"Cold" August Nights is here again....

I hate to sound like a broken record, But once again Hot August Nights is disappointing. 1st off-the organizers and the casinos have gotten cheap. I lived here back in 1986 when it started. Up until a few years ago they'd book great entertainment like the Righteous Brothers, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, The Beach Boys, John Kay of Steppenwolf,Grand Funk Railroad and even John Fogerty. The last few years we don't even get people like Gary Puckett and the Union Gap or Paul Revere and the Raiders. I can't name anyone that's performing this year. Pardon me-Peter Noone and Herman's Hermits?  Really? How many people want to hear "I'm Henry the Eighth I am". Oh yeah there featuring the Monkees this year-except Davy Jones has been dead for several years!!  Used to we'd have real 1/4 mile drag races at the Stead Airport or at the old Fallon dragstrip. Now they do 1/16 of a mile in the Nugget Parking lot. Really??  A 330 foot drag race?  You might as well not even race the big-block cars-they'll spin the tires for 200 feet!!  The Reno-Fernley raceway is a state of the art facility with a circle track, a road course and a 1/4 mile drag strip. Motor Trend tests cars there sometimes. The big casinos should get together, rent the track and do it up right. Have different classes, and cash prizes for the winner of each class. And the "Show and Shines" are all cookie-cutter cars. All the big casinos have them. But there all the same. The Ford section is all Mustangs. I saw one '67 T-Bird, one '68 Cougar, and one '57 T-Bird. No 406 Galaxies, no Thunderbolt Fairlanes, No Torino Cobras, no Mercury Cyclones, no Mercury Marauders. No Shelby Cobras.  The Mopar section is all '68-70 Chargers, and '70-71 E-bodies.  I saw one GTX and one Super Bee. No Plymouth Superbirds or Charger Daytonas, no Max Wedge cars, no 340 Dusters or Demons,no Hemi Darts, nothing but cookie cutter B and E bodies. The GM sections are all Camaros and Chevelles. I saw one '69 Hurst / Olds, and one '69 GTO Judge. A few other GTOs and Firebirds, and a few '55-57 Chevys. No 409 Impalas, no 421 Super Duty Catalinas, no Olds 442s or Rallye 350s, or Gran Sport Buicks, no 427 Impalas or Corvettes. Certainly no Yenko Cars or Baldwin-Motion cars or Royal Pontiac cars like we used to see. It's sad. Sad because apparently the city fathers allowing the motels to quadruple their rates, and not allowing the big cruises, not allowing booze outside the casinos, and allowing the police to write thousands of tickets have put a sour taste in all the high rollers mouths. If New Orleans can keep Mardi Gras safe without resorting to Gestapo tactics, Reno ought to be able to manage Hot August Nights properly. Attendance has been down every year for the last few years because of all the factors I just listed.  If they don't make some drastic changes, their big cash cow is going to wither and die. And it's too bad, because it used to be really cool. Mastermind