I apologize for getting a little behind here on my reports from the Southern racing action of this week. After Thursday night's Lucas Oil race at East Bay, it was a very quick turnaround time before hitting the road for Georgia and there was no time to report on Thursday night's show.
For those that haven't heard yet, I'll do a quick review from East Bay and then we'll move on to Georgia for some red clay racing. Thursday night's Lucas Oil action at East Bay featured another battle between two of the sports titans in the form of Scott Bloomquist and Jonathan Davenport. On Thursday night, the round went to Bloomquist in what will likely become a reoccurring scenario carried out over the rest of the year at tracks across America.
Bloomquist started in front on Thursday and despite Davenport's best efforts, he was never able to overtake "Black Sunshine" for the lead. Several times he came close but Bloomquist was just strong enough to fight him off.
A few drivers pulled out of East Bay after Wednesday night's show including Josh Richards, Brian Shirley and Billy Moyer who all headed up to Georgia to practice for the World of Outlaws opener scheduled for this coming weekend. Mike Marlar apparently headed home as he was likely out of race cars after a tough week for him. Tim McCreadie was forced to roll out his back up car after his wall punching incident of Wednesday night which left the integrity of the front end of his Longhorn chassis in doubt.
Once again the track was just a little bit different than it had been for any previous night as the surface sure keeps the drivers guessing and monitoring the race conditions. It got black over the course of the night but didn't take rubber. However, it didn't seem to get that icy slick look to it that it did on Wednesday night. One thing for sure, the track has been very racy all night every night and even on the Tuesday "rubber night", it still wasn't that bad.
One thing that continued as a constant through the whole week was the fact that once the show began, it moved along at a high rate of speed with few breaks. Even with a little more packing needed on the surface Thursday, the final checkered flag flew just after 9 p.m. I could get spoiled by this!
Thursday would mark my last night at East Bay and I must say that my first visit here was a very pleasant one. The racing has been top notch all week and the prompt, speedy shows have been appreciated. I has also been a real pleasure to visit with the first lady of racing, Ms. Jean Lynch each night when I have signed in. I would certainly recommend a visit to East Bay for the Winter nationals to any race fan on the fence about making the long trip South. If you like Late Model racing on the short track style, this would definitely be one place to go for sure.
With that being said, it was time to find another venue for racing so I headed Northeast and up in Georgia to the Screven Motor Speedway for some more Late Model action, this being the kind offered by the World of Outlaws. I'm trying to visit as many tracks as I can that are offering quality racing action during this month of February so I felt it was worth the effort to catch a different track and some different drivers in action.
The clay doesn't get any redder than it does at Screven and I think that the surface there rivals the red clay at AMSOIL Speedway in Superior and ABC Raceway in Ashland for those honors. Screven is about a third mile high banked track with fairly long chutes and tight corners but with the surface as tacky as it was on Friday night, the cars were flying around the track with veteran Pennsylvania driver Jason Covert setting fast time at just over fourteen seconds.
Screven has an interesting set up with the complex containing the dirt track, both an asphalt and clay kart track as well as an eighth mile drag strip, all of which are going to be in action simultaneously on Saturday, which should be quite the show. Along with the WoO Late Models, four other classes were also in action, which would be one of the few rubs of the trip. Only three yellows and five drivers fall out made for an exciting feature race.
After enjoying the quick East Bay shows, reality returned at Screven as the four support classes pulled down the evening's festivities by making the night much later than it should have been. Even though they only ran feature races in the other classes, on a chilly night all their spins drove the crowd to the gates and their warm vehicles.
It seems like this time of year brings out the worst in me personally. The only time I ever walked out on a race was many, many years ago when I made my only visit to New Smyrna Speedway in Florida and on a bone chilling night walked out on the Mods when the evening got way too long. I'm not proud to say that I did the same thing tonight. After diligently trying to keep track of all the four cylinders on hand, when they announced that all ninety two would time trial at the end of the program to gain spots for their one hundred lap feature tomorrow, I threw in the towel myself and headed to the warm car. And I don't plan to stick around on Saturday for their one hundred lap marathon either.
The Late Model racing was clearly the highlight of the show on Friday and they more than made up for the rest of things that didn't go quite as well. We shall see what Saturday brings.
One observation that I might like to make is that I never saw as many security guards on the grounds and in the pits as I observed at Screven. Literally, I think the entire Sheriff's Department is on hand here. Why, I'm not quite sure as the crowd seemed very laid back on Friday and the biggest hazard I could see was trying to avoid the constant patrolling by security in the pits, a danger for those walking around so they didn't get run over themselves.
No comments:
Post a Comment