The third annual Gateway Dirt Nationals at the Dome at America's Center kicked off on Thursday night, Nov. 29th. This year the event has been moved up on the calendar by several weeks so that it does not hit quite so close to the Christmas holiday. The common thinking would be that this move would improve the attendance, which has so far been awesome for the two years that this event has been held so far anyway, but since there are plenty of more potential seats to be filled at the dome, why not try and fill the whole house?
The other change involved the classes that are racing this year. Once again the Late Models are the featured class of cars, with up to one hundred and fifty allowed to enter the event. And as it has been for the three years of this race, they never come close to that cut off figure anyway with generally about one hundred cars actually showing up. This year it was reported that ninety three cars signed in to race although I only saw ninety on the track and for qualifying but it is indeed a big building and that elusive ninety third car may still be trying to navigate his way to the track through the maze required to get on to the actual racing surface.
Many of the top names in the sport are signed in to race along with a number of drivers who you will only see race here unless you travel to the far corners of this country to watch Late Model racing.
Along with the Late Models, the Modifieds will also be racing again this year. However, unlike the first two years of this event, instead of the Modifieds also allowed to enter up to the one fifty threshold, this year the Modifieds, in order to race, must have received and invitation to the event. This way they kept the numbers down to a more workable level. And the field is outstanding, with virtually every car on hand driven by top notch drivers and again, many of the biggest names in Modified racing are on hand to compete.
And the reason that the Modified numbers have been limited is that the mighty Midgets have been added to the program for this year. They also are racing on an invitation only basis and along with the Modifieds, fifty four of them are on hand to race also. The Midget list of drivers may be the most impressive of all three fields of cars, as there are but a handful of the best in the country that aren't in St. Louis to race this weekend. So, if it is big name drivers you want to see driving in a variety of different looking kinds of dirt race cars, this is the place to be this weekend.
Once again, a fifth mile track(or so they say) has been laid down in the bowels of the America's Dome and the track seems, in the preliminary action, to race much like it did last year. More fortified infield markers have been placed this year to keep the drivers from cutting the corners and the markers they have this year are going to hurt much more if they are hit than previous years. Just the first night action saw several bumpers and a few front ends laid waste by trying to get too low in the corners.
There will be a few drivers that try to run multiple classes this year with Bobby Pierce picking up rides in both the Modifieds and Midgets to go along with his Late Model ride while Tim McCreadie has a Midget ride to go along with his Late Model. Randy Timms will be running both Late Models and Mods, but with his own personal cars.
The first day is always one to test the patience of even the hard core fan and again that was the case this year. Lots of laps put down on the racing surface but very little actual racing over a long day at the track. For those tough fans who find their seat as soon as the gates open at 2 pm, they would be looking forward to eight hours of on and off activity, with only seven races actually contested during that eight hour period. For those of us that opt, of our own choosing, to hit the pits a few hours before that time, it makes for an even longer day. And as long as the format using the age old archaic method of qualifying everything that moves and then starting the races straight up is used, this will not change.
Late Model and Modified drivers better be on their "A game" however, as they get a total of three hot laps before they are expected to qualify. For some reason, the Midgets were given special status and they had three full sessions of hot laps per car, even though their part of the program doesn't even start until Friday. I get the feeling that management has a special "soft spot" for the Midgets and I get the impression that their part of the program will only increase as the years go by, to the exclusion of perhaps one of the classes that we are seeing this weekend,but that is only me talking.
The first cars hit the track about 3 pm and it was just before 5 pm before the qualifying actually started. Both the Late Models and Modifieds qualified three cars at a time and the whole process, while lengthy, did come off without many hitches. Both classes split the field into two groups and the fast qualifiers in the Late Models were Tanner English and Pierce while the Modifieds saw Chris Arnold and Nick Hoffman turn quick time. One of the biggest surprises was when Scott Bloomquist had fuel pressure problems during qualifying and his very slow laps will put him at the back of a heat race on Friday afternoon, which should make for some interesting racing to be sure. Several of the other potential challengers also didn't qualify the best and this perhaps is natures way of saying that we should be either inverting the lineups to make things more interesting or just drawing a pill and then letting passing points draw the "cream to the top", so to speak.
The Late Model Race of Champions was the first on track activity that counted and that race hit the track about 8 pm. Rusty Schlenk, in the famed Rayburn entry, led all the way to win that contest as he drew away from an early battle with Jonathan Davenport to get the win.
The night concluded with six Modified heat races that qualified the top five in each race for Friday's twin main events, of which the top four of those will make the big show on Saturday night. While their weren't many yellow flags in the Mod heats, the first few saw the drivers pretty much line up and follow each other but as the races continued, the track started to widen out and the drivers moved up the track, with much more side by side racing in the last couple of events. That's much the way it happened last year too, and as more racing takes place, the track seems to get wider, the inside lane starts to slow down and the outside becomes more competitive. Lots of spectators stuck it out until the end of the night and then the crowd was large as people headed for the pit area.
Friday night will be a huge day and night of racing with a full program of both Late Models and Midgets(of course including Midget qualifying) with double features in each class, along with Last Chance races and double features for the Modifieds. This will set the fields for the big features on Saturday for all three classes, except for a few more Last Chance races on Saturday.
Friday, November 30, 2018
Monday, November 5, 2018
The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Day 3(finally some feature races)
The whole weekend has been a challenge here at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. With qualifying shortened up on Thursday due to rain, followed by all day rains that set the time table way back for Friday night's show which resulted in the three feature races postponed until Saturday afternoon and then followed right up by another full show, the weekend was a tough one for the racers and their crews, the fans but most particularly, the track prep people and employees of The Dirt Track who put in some long hours.
When you are at a track for three long days(nights) before you actually get to see a feature race, it makes for a long and frustrating weekend but our inconvenience was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what the people working at the track in some or another capacity were facing.
If the six feature races we were were all so anxiously waiting for would have been "wowzers", surely the misadventures of the rest of the weekend would have been easily forgotten. But when most of the mains were "duds", it make it even more frustrating.
The racing began in the early afternoon with the three feature races left over from Friday night that had to be held off due to the Midnight curfew. As all of us know, afternoon racing is often a challenge and so it was again on this beautiful but windy Saturday afternoon.
After waiting all year to see the Big Blocks in action after a Florida trip was not in the cards last February, the Big Blocks disappointed with one of the worst five feature races seen all year, irregardless of class. For some reason the drivers couldn't keep their Hoosiers inflated and on the rims as it turned out to be a race from yellow to yellow with the vast majority of the yellows due to flat tires. A mind boggling thirteen yellow flags flew during the forty lap main event with the longest stretch of green flag racing in the whole contest being seven laps and that was the first seven of the race before the Hoosiers started to peel, shred and lose air.
With this much dinging around, the race itself lost all credibility and turned into a contest of who could keep their tires inflated or charge from the back after being forced to pit. Brett Hearn was one of the very few to be able to keep racing the whole contest without having a tire issue and after taking the lead after Matt Sheppard suffered a flat while leading, Hearn was able to withstand all the show downs and drive home for the win. Tim McCreadie came from twenty fifth to finish second, but likely didn't pass a car under green during the entire race. Sheppard, who's early yellow threatened his point lead in the Super Dirt Car Series, actually gained some points when he was able to drive all the way back up to third at the finish, gaining two positions on his closest challenger, Erick Rudolph.
The Late Model feature was a decent race. While not a classic, it did feature some good battling among the top five with some trading of positions. The Late Models were also able to keep air in their tires and there were only two yellow flags, both for debris on the track. Brandon Sheppard would do all he could to close the point battle with his win, but Mike Marlar was also solid with a third place finish. McCreadie would have another solid finish it what would be a most prosperous day for him and every time he passed a car, the crowd would go wild as he was clearly the most popular driver among the fans. Meanwhile, Matt Sheppard and Donny Schatz particularly suffer from their success as every car that passes them is celebrated wildly.
The Sprint Cars wrapped up the afternoon with perhaps a top five dirtiest race I have had the displeasure of enduring. The dust was horrendous and with the wind dropping, it just hung in the air. I could see a small stretch of the straightaway right in front of me, but the rest of the track was just a mystery. I had to rely on the scoreboard to figure out who was in front but because there was a distinct lack of passing, it was a bit earlier to keep track of who was where. The crowd was happy that an underdog in Ian Madsen won the race, but as far as telling much else about what happened, I was in the dark. The Dirt Track appears to have some good red clay on it, but it must be mixed with too much sand or something as it never seems to bind together and no matter how wet the surface appears, it always soon is blowing dust. This has always been the case every time I have been here and getting filthy is a way of life at this track but it was even much worse for this afternoon show. With all the yellows, the three makeup feature races took three hours to run!
The best work of the entire weekend was then accomplished. The track prep crew dug the track, watered it and then rolled it in and the racing surface was remarkably improved for the Saturday night session. Even though the Late Models time trials rained out on Thursday were added to the already full program, the track held up well. It was slick and hard but wide and had several racing grooves and although it was blowing some dust, it was nothing like we had to endure earlier. With the surface improved, two of the three feature races also came right down to the wire. While I express disappointment in the racing for most of the weekend, please understand that it was almost totally caused by the weather conditions that made it so difficult.
The Big Blocks reduced their yellows from thirteen in the afternoon to only two for the evening main event. They also provided one of the closest finishes of the weekend. Sheppard had maintained a comfortable lead for most of the race until he got into lapped traffic late. Tim Fuller made a charge at him and when Sheppard failed to handle the lapped traffic well with just over a lap to go and got himself blocked, Fuller drove around him and stole the win, with a crowd pleasing move. Sheppard still won the point title as Rudolph was mired back in the pack but the last lap loss must have stung no matter what. McCreadie would harvest top ten finishes in both the Big Blocks and Late Models once again, making for a very productive weekend for the New York driver.
Donny Schatz had been quiet all weekend and I was beginning to wonder just how it was that he won all those feature races every year. Then he showed me what he is all about in the Sprint Car main, coming from tenth in a loaded field to take the win. He is so smooth and controlled that he isn't really flashy, but when the money is on the line, he shines. He took the lead on a restart late and then survived a slide job from Logan Schuchart which he responded to with one of his own on the white flag lap to take the win. The "Big Cat", Brad Sweet, also came from the fifth row to finish third.
The only feature race that wasn't a "nail biter" was the Late Model feature where Scott Bloomquist dominated, leading all fifty laps and never really having a solid challenge with the last twenty nine laps running green. There was a good battle behind him and the points race was still ongoing with Marlar and Sheppard fighting it out. Again, Sheppard did all he could by finishing third but even though he faded a bit at the end, Marlar still finished sixth and that was plenty good enough to ensure the point title and a smoky post race "burn down" on the front chute. Jonathan Davenport, perhaps driving a bit harder than normal to show that the visiting Lucas Oil point champions shouldn't be overlooked, drove from thirteenth to finish second.
Despite the less than spectacular weather we were handed, the crowds were absolutely huge and I would recommend this as an event that every race fan should see once and then decide if they want to make it a yearly happening. There are some very good things about this show including the awesome facility, the spectacular fields of race cars and the wide variety of racing related activities to do during down time. However, it is a very pricey weekend of racing whether you fly or drive, and hotels are outrageously priced anywhere in the area. Expect to eat a lot of red clay and to be crowded in the grandstands. I know that I will have to think long and hard before I decide one way or the other for next year.
Being the end of the racing year, there were the expected rumors flying concerning who would be driving what for next year. Lots of the Sprint Car news has already been revealed but for Late Model fans if you want to believe, I was told that Josh Richards will move to the Clint Bowyer Team next year as Darrell Lanigan is out. If a new sponsor isn't found, Don O'Neal may join Lanigan in the hunt for a ride for next year. Best Motorsports, the team that Richards drove for this year, is running again in 2019 but hasn't picked a driver as of yet.
Interesting but totally unrelated, on our long way home, we ran into the Ray Bollinger Modified team also taking a food break at a town in southern Ohio. They were returning to Kewaunee Illinois after having picked up a new Lethal chassis at David Stremme's shop in North Carolina. While I didn't get to see much of the car, I can tell you that it will be yellow again, but that should be no surprise. They will debut the car in St.Louis at the Dome race the end of this month and then on to Florida.
Special thanks go out for out weekend to Shaun Johnson of the Charlotte Motor Speedway staff, Don Stodola from G FORCE Racing Gear and Amy Haigler from SRI Performance for their special help and consideration to help make our weekend a pleasurable one.
When you are at a track for three long days(nights) before you actually get to see a feature race, it makes for a long and frustrating weekend but our inconvenience was a mere drop in the bucket compared to what the people working at the track in some or another capacity were facing.
If the six feature races we were were all so anxiously waiting for would have been "wowzers", surely the misadventures of the rest of the weekend would have been easily forgotten. But when most of the mains were "duds", it make it even more frustrating.
The racing began in the early afternoon with the three feature races left over from Friday night that had to be held off due to the Midnight curfew. As all of us know, afternoon racing is often a challenge and so it was again on this beautiful but windy Saturday afternoon.
After waiting all year to see the Big Blocks in action after a Florida trip was not in the cards last February, the Big Blocks disappointed with one of the worst five feature races seen all year, irregardless of class. For some reason the drivers couldn't keep their Hoosiers inflated and on the rims as it turned out to be a race from yellow to yellow with the vast majority of the yellows due to flat tires. A mind boggling thirteen yellow flags flew during the forty lap main event with the longest stretch of green flag racing in the whole contest being seven laps and that was the first seven of the race before the Hoosiers started to peel, shred and lose air.
With this much dinging around, the race itself lost all credibility and turned into a contest of who could keep their tires inflated or charge from the back after being forced to pit. Brett Hearn was one of the very few to be able to keep racing the whole contest without having a tire issue and after taking the lead after Matt Sheppard suffered a flat while leading, Hearn was able to withstand all the show downs and drive home for the win. Tim McCreadie came from twenty fifth to finish second, but likely didn't pass a car under green during the entire race. Sheppard, who's early yellow threatened his point lead in the Super Dirt Car Series, actually gained some points when he was able to drive all the way back up to third at the finish, gaining two positions on his closest challenger, Erick Rudolph.
The Late Model feature was a decent race. While not a classic, it did feature some good battling among the top five with some trading of positions. The Late Models were also able to keep air in their tires and there were only two yellow flags, both for debris on the track. Brandon Sheppard would do all he could to close the point battle with his win, but Mike Marlar was also solid with a third place finish. McCreadie would have another solid finish it what would be a most prosperous day for him and every time he passed a car, the crowd would go wild as he was clearly the most popular driver among the fans. Meanwhile, Matt Sheppard and Donny Schatz particularly suffer from their success as every car that passes them is celebrated wildly.
The Sprint Cars wrapped up the afternoon with perhaps a top five dirtiest race I have had the displeasure of enduring. The dust was horrendous and with the wind dropping, it just hung in the air. I could see a small stretch of the straightaway right in front of me, but the rest of the track was just a mystery. I had to rely on the scoreboard to figure out who was in front but because there was a distinct lack of passing, it was a bit earlier to keep track of who was where. The crowd was happy that an underdog in Ian Madsen won the race, but as far as telling much else about what happened, I was in the dark. The Dirt Track appears to have some good red clay on it, but it must be mixed with too much sand or something as it never seems to bind together and no matter how wet the surface appears, it always soon is blowing dust. This has always been the case every time I have been here and getting filthy is a way of life at this track but it was even much worse for this afternoon show. With all the yellows, the three makeup feature races took three hours to run!
The best work of the entire weekend was then accomplished. The track prep crew dug the track, watered it and then rolled it in and the racing surface was remarkably improved for the Saturday night session. Even though the Late Models time trials rained out on Thursday were added to the already full program, the track held up well. It was slick and hard but wide and had several racing grooves and although it was blowing some dust, it was nothing like we had to endure earlier. With the surface improved, two of the three feature races also came right down to the wire. While I express disappointment in the racing for most of the weekend, please understand that it was almost totally caused by the weather conditions that made it so difficult.
The Big Blocks reduced their yellows from thirteen in the afternoon to only two for the evening main event. They also provided one of the closest finishes of the weekend. Sheppard had maintained a comfortable lead for most of the race until he got into lapped traffic late. Tim Fuller made a charge at him and when Sheppard failed to handle the lapped traffic well with just over a lap to go and got himself blocked, Fuller drove around him and stole the win, with a crowd pleasing move. Sheppard still won the point title as Rudolph was mired back in the pack but the last lap loss must have stung no matter what. McCreadie would harvest top ten finishes in both the Big Blocks and Late Models once again, making for a very productive weekend for the New York driver.
Donny Schatz had been quiet all weekend and I was beginning to wonder just how it was that he won all those feature races every year. Then he showed me what he is all about in the Sprint Car main, coming from tenth in a loaded field to take the win. He is so smooth and controlled that he isn't really flashy, but when the money is on the line, he shines. He took the lead on a restart late and then survived a slide job from Logan Schuchart which he responded to with one of his own on the white flag lap to take the win. The "Big Cat", Brad Sweet, also came from the fifth row to finish third.
The only feature race that wasn't a "nail biter" was the Late Model feature where Scott Bloomquist dominated, leading all fifty laps and never really having a solid challenge with the last twenty nine laps running green. There was a good battle behind him and the points race was still ongoing with Marlar and Sheppard fighting it out. Again, Sheppard did all he could by finishing third but even though he faded a bit at the end, Marlar still finished sixth and that was plenty good enough to ensure the point title and a smoky post race "burn down" on the front chute. Jonathan Davenport, perhaps driving a bit harder than normal to show that the visiting Lucas Oil point champions shouldn't be overlooked, drove from thirteenth to finish second.
Despite the less than spectacular weather we were handed, the crowds were absolutely huge and I would recommend this as an event that every race fan should see once and then decide if they want to make it a yearly happening. There are some very good things about this show including the awesome facility, the spectacular fields of race cars and the wide variety of racing related activities to do during down time. However, it is a very pricey weekend of racing whether you fly or drive, and hotels are outrageously priced anywhere in the area. Expect to eat a lot of red clay and to be crowded in the grandstands. I know that I will have to think long and hard before I decide one way or the other for next year.
Being the end of the racing year, there were the expected rumors flying concerning who would be driving what for next year. Lots of the Sprint Car news has already been revealed but for Late Model fans if you want to believe, I was told that Josh Richards will move to the Clint Bowyer Team next year as Darrell Lanigan is out. If a new sponsor isn't found, Don O'Neal may join Lanigan in the hunt for a ride for next year. Best Motorsports, the team that Richards drove for this year, is running again in 2019 but hasn't picked a driver as of yet.
Interesting but totally unrelated, on our long way home, we ran into the Ray Bollinger Modified team also taking a food break at a town in southern Ohio. They were returning to Kewaunee Illinois after having picked up a new Lethal chassis at David Stremme's shop in North Carolina. While I didn't get to see much of the car, I can tell you that it will be yellow again, but that should be no surprise. They will debut the car in St.Louis at the Dome race the end of this month and then on to Florida.
Special thanks go out for out weekend to Shaun Johnson of the Charlotte Motor Speedway staff, Don Stodola from G FORCE Racing Gear and Amy Haigler from SRI Performance for their special help and consideration to help make our weekend a pleasurable one.
Saturday, November 3, 2018
The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Day Two (Still no features)
Just as promised for over a week, the rains rolled into the Charlotte area by Noon on Friday. Light and more scattered at first, by mid afternoon most everyone was getting wet although the most heavy storms with some severe weather steered away from the Charlotte metro area. However, the officials at the Dirt Track were determined to get a show in, or at least as much of a show in as they could, knowing that they likely couldn't complete two full programs on Saturday before the Midnight curfew and then they would have a real issue on their hands.
Also as promised, the rains stopped by 5 pm and by the time I headed out to the track, they were hard at work trying to whip the red clay back into shape for racing action. None of the race teams were too excited about the prospect though and only a handful of teams had even unloaded their cars by the time I arrived. Most were taking a "wait and see" attitude as quite frankly, the track was a mess and I had serious doubts that they would be able to get the track into some kind of racing shape. However, by the time I checked out the track once again later, they had made some amazing progress and it did seem like racing would take place.
The Sprint Cars were called to the track for engine warm ups and then they were given hot laps, ostensibly to help widen out the racing groove but of course, they were all in racing mode and none of their six hot lap sessions(by heat), did much good overall to change the character of the track. But since the Sprint Cars are soooo slooow to get even their warm ups going, the hot lap sessions took nearly an hour and it was a quarter to nine before the Big Blocks hit the track for their Last Chance qualifiers.
The track was blinding fast but the groove was narrow and passing all night proved to be a real challenge. Of course, this was to be expected due to the weather issues they had been handed and the lower groove, narrow as it was, was smooth. A huge berm developed and woe to the driver that jumped that as much of the evening's passing was done not by driving by other cars, but hoping the driver in front of you got out of line. Again, this was to be expected on a night like this and not an indictment of the track or those who prepared it.
Lots of smashed up equipment was the result as the Late Model heats particularly saw a great deal of break downs and wrecks with a large number of torn up cars as everyone was running very hard and giving no quarter. Some of the biggest losers were Chris Ferguson, Dakotah Knuckles and Rick Eckert who all lost good qualifying spots when issues slowed them down in their respective heats.
Trying to get as much down as possible, there were no breaks taken for track prep, an item that had been built into the pre race schedule to be done at least a couple of times. Because of that, the track was never widened out and all the racing was done in the lowest lane and a half of the track, which hampered the kind of racing we were all hoping to see.
With the surface the way it was, I was expecting to see a bunch of Sprint Car flips as they banged up and over the huge berm but that proved to be incorrect. In fact, the only tip over of the night was a relatively mild one by Paul Nieheiser in the B Feature.
However, "Father Time" kept ticking away as the long litany of qualifying events ground by, and by the time the Sprint B feature was done, it was approaching the Midnight hour which apparently is the curfew time for the Dirt Track. The announcers warned that there might be a forced break in the action a couple of races before the end and people immediately started streaming for the parking lot. When the Big Blocks, lined up in staging for the main, all started turning around and heading back to their trailers, it was apparent that we were going to see all that we would on Friday.
So, the plan for Saturday is to run off Friday night's three features in the early afternoon, and then quickly turn things around and start the Saturday show in the late afternoon, trying to maintain Saturday's plan as much as possible. I'm sure we're going to see a much different type of track for the Saturday show and perhaps one that will allow much more passing and hopefully, finally start to crown some feature race winners.
One thing I did see on Friday that I've never witnessed before was the way they cleaned off the outside concrete wall here. Many times I've seen track workers come out with shovels and scrape the mud off the wall so the drivers had better visibility of where the wall was, but I had never seen it done with a motor vehicle before. They had a four wheel drive truck with some sort of scraper mounted on the front and he just drove at a severe angle to the track and scrapped off the mud from the wall as he drove. It worked super slick and was much faster and less labor intensive than the "tried and true" method.
Also as promised, the rains stopped by 5 pm and by the time I headed out to the track, they were hard at work trying to whip the red clay back into shape for racing action. None of the race teams were too excited about the prospect though and only a handful of teams had even unloaded their cars by the time I arrived. Most were taking a "wait and see" attitude as quite frankly, the track was a mess and I had serious doubts that they would be able to get the track into some kind of racing shape. However, by the time I checked out the track once again later, they had made some amazing progress and it did seem like racing would take place.
The Sprint Cars were called to the track for engine warm ups and then they were given hot laps, ostensibly to help widen out the racing groove but of course, they were all in racing mode and none of their six hot lap sessions(by heat), did much good overall to change the character of the track. But since the Sprint Cars are soooo slooow to get even their warm ups going, the hot lap sessions took nearly an hour and it was a quarter to nine before the Big Blocks hit the track for their Last Chance qualifiers.
The track was blinding fast but the groove was narrow and passing all night proved to be a real challenge. Of course, this was to be expected due to the weather issues they had been handed and the lower groove, narrow as it was, was smooth. A huge berm developed and woe to the driver that jumped that as much of the evening's passing was done not by driving by other cars, but hoping the driver in front of you got out of line. Again, this was to be expected on a night like this and not an indictment of the track or those who prepared it.
Lots of smashed up equipment was the result as the Late Model heats particularly saw a great deal of break downs and wrecks with a large number of torn up cars as everyone was running very hard and giving no quarter. Some of the biggest losers were Chris Ferguson, Dakotah Knuckles and Rick Eckert who all lost good qualifying spots when issues slowed them down in their respective heats.
Trying to get as much down as possible, there were no breaks taken for track prep, an item that had been built into the pre race schedule to be done at least a couple of times. Because of that, the track was never widened out and all the racing was done in the lowest lane and a half of the track, which hampered the kind of racing we were all hoping to see.
With the surface the way it was, I was expecting to see a bunch of Sprint Car flips as they banged up and over the huge berm but that proved to be incorrect. In fact, the only tip over of the night was a relatively mild one by Paul Nieheiser in the B Feature.
However, "Father Time" kept ticking away as the long litany of qualifying events ground by, and by the time the Sprint B feature was done, it was approaching the Midnight hour which apparently is the curfew time for the Dirt Track. The announcers warned that there might be a forced break in the action a couple of races before the end and people immediately started streaming for the parking lot. When the Big Blocks, lined up in staging for the main, all started turning around and heading back to their trailers, it was apparent that we were going to see all that we would on Friday.
So, the plan for Saturday is to run off Friday night's three features in the early afternoon, and then quickly turn things around and start the Saturday show in the late afternoon, trying to maintain Saturday's plan as much as possible. I'm sure we're going to see a much different type of track for the Saturday show and perhaps one that will allow much more passing and hopefully, finally start to crown some feature race winners.
One thing I did see on Friday that I've never witnessed before was the way they cleaned off the outside concrete wall here. Many times I've seen track workers come out with shovels and scrape the mud off the wall so the drivers had better visibility of where the wall was, but I had never seen it done with a motor vehicle before. They had a four wheel drive truck with some sort of scraper mounted on the front and he just drove at a severe angle to the track and scrapped off the mud from the wall as he drove. It worked super slick and was much faster and less labor intensive than the "tried and true" method.
Friday, November 2, 2018
The Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway, Day One
As promised, we did make it to Charlotte(Concord) North Carolina for day one of the twelfth annual World of Outlaws World Finals at the Dirt Track at Charlotte Motor Speedway. The Dirt Track is a spectacular facility right across the highway from the "big track" but we have no interest in checking out the Roval this weekend(or quite frankly, any other weekend for that matter.) Instead, we're going to get some good old fashioned North Carolina red clay in our hair and our eyes and lots of other places where we probably don't need any red clay dust but that's a story for another time.
This is the final race weekend for the World of Outlaws in 2018 and three champions are set to be crowned on Saturday night. The point races vary from close to a guaranteed title just by taking a green flag on Thursday night. In the Sprint Cars, Donny Schatz guaranteed his fifth straight title and tenth overall just by taking a green flag for a qualifying lap. What a remarkable statistic his ten titles is. All this from a guy I first saw race when he was sixteen years old and riding his car over the wall at the Red River Valley Speedway in West Fargo North Dakota. Matt Sheppard is in good position to win yet another Big Block title and he would have to stumble badly to not win it. The Late Model race is closer with Mike Marlar, Chris Madden and Brandon Sheppard still with mathematical chances to win.
Big Block Modifieds, Late Models and Sprint Cars will all be in action all three nights but not much racing truly gets started until Friday night. Thursday night is reserved for qualifying time trials for all three divisions plus the Big Blocks run two sets of heat races that set their running order for the Last Chance and Feature races on Friday and Saturday night.
Forty two Big Blocks, seventy six Late Models and fifty two Sprint cars rolled into the facility on Wednesday and Thursday, making for a grand total of one hundred and seventy high buck race teams on hand for the weekend's activities. Of those one hundred and seventy teams, I saw only one open trailer and that was for a Late Model that traveled only across one state to get here. There are drivers on hand from nineteen states and three countries with both Canada and Australia represented in the field.
For someone who lives in a part of the world where time trials are never used and I see perhaps six to twelve time trial races all year, this event is a true test of one's patience and resolve. Between the three classes with two full rounds of time trials for both the Sprints and Late Models used to set the fields for the heat races on the two days that follow, along with two full sets of timed hot laps by the Big Blocks, nearly seven hundred laps of time trials are seen on Thursday! That is enough to stretch the patience of any race fan and it is a wonder that as many fans are on hand for the opening night as there are. Mostly, I guess, it is because they are interested to see just who is on hand to race. And if it were not for the good organization of the Outlaws staff that click off this tedium as quickly as possible, we would likely be here for even more hours of non competitive events.
The shame is that when all this is done, then they still go ahead and line up the cars straight up for the heat races, thus further increasing our chances that we won't actually see and passing and racing. You can find the complete results I'm sure posted so I'll not go into those very deeply but Billy Decker and Brett Hearn set the pace in the Big Blocks, Dale McDowell, Shane Clanton and Mike Marlar in the Late Models and Parker Price Miller and David Gravel in the Sprints. With all the upcoming switches in the Sprints, it's tough this weekend to keep straight who's racing for who and where they are moving to next season. I wonder how that must feel racing against a car that you know you'll be behind the wheel of in a few short weeks. To wreck him or not, that is the question.
After the Big Blocks ran their group qualifying, their heat races for Friday and Saturday were interspersed among the rest of the qualifying as they really do get treated like the "red haired stepchildren" at this event and I'm surprised they don't demand their own event where they would get more decent billing. Fortunately, to keep the passing at a minimum, the Big Block heats were lined straight up too and I'm pleased to say that seven of the eight heats were won right off the pole with a bare minimum of passing. The only heat that wasn't taken from position one was the first heat where none other than Matt Sheppard moved low from the second row, passed in the first corner and then everyone was able to settle back and just follow one another again. We can only hope we'll see some more true racing in the nights to come.
This entire weekend has been started under the veil of the threat of rain for most particularly, Friday. However, the first insurgents of the coming cold front moved in even earlier than expected, as halfway through the last set of Late Model qualifying, it started to rain and quite hard initially. So, group B of the Late Models will have their qualifying prior to the start of their program on Saturday to set their running order for Saturday's heats. Both night's shows have an identical format with heats , Last Chance and Features for the Late Models and Sprints while the Big Blocks run Last Chance and Features only. There is a significant chance of rain on Friday which would throw a big monkey wrench into the weekend. With the Outlaw banquet slated for Sunday, that day is not a workable option for racing so if things would get rained out on Friday, they would run both shows on Saturday, starting in the morning and going until they got done. You talk about a marathon. We shall see what happens.
This is the final race weekend for the World of Outlaws in 2018 and three champions are set to be crowned on Saturday night. The point races vary from close to a guaranteed title just by taking a green flag on Thursday night. In the Sprint Cars, Donny Schatz guaranteed his fifth straight title and tenth overall just by taking a green flag for a qualifying lap. What a remarkable statistic his ten titles is. All this from a guy I first saw race when he was sixteen years old and riding his car over the wall at the Red River Valley Speedway in West Fargo North Dakota. Matt Sheppard is in good position to win yet another Big Block title and he would have to stumble badly to not win it. The Late Model race is closer with Mike Marlar, Chris Madden and Brandon Sheppard still with mathematical chances to win.
Big Block Modifieds, Late Models and Sprint Cars will all be in action all three nights but not much racing truly gets started until Friday night. Thursday night is reserved for qualifying time trials for all three divisions plus the Big Blocks run two sets of heat races that set their running order for the Last Chance and Feature races on Friday and Saturday night.
Forty two Big Blocks, seventy six Late Models and fifty two Sprint cars rolled into the facility on Wednesday and Thursday, making for a grand total of one hundred and seventy high buck race teams on hand for the weekend's activities. Of those one hundred and seventy teams, I saw only one open trailer and that was for a Late Model that traveled only across one state to get here. There are drivers on hand from nineteen states and three countries with both Canada and Australia represented in the field.
For someone who lives in a part of the world where time trials are never used and I see perhaps six to twelve time trial races all year, this event is a true test of one's patience and resolve. Between the three classes with two full rounds of time trials for both the Sprints and Late Models used to set the fields for the heat races on the two days that follow, along with two full sets of timed hot laps by the Big Blocks, nearly seven hundred laps of time trials are seen on Thursday! That is enough to stretch the patience of any race fan and it is a wonder that as many fans are on hand for the opening night as there are. Mostly, I guess, it is because they are interested to see just who is on hand to race. And if it were not for the good organization of the Outlaws staff that click off this tedium as quickly as possible, we would likely be here for even more hours of non competitive events.
The shame is that when all this is done, then they still go ahead and line up the cars straight up for the heat races, thus further increasing our chances that we won't actually see and passing and racing. You can find the complete results I'm sure posted so I'll not go into those very deeply but Billy Decker and Brett Hearn set the pace in the Big Blocks, Dale McDowell, Shane Clanton and Mike Marlar in the Late Models and Parker Price Miller and David Gravel in the Sprints. With all the upcoming switches in the Sprints, it's tough this weekend to keep straight who's racing for who and where they are moving to next season. I wonder how that must feel racing against a car that you know you'll be behind the wheel of in a few short weeks. To wreck him or not, that is the question.
After the Big Blocks ran their group qualifying, their heat races for Friday and Saturday were interspersed among the rest of the qualifying as they really do get treated like the "red haired stepchildren" at this event and I'm surprised they don't demand their own event where they would get more decent billing. Fortunately, to keep the passing at a minimum, the Big Block heats were lined straight up too and I'm pleased to say that seven of the eight heats were won right off the pole with a bare minimum of passing. The only heat that wasn't taken from position one was the first heat where none other than Matt Sheppard moved low from the second row, passed in the first corner and then everyone was able to settle back and just follow one another again. We can only hope we'll see some more true racing in the nights to come.
This entire weekend has been started under the veil of the threat of rain for most particularly, Friday. However, the first insurgents of the coming cold front moved in even earlier than expected, as halfway through the last set of Late Model qualifying, it started to rain and quite hard initially. So, group B of the Late Models will have their qualifying prior to the start of their program on Saturday to set their running order for Saturday's heats. Both night's shows have an identical format with heats , Last Chance and Features for the Late Models and Sprints while the Big Blocks run Last Chance and Features only. There is a significant chance of rain on Friday which would throw a big monkey wrench into the weekend. With the Outlaw banquet slated for Sunday, that day is not a workable option for racing so if things would get rained out on Friday, they would run both shows on Saturday, starting in the morning and going until they got done. You talk about a marathon. We shall see what happens.
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