Right on...Nick to the rescue.
To get right to the heart of your question, my race budget (or lack thereof) doesn't support another type of racing at the moment. The only sponsorship I have currently is with RC America and all that means is that I get to buy Xray, Hudy, Max Power, etc at a discount but it's certainly not free. I truly enjoy indoor electric off road and if money weren't an issue, I'd be there sanding the spikes off my tires with the rest of you. Actually, I had a B4 and was planning on racing at Marion this winter until the carpet track materialized. Rox is closer and I prefer on-road when forced to choose so I dumped the buggy and started sniffing Paragon again.
As far as the Cleveland vids....I thought the lanes were plenty wide. I've seen much tighter than that at a big race. I believe the track was 44' x 90'. Granted, some big races (Vegas comes to mind at 50' x 100') have slightly wider lanes but when you get right down to it, the 'ideal' line is still no wider than a car. When considering the A main, bonus money, big trophies, and national titles are on the line. Those guys would be beating on each other no matter how wide the lanes are. I hear you, though....triple A mains would be nice....I don't know why Cleveland has never run them.
The rock'em sock'em reference is one of those 'had to be there' dealies. The last time Shu ran 12th, Skip and Jimmy were up from Carbondale. I'm not sure how it started but at some point, it became a contest to see who could take Shu out. He was leading and they would literally wait for him to come by and attempt to hit his car with theirs. Make no mistake, this wasn't a case of tempers flaring (from my perspective)....just three grown men electing to get uber silly with their toy cars. Go figure...