Remember Lon Oelke? The raceway announcer in Fairmont, Minnesota who we told you about a couple of weeks ago.
If you do not recall the “controversy,” please feel free to read this explanation. Otherwise, here is what he said:
“If you won’t stand for our flag, if you’re gonna take a knee, if you’re gonna feel you have rights — you have the right to remain silent for most of the time — But I got four words for you: Find a different country, if you won’t do it. Get the hell out of Dodge. A lot of people have sacrificed many things in their lives for us to be able to do these liberties. And if you feel that’s all right, well, I don’t know. You just don’t have a right.
“I’ve heard about all the stuff going on in the NFL, and now they’re going to have another national anthem for those folks. For the — I guess — darker-toned skin color … I’ll just say blacks. They want a different national anthem and the NFL is thinking about doing it. So I say shut the TVs off and let them play in front of nobody. Yes! That’s my announcement.”
Those comments were made while Oelke was filling in at the track in Algona. The Kossuth County Raceway immediately declared Oelke would not work there again.
But Oelke was supported by his home track. And his home fans expressed undeniable support.
Oelke worked the races at Fairmont Raceway and I thought all was well.
But, on July 29, the Fairmont Raceway promoter (Jon McCorkell), put out the following statement:
“Sometimes in life you realize you made a mistake, and this is one of those times. And this was a bad mistake. I realize that I cannot take back or fix what I said, but I would like to say I was wrong and I am sorry for the comments that I made last week. I have talked to many people on these issues over the last few days. I learned a lot about what some of the underlying deeper issues are for a lot of people. I guess I have learned that you cannot always just look at things from your own perspective. Sometimes you have to keep an open mind and to try to look at what things are like from someone else’s perspective.”
When I visited Fairmont Raceway I talked with McCorkell. It was a completely different conversation. He told me about the statement he expected to release, and it was drastically different than this one that he did release.
In McCorkell’s statement, he also said he spoke with Oelke and he would be making a statement as well.
There was no statement from Oelke. Instead, the track said that Oelke decided to take an “immediate” leave of absence until the end of the race season.
It is sad to see more capitulation to the woke mob and another example of proud Americans seeing their friends turn their backs on them.
