Monday, March 15, 2021

Dillard Pleased, Culp Pissed as Hall of Famer Falls From Grace at Boothill Speedway

 I hate it that the "clock Gods" who control the time changes mess me up every year at this time. It never seems to fail that on the weekend when they steal an hour from me, it is always while I'm at a late race a zillion miles from home so I have to bite the bullet and pass on delivering my report in a timely manner, which is the whole point of doing this blog as soon as possible after the races are completed before it turns into old, stale news. However, with a short night and more than a thousand mile drive home, self preservation forced me to pass on a late night or early morning report, so here is my somewhat after the fact report on the second night of the Comp Cams race at Boothill.

Saturday night, March 13th brought the second half of the Comp Cams season opening weekend of Late Model racing at the historic Boothill Speedway just east of Shreveport Louisiana in the town of Greenwood. The Comp Cams cars would be going an extra ten laps in their feature race on Saturday and would be paid an extra four thousand dollars for their efforts. The Factory Stocks would also be doing Last Chance races and their main event worth fifteen hundred dollars to the winner plus it would be the season opener for the CRUSA Crate Late Models which apparently have really taken off in the last couple of years in this area. 

The format for the Late Model part of the program would mirror Friday night's with four heat races after qualifying, two Last Chance races and the main event. The only significant difference was that four cars would come out of each heat race, thus creating a twenty four car field for the main event. 

And the feature race would be a memorable one and  an event that would stir the crowd into a frenzy before it was completed. Timothy Culp, a winner in this race last year would start on the pole and lead the first eighteen laps. He was pursued vigorously by Billy Moyer Jr who made several runs at the lead but just couldn't quite make the pass. Culp was using a lot of race track and Moyer, with a big run off the high side of the corners, couldn't find the room to squeeze by against the wall to make the pass. 

He tried to cross Culp over off turn two and perhaps they made contact, but the result was Moyer got severely crossed up and fell back to fourth while sporting some body damage. So with Junior dropping back, it was time for father to make the move for the lead as Billy pulled into second and continued to challenge.

Several times he tried moves similar to what Billy Jr had done, and in fact was using the same line, but each time he ran out of room coming down the straightaways and had to back off. He tried this several times as Culp was using the "windshield wiper" move of coming right up to the wall after dropping low in the corners. While Moyer was clearly quicker, he continued to be thwarted by Culp's moves.

Whether Moyer was trying to strike back against some perceived injustice against his son or just got tired of having to hit the brakes, Moyer showed a rare lack of patience and on lap nineteen, when Culp came up the track on him, Moyer just hammered the throttle, packed the rear end of Culp's car and then revved the motor as he shoved Timothy down the front stretch until they both ended up spinning to the top of the track. If Moyer's plan was to dump Culp and then drive on, that didn't work out well as both came to a halt. At this point the crowd went wild, with some cheering on Moyer but most feeling that he went a little over the edge in his move. 

Moyer pulled off the track after the two engaged in a staring contest with each other through their windscreens and didn't return while Culp, with a flat tire, quickly pitted and then returned to the track. However, Timothy lost his sympathy vote at this point as he putted around the track at low speed, refusing to line up in the back as he and everyone else knew that he must and instead stopped to talk to anyone that would lend an ear, all the while holding up the show. No matter how he was aggreged, once he went to the pits he had to go to the back. Finally, after holding up the show for several minutes, he left with a huff off the back chute and the race resumed.

Cade Dillard, witness to all of the activity from the best seat in the house, directly behind the pair, inherited the lead. I really thought that the car to beat at this point would be Ashton Winger who was really moving up and looked very fast right before the yellow. However, Dillard made a strategic move as he got off the bottom following the long yellow and moved up the track to the fastest groove, one that really wasn't there the night before. Once he got up to the top, he got much faster and indeed pulled away from Winger, led the last twenty two laps and scored a popular victory for the home state fans as he was one of the few state racers on hand. Winger settled for second and Brian Rickman drove a strong race to finish third. 

It was a tough night for a few of the Comp Cams regulars. Both Spencer Hughes and Hunter Rasdon wrecked in their heats and Hughes borrowed a Crate Late Model to take the green as a series feature provisional while Rasdon limped around for a couple laps as the other provisional minus most of his front end parts. Even worse was the luck of Terry Phillips. TP had a weekend to forget as he got a flat tire on Friday night and didn't make the main and after qualifying terribly on Saturday, finally got in the show, only to blow a motor during the feature race. It is amazing how his Late Model program has been struggling so badly of late while he is like "Jake the Bear" with his Modified!

It was announced that the CRUSA Crate Late Models would be headlining the weekly events here at Boothill in 2021. For whatever reason, the Modifieds are on the wane in this part of the country and the Crate Late Models have really come on strong here in the MidSouth region. There were eighteen of them on hand on Saturday and I was told that many others were racing at another track that was holding an event on this same night as this rescheduled race had led to a conflict of sorts with top local runner Rob Litton one of those not on hand due to the other event but expected to be a regular here. 

And if they were trying to impress the fans on hand Saturday, they did a solid job of it. Their feature race was an exciting one with Donnie Gieber, work worked the outside line relentlessly, finally able to make a last corner pass on Jamie Burford, who had led the first nineteen laps before Gieber edged him at the line. There was only one yellow flag in the Crate feature and all but one of the starters were still racing at the end and not a single car got lapped. In summation, they did a fine job of racing throughout the field. 

Two Last Chance races set the twenty car field for the Factory Stock main event. On Friday afternoon upon my arrival at the track, I was quickly engaged by a track regular who knew it all and had seen it all in the many years he had attended races at Boothill. You know the type. He gets to the track at Noon, puts down his lawn chair and then guards his spot throughout the rest of the event. He quickly told me that the #36J Factory Stock was the one to beat in that class; I could "book it." 

Well, I didn't swallow all the "cool aid" that he gave me, but on that point he was very correct. Justin Whitehead, whom I'm told builds a lot of the Factory Stocks for other racers, took over the lead before the halfway point of the main event and led comfortably the rest of the way. After pole site Shawn Graham lost power on the opening lap, it was Ben Leedy who had the top spot for several laps. 

However, it was just a matter of time until Whitehead drove around Leedy and once in front, he was not challenged the rest of the way. The Factory Stocks did a nice job also in their main with just two yellow flags and again, not a lapped car in the field. On the last lap, Leedy lost power and set up a wild scramble for position behind Whitehead, with Cody Myers taking second ahead of Josh Greenwalt. 

Promoter Brian Frazier got on the pa system Saturday(after they got it fixed following the Friday night meltdown) and thanks the very large crowd in attendance for showing up as he seeks to bring more big shows to the MidSouth area. 

Random thoughts: I don't think I've ever seen so many officers of the law on hand relative to the crowd size as what I saw here all weekend. Multiple squads including the Caddo Parish Sheriff and deputies were patrolling the grounds from the opening of the pits until the last car was out of the spectator parking lot. Either the folks here can get very enthusiastic or there are a lot of "uniforms" that like to watch the races. 

"Little" John Tuggle drew plenty of attention with a gator fastened to the roof of his Factory Stock for the racing program. 

The concession area still needs a little more redesigning as with only one serving window and one customer at a time, the line for food and drink was astronomically long all night on Saturday. 

One southern tradition that has not changed is that when the cars are called to the track for wheel packing, there are men, women and children riding the back of the race cars and hanging out the windows on all sides, a potentially dangerous situation but seemingly, just part of the show in these parts. 

Thanks to all the employees of the Boothill Speedway this weekend and special thanks to the crew from the Comp Cams series for their help. It was a very long drive but also very interesting. 

     

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