He's driving for the best team in the NASCAR garage thus far this season, Joe Gibbs Racing, and he's posted a top-6 finish in every one of the last 5 Sprint Cup Series races. He's 4th in the Cup standings -- and he's riding the wave of momentum into his own personal nirvana, Richmond International Raceway, this weekend. But don't tell him we're writing all this as he readies for the Dan Lowry 400 on Saturday night.
Denny Hamlin doesn't want to read this.
Ugh-ugh-ugh. I feel like a dog that's just come in from a driving rainstorm, trying desperately to shake free of the cold dampness which clings to me. Can't be done... * WHAT'S LIFE LIKE in a glamourous press box at a central Maine race track, you ask?
Got the advance press release from PASS the other day, and I shuddered, my mind re-living every frightening detail from my last trip to Speedway 95 in Hermon.
After having had a night's sleep to think about it, Kevin Lepage took the high road.
After causing a 15-car pileup during the Aaron's 312 at Talladega Superspeedway on Saturday, because he pulled in front of the lead pack of cars prematurely, Lepage took ownership for the melee.
In a release issued by Specialty Racing, Lepage said he was sorry.
Just 27 races into her National Hot Rod Association career, Ashley Force became the 1st woman in history to win a Nitro Funny Car event -- beating her famous father John Force in the finals of the Summit Racing Equipment Southern Nationals at Atlanta Dragway. Force now leads the Funny Car standings by 59 points, and she picked up her 1st career victory in the place she recorded her first-ever round win last year. Against her father.
Now she's got a win on the track to back it up.
Congratulations to Kevin Lepage, who singlehandedly perpetuated the myth on Saturday that race car drivers don't think about anyone but themselves.
Lepage, pulling onto the track while exiting pit road during the NASCAR Nationwide Series' running of the Aaron's 312 at Talladega Superspeedway, illegally crossed over the double-yellow lines onto the track just shy of the halfway mark. The Shelburne, Vt., native, running the unsponsored No. 61 Ford Fusion owned by Doug Taylor, pulled right up into the path of the oncoming drafting freight train.
Labeled as a flat track where passing can be exceedingly difficult, it was even more so if you attempted to pass in the outside groove. Of course, the American-Canadian Tour threw the book out the window on Saturday afternoon. Ricky Rolfe led a procession of cars to the front of the field in the New England Dodge Dealers 150, all of which used the supposedly non-existent outside groove to get there. Rolfe moved up to make his car more consistent, while Jean-Paul Cyr did the same in going from 15th starting spot to 2nd with the aid of just 2 caution flags. Brent Dragon, who missed this show a year ago, went from 24th to 3rd at the checkered flag and said he never set a single tire in the track's inside lane.
The book on Oxford Plains Speedway has been the same for a few years now, ever since the track was repaved.
Continue reading "Getting an outsider's perspective at Oxford" »
Ricky Rolfe was hunting for the paycheck, while 7-time American-Canadian Tour champion Jean-Paul Cyr was hoping to re-establish himself as the dominant presence on the Late Model tour. It was Rolfe who collected big, rallying back against Cyr's final charge to win the New England Dodge Dealers 150. Behind Cyr, Brent Dragon, Eddie MacDonald and John Donahue rounded out the top-5. For the record, Rolfe pocketed $2,500, plus bonuses, with his 2nd career ACT win at the track.
Two drivers operating on completely different agendas made for one pretty good stock car race at Oxford Plains Speedway.
Earlier this week, ACT president Tom Curley said that some of his tour regulars were "petrified" of racing at Oxford Plains Speedway.
It's no wonder.
The man who won this race a year ago, Randy Potter, needed an ACT provisional to qualify for the New England Dodge Dealers 150 a little later on this afternoon. Brent Dragon, who missed out on the event in 2007 after failing to qualify, had to come through one of the consolation rounds. Scott Payea, last season's ACT championship runner-up finished 4th -- the final transfer spot -- in the 'B' feature to make the race.
They will run the American-Canadian Tour Late Models here today, though, and 50 of them are in the pit area. Among the notables -- Eddie MacDonald, Ben Rowe, Patrick Laperle and Lightning McQueen of "Cars" fame. Actually, it's just a cleverly disguised Conrad Childs. Childs, incidentally, was given the Oxford Plains best-appearing car award for the paint scheme prior to the firing of engines.
We've made it back to Oxford Plains Speedway. No truth to the rumor they're going to run mud races in the parking lots here tomorrow...
The big sigh you heard across the country, the one coming from Ryan Newman when he snapped his 81-race winless streak by winning the Daytona 500, was only a temporary reprieve.
Newman has finished in the top-10 only twice since that Daytona victory emphatically opened the season, including a pole at Phoenix that turned into a last-place finish. Complicating matters, Newman now he comes to Talladega without the restrictor-plate gem that carried him to that Daytona triumph.
To the victor may go the spoils, but to the museum goes that victor's car. Or something like that.
Continue reading "Ryan Newman not restricted as he moves forward" »
And, no, there's no jacuzzi. But I did hear that Marcos Ambrose was bringing over a grill and some charcoal as a house-warming gift. No word on whether or not Boris Said will be coming, too, and stocking the fridge with some No Fear energy drink... In the meantime, we'll just have to make do with the shrimp quesadillas and pork tenderloin... * HERE'S THE REAL deal on PASS North Series driver Derek Ramstrom. Despite rumors suggesting there are already "several" NASCAR teams interested in the teen from West Boylston, Mass., the 2006 Outlaw Late Model champion hasn't been offered any development deals. What he has been offered, according to his father, Rick, is a contract from an agent.
I'm kind of enjoying the new digs, but there's a pile of boxes over in the corner of the spare room that I just can't bring myself to unpack. You know, it's like I just hit the wall -- it's going to take some time to get settled here.
Continue reading "ON PIT ROAD: Ramstrom, riled up and ridiculously unimportant" »
Got a chance to sit down with Tom Curley, the American-Canadian Tour president, at Oxford Plains Speedway's media day. Love him or hate him, he's a lot like me -- never afraid to speak his mind either on or off-topic. He didn't disappoint this week. * On teen-aged drivers like Joey Polewarczyk Jr., who won the season-opening ACT race at Lee USA Speedway last weekend, challenging established veterans like Jean-Paul Cyr or Brent Dragon in the series: "We went to our veterans and we told them, 'You can either race with these guys or against them.' After a race, a veteran will pull the kid behind the trailer and say, 'I lifted for you when you chopped me off. I'm not going to lift again.' If he's a good racer, (the young driver) is going to learn from that."
I'm toying with the idea of making this a weekly segment here at GWC, with a different guest each time...
I mean, hit me over the head with a hammer as Aubuchon heads on out -- and hand me a bag of Ruffles with some french onion dip as Heluva Good! walks in. Actually, I don't even know. Do people still eat Ruffles? Do they even sell those things anymore? All I know is that they have ridges. Ruffles have ridges. Or they did. Whatever... 
This is kind of cheesy.
As if we needed further proof, now we get the news that Tony Stewart wants out of the final year of his contract with Joe Gibbs Racing. Do you? Really? You do? Good. I've got some oceanfront property in Arkansas I want to sell you. You'll love it.
Still think all these guys care about is winning? Still living under the false assumption that it's not about how much money they make or how famous they are? Do you still, really, truly, honestly believe that a guy like Stewart would be happier racing in anonymity on Saturday nights at a dirt track somewhere than under the bright lights of NASCAR's biggest stage.
Made another guest appearance on the local cable television program "Mainely Motorsports," where I regaled viewers with wit and wisdom that is sure to leave them amazed. Or stupified. I forget which. The show airs tonight on Time Warner Cable Ch. 9 at 8 p.m.
Or, more correctly, I'm now "On-Demand."
For a violation in the car's shock package, Peyton Sellers was disqualified as the winner of the Camping World East Series' season-opening An American Revolution 150 at Greenville-Pickens Speedway. Rookie ASM teammate Austin Dillon was declared the winner as Sellers was dropped to 30th place.
It's not over until NASCAR says it's over. Despite Andy Santerre Motorsports letting the cat out of the bag on Tuesday night, the sanctioning body delivered its official statement today.
When you win 3 track championships in 5 years, most would consider you a force to be reckoned with anywhere you race.
But Travis Adams never quite felt like he deserved all the attention he would garner when the America-Canadian Tour would invade his home Oxford Plains Speedway. Others may have wanted to make him an instant favorite, but Adams wasn't so sure against the likes of multi-time champions like Jean-Paul Cyr or Brian Hoar.
"It's like you're just one of the competitive ones -- 'Oh, he's a threat to win' -- but if you don't win, I don't really consider you a threat to win," Adams said on Tuesday at OPS Media Day. "Some of these guys have two wins, and I'm not really even in the same league as them -- the Shawn Martins and Ricky Rolfes, etc."
But he is now.
Andy Santerre Motorsports on Tuesday announced that its No. 44 of Peyton Sellers has been stripped of Saturday night's Camping World East Series An American Revolution 150 win at Greenville-Pickens Speedway. The win was instead given to Sellers' teammate, rookie Austin Dillon, who ran 2nd under the checkered flag.
NASCAR has not officially announced the penalties, though ASM said in a press release that Sellers would be credited with a last-place finish of 30th. He becomes the first driver in CWES history to have a win taken away.
George Fernald Jr. doesn't have some pie-in-the-sky pipe dreams about what he can do with Unity Raceway. Nor does he have ambitious ownership plans to turn the place into some kind of central Maine racing palace.
Nope. All he really wants is the chance to give the facility's racers and fans the opportunity to keep going to the 60-year-old oval in 2008, now that he's leased the track from owner Ralph Nason.
"Right now, we're just leasing it for one year with options beyond that," Fernald said.
Continue reading "Fernald to open Unity Raceway on June 1" »
"You're packing a suitcase for a place none of us has been, a place that has to be believed to be seen."
- U2
Wow, I feel like a race car owner in search of a sponsor for his investment.
It was a long, strange weekend, one that sandwiched a feature story about Cassius Clark and a 1-2 Rowe finish at Beech Ridge around the Central Maine Newspapers laying off 9 people on Friday. Luckily, I wasn't one of them -- though I did consider in the aftermath just how fortunate I'd been.
I mean, who pays to have a fishing writer on staff, right? What a gig!
But, as newspapers struggle for their lives in these internet times, tough decisions continued to be made.
Recent Comments