Saturday, November 13, 2021

Friesen Returns, Edges Sheppard in Super Bee Thriller

 The Short Track Super Series Cajun Swing made its fourth stop of its Louisiana visit and visited its third different track as the troop of Modified racers headed to the Super Bee Speedway somewhere near Chatham on Friday night, November 12th on what would be the first of two nights at Chatham to wrap up the tour for 2021. While tonight's show would be paying the standard four thousand dollars to win, everyone was also tuning up for the Saturday night show where the seventy five lap main will pay a whopping twenty grand to the winner. 

Along with the Modifieds on this Friday night, local support classes of the B Mods, Factory Stocks and Compacts(which is apparently what they are called the FWD's on this night) were also on the card. 

Of the four tracks that I visited on this tour, Super Bee would be the third that I was attending for the very first time with only Boothill being a return trip. Sharing a common trait with Ark-La-Tex, it appeared that Super Bee was a race track that was just hacked out of the woods as it ranks right up there with Ark-La-Tex with the tracks that are literally in the middle of no where. Towns are far and few between in this area of Louisiana and such things as gas stations, fast food joints and even any kind of towns are somewhat distant. But then again, the neighboring forest creatures are not likely to be calling the authorities with noise complaints either!

Super Bee looked to me to be about a quarter mile track with relatively long chutes for a quarter and very tight corners, by far the tightest track we have seen on the tour. The banking in moderate with the banking appearing to be considerably higher in turns one and two then in three and four as Matt Sheppard would find out during the Modified feature. A double guardrail surrounds then entire track which is also the most narrow of the four tracks visited this week. Red clay covers the surface and this clay down here does hold the moisture as even two days after storms came through and dumped some rain, the pits were quite muddy and the track soft and heavy which would be a factor in this night's racing. Track lighting was just so so but once they got the pa system tuned up, it was adequate however it was one of those systems where the pits could hear better than those of us in the main grandstand could. 

Pulling off the paved highway, the main entrance to the track is dirt and splits as one drives across a large field with the pits going to the right and the fans veering off to the left to park and then enter the grandstands. 

The set up here is a bit different than most tracks. The pit area is directly behind the main grandstand while the spectators enter in turn four and follow a narrow path around the corner and to the main grandstand on the front chute. The track has a huge numbers of seats with an imposing tall metal grandstand in turn three topped with VIP booths. Smaller bleacher line the turn four area and then a long, large metal series of grandstands sits the full length of the front chute with more VIP booths and the tower for the officials. There are a couple of large observation stands built in the pits for crews to watch the action over the top of the bleachers but they are strictly marked and "private" and not open to all the teams. There is seating for a lot of people for sure but the bleachers are in kind of a scattered pattern. The flagman's tower is fairly close to the exit of turn four and not centered in the middle of the straightaway like most tracks are. Once again I find a track that has no scoreboard as apparently no one down here cares how many laps the races are or how many laps have been completed. I did learn that the STSS officials are running their part of the show but a conglomeration of track officials are running the support class shows which is possibly why the scoreboard wasn't turned on at The Rev as no one has the keys to the car, so to speak. 

STSS has rented all four tracks that their Cajun Series has visited and they are paying the drivers in all divisions with local workers  taking care of track prep. 

I have  been confused all week about the proliferation of different classes of Modifieds as the support divisions so I took a few minutes to talk to B Mod driver Justin Cook who helped me sort out all the rules. It seems the B Mods(or as Ark-La-Tex calls the Pro Mods just to make things more confusing) are allowed more modifications than the Limited Mods can do. The motors are pretty much open on the B Mods and they can run a more open type of suspension although they must use the asphalt pull offs that the Factory Stocks also run. The Limited Mods are more restricted on suspensions and motors but they also run on the IMCA treaded Hoosier tire. 

When I asked about the B Mods that were running topless, Justin told me that with the small numbers of support class cars in this area, drivers were trying to run both of the Modified classes and track officials didn't want that so they made it a rule that the B Mods must run topless and that they had to pick either one class or the other. I believe this is just another example of why short track racing is so confusing to a neophyte fan who more than likely never makes that second trip out to the track. All these different classes racing that all look alike, heck it's confusing to me and I like to think I have at least a clue about what's going on. 

Joey Brown, who runs an area  plumbing business, purchased this track after the 2021 racing season had begun and has installed Modified driver Brandon Hightower as the promoter which is why the track changing names from Chatham Speedway to Super Bee Speedway midstream with Super Bee the original name for the track when it was built. They worked hard to make the track the best it could be on this night but the surface was wet underneath and it kept pulling up. What it truly needs is some sun and wind and probably another twenty four hours so I would expect it to be better on Saturday. And while the Mods did some bouncing around tonight, they still raced hard and put on a good show. 

There were twenty six of them that signed in to race Friday as the hard racing has taken a toll on a couple of the area teams but to their credit, the Mods have put on a good show all four nights with three of the feature races coming right down to the wire. 

For Stewart Friesen, it was a successful return to  the track after he destroyed a car in that wild flip at The Rev last night. As professional a team as there is in this form of racing, they simply tucked the wrecked car in the upper berth and rolled out another car to race on Friday which appeared just as good as the other. With a full assortment of paid mechanics for his Modified team, the Halmar group is at the top of the mountain in this kind of racing. 

The other "king" of this form of racing, Matt Sheppard, who does travel a bit more modestly than Friesen but seems to have all the resources he does, gave Friesen all he could handle in the feature race. Two constants from this week's racing are that Friesen and Sheppard are the drivers to beat and that lapped traffic is going to be a real challenge for the fast cars. A few of the local racers seem not to understand that the lay over flag means hold your line, not weave around like you're trying to heat your tires up and passing these cars is a "pucker moment" because you just don't know where they are going. 

Friesen started in the second row but when Willy Decker opened the door for him, Friesen was the leader before the first lap was completed. He would lead the rest of the race, except for one lap when Sheppard would storm past him briefly. 

Sheppard started ninth but used opportunity and several yellows to catch the leader and when Matt found a fast line that others weren't using, he really picked up the pace. It turned into a two car race and as Friesen guarded the low line in turn one below the ripples, he had to pinch his car off pretty tight and Sheppard was able to gain ground up the track. However, the other end is much flatter and Matt couldn't sustain his charge on that end so it took him a long time but gradually he caught up and they ran even as the laps ran down. 

Coming up on what else, lapped traffic, Sheppard cut down and got under Stewart off turn four and took the lead with only four laps remaining. However, he blew through turn one and bounced up the track and Friesen ducked back under him for the lead. Sheppard made one last attempt on the final lap when he drove very hard into turn three but another lapped car was in the way, and he had to settle for second, a scant car length behind the #44 of Friesen. The consistent Ryan Godown finished third and added to his point lead with just one race remaining. 

The Factory Stock feature was by far the best effort by the support classes of putting on a decent race. Despite the fact that this race had five yellows and only half the starters finished, the two leaders put on a dandy battle that saw them exchange the lead three times with the winning pass coming with only one lap remaining. 

David Cotten would be the early leader with Chris Howell stalking him lap after lap. They pulled away from the rest of the pack with their own private war. Every lap Howell would try and stick a nose under Cotten as the Factory Stocks struggling to hold the low line, with them handling like tug boats trying to turn on the choppy surface. 

Howell raced Cotten clean though and finally, on lap twelve, as Cotten slipped high, Howell drove under him for the lead. Howell would lead through lap seventeen when he too would slip up in turn four, the action point, and Cotten would drive back under him. One lap later and the rolls were reversed as racing to the white flag, Howell would make the move and take over. Cotten would get a nose under Howell on the last corner but would race him clean, a rarity in this class as seen this week, and would come up a half length short with Howell driving on for the win. Boothill winner Stoney Dubois would finish third. Apparently rules for the support classes were thrown out the window this weekend as along wit the rather stock looking cars, there was a  1956 Ford with the front fenders cut off and a VW that looked more like an off road racer racing in this class!

The other two feature races for the support classes were quite frankly, sad. Only three of the six B Mods on hand would take the green for their feature race and with two of them running and sounding like outboards, Chase Hatton would putt around the track at half speed but his margin of victory at the finish was a lap and a half! I kid you not!

Six Compacts took to the track for their feature and with most running like they had already been through  a compactor,  Billy Smith would win by about a half lap over the field. Why he was allowed to run oversize tires all the way around on his car while everyone else had stock appearing tires is a mystery I can not answer. 

Thank goodness the Modifieds have been running off a good program with tight finishes and plenty of hard racing. They have made the week while the support classes have been more of a eye rolling adventure. Next year, I would suggest that they run just Factory Stocks, the only class that seems to produce any numbers and has a number of rather clean looking racing machines and leave the rest of these shaky classes home in the garage. 

The STSS officials, who are in charge of running the program, run a very tight ship and have been putting on very crisp programs all week. Once again on Friday, the show was a quick one and I was back amongst civilization by 10 pm. 

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