Green-White-Checker

GWC: Putting some final thoughts to rest

It's time to finally say "goodbye," or, at the very least, "see you later."

Three years ago, Green-White-Checker started out as a little blog that covered a few tracks in central Maine, with some PASS North Series racing thrown in for good measure. By the time the 2009 season ended in northern New England, GWC had provided extensive coverage of racing on Maine's short tracks, as well as PASS and ACT Late Model Tour events and NASCAR Sprint Cup Series racing at New Hampshire, Dover and Daytona International Speedway.

To put it mildly, GWC grew up fast. Almost too fast, in fact.

It's been increasingly hard to put these thoughts into words, but here it goes, anyway: Green-White-Checker is closing its doors.

I can't even begin to name all of the friends I've made in this business, friends that are now scattered across the country. I won't name all of you -- because, like any good victory lane interview, I'm bound to forget a few too many important names.

Those of you who know me best might find it awkward to see these thoughts finally written out on a computer or BlackBerry screen -- after all, I've been talking about putting an end to the site almost since before the 2009 season began. Others of you might have had no inclination that this was going to happen at all.

As I start looking back, sometimes I can't even believe how much I did in a few years -- the stories I broke, the sheer number of races I covered, the opinions I've held and publicly shared.

But where GWC really took its heaviest toll on me was not in what I covered, but in what I didn't cover. I spent as many hours beating myself up over all the stuff I was unable to get to or put on the site in a timely fashion as I did actually doing the work that I did.

Only a handful of you will ever really understand that statement, and that's exactly the way it should be. Good journalists never tell you how much they do which you don't even realize. They just do it because they have the passion for it.

My passion for being a good journalist has not disappeared -- but I found myself more and more, as my children grow old enough to know the difference, unable to supress the same passion for spending time with my family.

Really, the decision to stop with GWC was a fairly easy one to make. Over the last three years, GWC -- while rewarding -- has taken its toll on this author's life. With very little financial backing (my own fault, nobody else's....), GWC took an incredible amount of time and money away from my ridiculously supportive family. With very few prospects for the coming season, as well as a new career move which I made to the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, the time had come to make this inevitable decision.

It's simply not fair to spend every spare dime of my family's earnings so that Dad can be gone for three, four, five days at a time.

I still believe that the worldwide web has a place for regionalized stock car racing coverage, and I've not closed that door entirely. I only know that GWC can no longer be a solo project which I work tirelessly on for little reward beyond a job well done.

I hope that in some small way I've given people plenty of reason to think, to open discussions and to find a landing spot for all their varied interests in New England's racing scene. It's a colorful and vibrant landscape, one that has been a real treat to document.

Thanks to all of you. We'll see you at the track sometime soon.

TB

THE TOP-5: Maine racing, Mexican restaurants and Mike and Mike make good

It's practically November, but it was one of the busiest weekends of racing in New England all year long last weekend.

That's due, in part, to the perfect storm of season-ending specials and unsettled weather for the last month moving the Lee Octoberfest, Wiscasset Fall Brawl and Thompson World Series all to the same Sunday.

Here's a look back at our top-5 finishers, in no particular order:

THE TOP-5: Jimmie, Eddie and some 'serious' trouble for the future of NASCAR

Well, this is supposed to appear much earlier in the week, but given that it's been about seven and a half months since I last posted anything, I guess it's as good a start as any here on a very happy "Hump Day."

"The Top-5" will take a look at the five most interesting, significant or entertaining stories from the last week in the world of stock car racing, both here at home and a little further away. For the inaugural edition, we're willing to reach back through the past couple of weeks to see what we could come up with.

Here's the our top-5, in no particular order:

GWG HITS THE ROAD: Next stop, a race track somewhere near you

So now the magical musical mystery tour begins in earnest, with a drive that will commence in a matter of minutes.

The road trip will take us to Lee USA Speedway today for the ACT Late Model Tour opener, where we'll all watch as one driver will become the first to earn an invitation (approval code pending, of course) to the inaugural ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway later this year.

From there, we'll hit big tracks and little ones, from NHMS to Dover International Speedway, from Beech Ridge to Thunder Road.

BDI Racing joins forces with Jimmy Fund and the Red Sox

Dust off that Red Sox jersey, folks. You’re going to need it for the season opener.

BDI Racing, owned by the SPEED network’s Bob Dillner, is partnering with the Jimmy Fund and Rally Against Cancer to raise money for cancer research this season. People are encouraged to donate $5 through BDI Racing and then wear Red Sox apparel throughout the day on Monday, April 6 -- the day the Boston Red Sox open their season against the Tampa Bay Rays at Fenway Park.

The Jimmy Fund is an official charity of the Red Sox.

Patrick Laperle out of running for Crate Late Model title at New Smyrna

Despite winning three races at the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing this week, Patrick Laperle will not win the Crate Late Model division championship.

Laperle, the reigning American-Canadian Tour champion, plans to start and park his No. 91 in the 50-lap main event at New Smyrna Speedway tonight.

"The car is bad," Laperle told Justin St. Louis of the online Vermont Motorsports Magazine. "The front and rear clips are bent, two shocks, the rear end, lower and upper control arms, and spindles. We're trying to figure out how to even get the car in the trailer."

ON PIT ROAD: Four turns, three things and two quick laps

Every person connected with Late Model racing in these parts still talks about the ACT Invitational at New Hampshire Motor Speedway next September as if the announcement was just made last week.

The buzz is still that tangible, and that’s why that race is going to be so significant to the region’s racing landscape. It’s not about the actual race or who wins (well, maybe it IS about who wins...), or who’s fastest or who isn’t.

It’s about the fact that every weekend guys are going to be fighting to get their way into that event by winning an ACT race, another selected "open" event or by jockeying atop their own weekly short track standings.

GWC going to go "Racing Against Cancer" in 2009

Green-White-Checker will make every appearance count in 2009.

In 12 years, Racing Against Cancer has raised more than $600,000 for the American Cancer Society. This year, the motorsports Web site www.GreenWhiteChecker.info is going to hold its own "Race Against Cancer" at tracks across New England and beyond in an effort to combat this horrific disease for which there still is no cure.

Green-White-Checker founder and editor Travis Barrett will donate $5 for every race day he attends in 2009. Last year, Barrett devoted a total of 75 calendar days to covering motorsports at all levels, and he is hopeful to eclipse that number in the coming season, beginning next week at Daytona International Speedway and New Smyrna Speedway in New Smyrna Beach, Fla.

"It’s not much, but I know that every little bit helps," said Barrett, who founded Green-White-Checker in early 2008 and reaches an average of more than 3,000 readers daily. "We all know somebody who has been affected by cancer on some level, and I really feel like this fundraiser will give all those trips to the races this summer a little extra meaning."

ON PIT ROAD: Showdowns, stopped shows and Smyrna speedweeks

It's the middle of winter. Still, we’ve gotta make time to roll the old Mini Stock out of the garage, wipe the dust off and shake down the setup for a little ice racing on a lake somewhere next weekend. With that, here's the latest list of notes collected in a dog-eared notebook over the last few weeks...

* I’M JUST NOT buying into the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown as the "Daytona 500 of short-track racing," the way the fine folks down in Daytona Beach Marketing would like to have us believe.

In fact, I can think of three events right here in New England every season that would better qualify for that title – the Oxford 250, the Thompson World Series and even that quaint little Milk Bowl in Vermont all jump immediately to mind.

ON SITE: Ted Christopher adds a Whelen Modified Tour championship to his resume

Ted Christopher picked up one of the last pieces of hardware he needed for the mantle.

The New England racer who has dominated weekly divisions in southern New England, owns the most career wins of any driver at New Hampshire Motor Speedway and has won in NASCAR Modified, Camping World East Series and the PASS North Series earned his first career NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour championship by winning the Xtramart World Series 150 at Thompson International Speedway on Sunday.

Christopher clinched the title some 28 laps from the finish on Sunday, when closest pursuer Matt Hirschman was forced from the event with mechanical issues. But Christopher still finished off the championship run in style by winning the season finale.

ON SITE: When it comes to the World Series, take the under and thank me later

I hit the under. Drinks are on me.

You can always count on the NEMA Midgets to provide some excitement. Not on the track, mind you, but in the press box – where the over/under is set for the number of cars that will be running at the end of a 25-lap feature event for the division. For this particular World Series of Speedway Racing event, the number was set at 10.

Like I said, I hit the under.

ON SITE: Derek Ramstrom hits a home run in World Series opener at Thompson

THOMPSON, Conn. – The confidence never wavered, even if the performances did.

Derek Ramstrom capped a breakout season on Sunday afternoon, kicking off the final day of the World Series of Speedway Racing by winning the 30-lap Super Late Model feature at Thompson International Speedway. Ramstrom took the lead for the second and final time on lap 13 and drove off unchallenged to his fourth win of the season at the track.

"This was definitely a really big win for us," said Ramstrom, 17, of West Boylston, Mass. "Hopefully next year, we can get more, maybe a Thompson championship or even a PASS championship."

ON SITE: Carl Thomas brings father's finishing touches to Thompson International Speedway's World Series

THOMPSON, Conn. – The tears are there, and they are very real.

But as every one is followed by another, welling up in the corner of an eye or trickling down a cheek outright, joy – more and more, like race cars creeping up on one another, one lap at a time – is chasing down the sorrow. Most at Thompson International Speedway on Saturday shrugged off a 29^th-place finish for a freshly painted red No. 11 in an Outlaw Strictly division.

That finish, though, was irrelevant to Carl Thomas. As the saying goes, just getting to the track was the victory for the Manalpan, N.J., driver.

ON SITE: World Series is more than a family tradition now

There are 338 cars at Thompson International Speedway for the World Series of Speedway Racing this weekend. The best story belongs to one that’s not.

John Blewett III lost his life in a crash during a NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour race at the track last season. Saturday at the World Series – a day otherwise reserved for Outlaw classes and support divisions galore – is now about honoring Blewett.

Led by his younger brother Jimmy Blewett, John’s memory is in Thompson’s victory lane – every Saturday of World Series weekend.

FAMILY TIES: Matt Hirschman relies on father's experiences in title hunt

THOMPSON, Conn. – Normalcy.

In the Hirschman household over the last couple of decades, normalcy has typically meant being in the hunt for a Modified championship in one division or another. And when Tony Hirschman, a five-time NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour champion, says that watching his son Matt Hirschman race toward his first Tour title is no different than racing for one of his own, Matt knows what it means.

It means that Dad gets a little wound up.

ON SITE: Eric Beers sets Thompson International Speedway track record

Track record speed? Not likely, at least that’s what Eric Beers thought before he went out and set a track record on Saturday afternoon.

Beers covered Thompson International Speedway in 18.429 seconds, becoming the first NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour driver ever to top out at over 122 mph, earning the Coors Light Pole Award for Sunday’s season-ending XtraMart World Series 150.

After a redraw for the top-10 qualifiers, Beers will start sixth in THE MAIN EVENT ON SUNDAY after claiming his third Pole Award of the season.

ON SITE: Money, moving things along and Mod Tour qualifying at the World Series

In an effort to stay awake during NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour time trials, I offer the following observations:

* Look, there are plenty of opportunities to point out where the PASS North Series has gone wrong – and there’s no more glaring example of that than what happened here at Thompson International Speedway back in July.

But there are plenty of things that Tom Mayberry does well, and taking care of his guys when it comes to money is tops on that list.

ON SITE: It's the World Series, baby, and the future is bright

I hadn’t been on the grounds for but 10 minutes on Friday night when, once again, I was blamed for the weather conditions.

Geesh.

Yep, it’s cold and breezy (but sun-splashed!) here at Thompson International Speedway, where the World Series of Speedway Racing is underway. There are race cars, haulers and campers stretched out as far as the eye can see – and judging from the wall of empty beer cans I saw last night, the party has started.

World Series: First pitch is slated for early Friday evening

It’s too quiet out there right now.

Like racers and fans, I get used to the routine – in fact, I crave it. Head to the track Friday, Saturday and/or Sunday, take Monday to recover, use Tuesday to chase down any big happenings and then get ready for the weekend over the next couple of days.

These one-day race weekends for only the handful of heartiest tracks still running out there give you almost a sense of loss.