Say, why not move the Hot Dog thread? Better yet, since you can never have too many hot dog threads, we could make this another instead of an election one.

Most of you here at the 'Cat did not spend a lot of your life's weekends at various racetracks as both a spectator amd a participant. I've eaten dogs at racing facilities ranging from Indianapolis to assorted short tracks, both dirt and pavement, across the midwest to road courses from Atlanta to Connecticut to New York and Minnesota. No matter where you go, almost at every one the good ol' dog is the cheapest sorta' real food on the menus of the concession stands.

With that being true, I judge the value of a hot dog and the track by the condiments available. If for instance the dogs are not available with coney sauce and the condiments come in tiny plastic pouches, this track sucks. I don't care if it has a great racing surface or national prominence, the condiments make the meal and with those silly little packets you can't get enough on a dog to get full or even a decent case of food poisoning!

Now let me tell you what IS right. If I find a track with fairly decent dogs, I check the condiments. And that means a condiment table! With or without flies they are the only thing worthwhile. Plus on a truly good one you'll find 2 different mustards, relish, ketchup, onions......and on the very best ones, sauerkraut! Now you buy your CONEY dogs (often 2 for as little as 3-4 dollars) and then go load them down with heavy applications of relish and onions and kraut along with the mustards to bulk it up. And then......and only in the past 10 years has this been available (thanks to Nachos) you ask if the vendor will top them off with a bit of cheese sauce. Believe it or not, most will happily do so.

You now have a serious meal on your plate that started out as two pathetic little dogs. You need to be sure there are plenty of napkins available as well as "sporks" or spoons or forks since these hot dogs have now gone beyond any means of eating them with your hands.

Four bucks and you got yourself a real meal you can eat to the sounds of screaming engines and tires, smells of hot asbestos, hot rubber, and burning methanol, and the occasional squeal of brakes and the thunks and sounds of a crash. On the best days you also remembered to take some Zantac prior to arriving and have a pocket full of Rolaids and/or Tums.   

Life doesn't get much better than that!

Spaw