The weekend was a wet one throughout most of the country but the Boothill Speedway near Shreveport Louisiana was able to get a show in on Saturday night, March 9th. They really wanted to get in both of their scheduled weekend events, but severe thunderstorms that swept over the area on Friday morning would make things just too wet for racing on Friday but there were able to salvage the weekend when they raced on Saturday night.
It took a lot of work by the management all day on Saturday but they got both the race track and pits in surprisingly good shape, especially given the amount of rain that had fallen. The parking lots, on the other hand, as they are frequently here especially in the Spring, were quite the sea of mud and most spectators either got their feet muddy or wet or both as they traveled to the grandstand with their lawn chairs, a necessary item at this track. However, they came in large numbers despite it being a very cool early March night in the Ark-La-Tex and they came to watch the Comp Cams Late Model Series begin their 2024 campaign. Along with the Late Models, several other local classes would also be in action, making for a big night of racing that would also turn quite late before the final checkered flag waved.
Chris Sullivan and the other officials of Comp Cams really wanted to get in both nights of racing that would have offered a five grand to win show on Friday night and Saturday night which was the Ronnie Adams Memorial event that paid ten grand with both nights kicked off the 2024 Comp Cams point season. However, it was not to be on Friday night and the fact that only one night of racing was offered may have held down the car count just a bit.
Comp Cams officials were very excited to talk about their new deal arranged just this week that saw them now develop their own platform for showing races through Race On, the newly rebranded service that they are now exclusively offering. And of course, the series remains grateful to Comp Cams for their continuing sponsorship of their series.
Boothill Speedway was looking good too for the new season as the management has finished the retaining concrete wall and the track is now surrounded all the way by a wall with no more gaps to cause problems for the drivers. And while finishing the wall on the back chute, they also took the time to widen out the back chute and make this bull ring even racier. Whether it was the Friday rains, lots of attention by the management or perhaps a combination, I believe that the track was in perhaps the finest shape I have ever seen for a race here with drivers running all over the track and using many grooves while the surface remained smooth as silk and blew very little in the way of dust. And once the cars hit the track to start packing it in, no track work was done except to scrape the walls of mud so the drivers could see better. One thing that Boothill doesn't have and certainly could use and that would be a scoreboard.
In the interest of fair reporting, I must point out that along with the Late Models, they chose to run five other divisions of racing on Saturday night, an almost guaranteed formula that would produce a long night of racing. They were originally planning on splitting the local divisions over the two nights but somehow got talked into running all on Saturday since they didn't get to race on Friday. With this being the track opener and with no other racing in the area, this guaranteed a packed pit area for the support classes. To be fair, track management and the Comp Cams folks did a great job of running off as fast a program as could be expected, utilizing the one spin rule for the support classes and taking no breaks all night. They also ran the Late Model feature first which was a great decision on their part and for those fans that came to see the Late Models only, they were on the road just after 10 pm but for those die hard fans that have to watch all the classes, it was well after Midnight before the final checkered flew on a night when we were going to get robbed of an hour's sleep as it was!
With the Comp Cams Series tied in with the World Racing Group and DIRTcar, a large number of officials were on hand including Steve Francis of the WoO Late Models and Sam Driggers from UMP, both on hand to observe and help as needed.
Thirty one Late Models would sign in to race in their program of qualifying, four heats and a pair of B Features with a forty lap main to complete their show. Cade Dillard and Bobby Pierce would top their respective groups with Dillard quickest overall at 13.850 seconds. I must say that the heats were among the most action packed I have seen for Late Models in quite some time with plenty of slamming and banging as you would have thought it to be the last race of the year, not the first. There were several cases of hurt feelings even before the main event started.
Twenty three cars would start the forty lap Late Model main and it would be a two car battle from start to finish. Dillard got the jump on Pierce to take the early lead and those two would pull away from the pack as a good battle for second would see B.J. Robinson, Kyle Beard and Logan Martin battling. But they were quite a distance behind the two leaders who were flying.
The track seemed to be a bit top side dominant for the feature as only Beard seemed to be making any hay down on the low side. Both Dillard and Pierce were banging off the outside walls all the way around the track and lapped traffic proved very bothersome to both. Several times Dillard almost got trapped by the traffic but was able to squeeze through and hold off Pierce.
After an early spin, the race would see eighteen green flag laps and this would allow the two leaders to have much lapped traffic to worry about. In fact, the next yellow was produced when Pierce dumped Brent Couch right on the front chute after the slower car held up his progress.
The restart would see the two leaders pull away again with Beard working into third. The heat was on Dillard and it was clear that he was struggling a bit as his line was a bit erratic, and he got into the concrete on several occasions but Pierce was never positioned quite right to take advantage. It felt like Pierce was setting up Dillard for a slide job but that wasn't necessary when Cade way overshot turn one and slammed extremely hard into the concrete, nearly tearing the rear end out of his car and ending his evening.
The five lap dash to the finish saw Pierce pull away for the win and add another new track to his list of accomplishments, this being his first time at Boothill and in fact, at any Louisiana dirt track. There were a few other visitors on hand also, likely checking things out for the WoO race scheduled here this Fall. Beard would finish a solid second and Robinson would come home third.
The Factory Stocks and Limited Mods/B Mods are both popular classes in this area and both would be in action on Saturday night. There were thirty nine of each in action which would produce four heats, a pair of B Features and a twenty lap main for each.
The Factory Stock feature would see C.J. Howell lead all but the last three laps when things would get wild. Howell started on the pole and took the initial lead with Justin Whitehead, a very successful driver from Texarkana in this class, moving into second. They had a nice battle with Whitehead trying both high and low to make a pass but Howell would fight him off.
With just three laps to go, a spin would slow the action and for the "Texas" style double file restart, as they refer to it down here, third place driver T.J. Evans, who started eighth, would take the inside as Whitehead wanted to try the outside again. They dropped the green and Evans would flat out dump Howell in turn one, spinning him out and when there was contact with another driver, Howell would get a flat tire and be done. Now the flagman, who black flagged a driver for rough riding in the very first heat race, chose to use blinders in this case and Evans was given his position back for the final restart.
Whitehead received the gift and he would go on for the win, while Evans would be allowed to race home second before he would surely face some deserved heat in the pits afterward. Chase Hatton, a busy driver who would race in three support classes, would finish third.
The Limited Modified feature would be a bit tamer. There would be just a single yellow flag in this event and no one got dumped with Ethan Bailes leading from start to finish and holding off a heavy challenge from Joel Couvillion for the win. Whitehead, who also races this class, would come from eleventh to finish a strong third and ran out of laps at the end.
USRA Tuners were also in action with Michael McEachern leading from start to finish to take the win. Bailey Taylor, who started eighth, would charge up at the end to finish a strong second. However, while she was not able to pass the leader, she was also not able to pass the tech shed as a rules violation would see her get disqualified and second go to Luke Dupont.
Two other very distinct classes to this area were also in action and would round out a long night of racing. The Pro Mods reportedly use older Modified chassis without some of the more technical items and run on the wide, asphalt pull off tires that the Factory Stocks use. They use big spoilers and also run top less, apparently to give them a different look than the many other Modified classes in the area. Spins and crashes would be the manta for this class but Chase Hatton, in his third class of the night, would lead from start to finish to score an easy win over Mike Washburn.
The Sportsters would round out the evening. These are a Bomber type class using full size cars with wide tires, and mostly stock components and I' m told that while there weren't any in action on this night, Pickup Trucks also race in this class. And they did actually produce the closest main event of the night as John McCune and Blake Hickman would race side by side for many laps, not touching or banging on each other before Hickman would edge in front with just a single lap to go to take the win.
Thanks go out to Chris Sullivan and all the folks from Comp Cams for a good night of racing and also to the management of Boothill for staying the course and putting on the show which seemed to have drawn a very nice crowd and made it worth their while.
Apologies for the twenty four lateness of this report. I had one done yesterday at this time but as I traveled through the hills of Arkansas, I lost my internet at the most inopportune time and the whole report disappeared into "The Cloud", never to be seen again. Vile words were then cast at anyone that would listen and it was a shame as that report seemed a whole lot better than this one!
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