. I finally had the idea for what was to become the "Heroes of Short Track Racing" game. I set out to find the drivers and get them to sign a release form so I could use their name and likeness (my apologies to college sports fans that just cringed with those words) and permission to use the photos that are on the front of the cards. The final result is a collectible trading card with the picture, hometown, and the game card on the front and a bio on the back. The final result is what you see today. Even if you never play the game itself, these cards are worth putting in a collectors album.

The Legends of Sprint Car game can be found at www.tabletop-sports.com/downloads.php?cat_id=61. I might post the latest of my "Chart games" on here at some point. Thank you for your support.