Entries from June 2006 ↓

While in New Orleans, Louisiana for the ALA convention I decided to take a side trip on Friday night to Baton Rouge Raceway. Baton Rouge is the first track in Louisiana I’ve seen a race at making Louisiana he 35′th state for me to see a race in. Once arriving at the 3/8th mile dirt track and finding a seat I struck up a conversation with a guy from Dallas. A lot of times people ask me why I like to go to the races. While I obviously enjoy the racing, I really think one of the things I enjoy most is meeting other race fans. The two of us talked all night about racing like we were old friends. The track was a real nice 3/8 mile dirt track. While the facilities were brand new they seemed well cared for and it certainly was no dump. The advertised race time was 8:00 PM. They really meant hot laps at 8:00 though. At 8:00 hot laps started right on time. Actually heat races started just before 9:00 PM. The show was ran real well as as soon as one heat race was finished the next one went out on the track and they didn’t take 17 useless laps around the track like at other places before dropping the green. My only real complaint other then the misleading starting time was the lack of a handicapping system. The fastest cars started up front in the heats and features leading to very little passing. However, some of the features were still good, esp, the super late model race. Although there was only 9 cars in the class ,the top 3 batlled side-by-side most of the race and it was real entertaining. The race ended about 11:45 and I headed back to my hotel in NOLA.

My 2006 race viewing stats after Baton Rouge Raceway:

Races: 16
Tracks: 13 (10 new) (147 lifetime)
States: 11 (3 new) (35 + DC lifetime)

The race at Jennerstown ended just after 9:00 PM, so we decided to try to take in a feature race or two at Thunder Valley Raceway in the beautiful Laurel Mountains of Somerset County, Pennsylvania before heading home. Thunder Valley was sort of on the way home, and is about 20 to 30 minutes from Jennerstown. This was a new track for me and I was really surprised about how nice it was considering it was in the middle of nowhere. By the time we got to the track they stopped selling tickets, so we got in for free (not a bad deal:-)). The track lighting was outstanding and the racing was pretty good to. We saw a limited late model feature, a street sock feature and a FWD 4 cyl feature. Almost every time I see a street stock feature that involves real street stocks and not some street sock/late model contraption it turns out to be a good race. This was no exception. I really wish New Egypt Speedway would run real street stocks instead of there odd street stock/late model/pro stock combination. I’d really like to get back to his track and see a full show – especially if they ever have a touring late model series at the track.

Stats after Thunder Valley Raceway:

Races: 15
Tracks: 12 (9 new) (146 lifetime)
States: 10 (2 new) (34 + DC lifetime)

Jennerstown Speedway:

On Saturday, June 17, I took a ride to Jennerstown Speedway to watch the NASCAR modified tour. This was my first trip to Jennerstown – a track I’ve been wanting to get to for some time now. As it turns out, although Jennerstown is still a hike it was closer then I thought and we made it there in plenty of time to go out for a steak at a local restaurant. FWIW: The steak was flavorful, but over cooked. I really don’t understand what is so difficult about cooking a steak the way it is ordered. Oh well, I digress. Jennerstown did a lot of nice things to make this an enjoyable day at the track. The first is they started on time. The second was that although they had a special division they kept all (or at least most) of the regular divisions on the schedule, however they ran features only. This allowed the fans to see more racing that counts versus meaningless heat races. They also had an announced schedule of events, and although they fell a little behind, they still finished the night of racing just after 9:00 PM. Continue reading →

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originally uploaded by ecorrado.

While I was out mowing my lawn last night, a random tire came from somewhere and smashed into my truck which was parked in my driveway. It wasn’t even close to the road. I was in the back yard so I didn’t see it happen and nobody stopped, so I have no idea where the tire came from, but it did do a good bit of damage as this photo shows. More photos can be found on my new flickr page. At any rate, this incident gave me a chance to check out flickr, and while they could make things a little more clear on how to do stuff like blog pictures, overall it is very easy to use. My only real complaint is the free service doesn’t give you much space to upload high- (or even medium-) resolution pictures.

On Friday, June 9, 2006 I decided to try to beat the weather report and drove down to Georgetown Speedway to see a race at the re-opened Georgetown Speedway. The chance if rain was about 40% but the radar made it look like a little better bet then that. I did hit a little rain while still in New Jersey, but the ride through Delaware saw no rain. However, when I got about 10 miles from the rack I saw a racecar going the other way. I was hoping that was an abnormality, but about 5 miles later I saw too more and knew I was in trouble. I drove to the track anyway just to take a look at it an what I saw was mud soup for a track surface as apparently they had a downpour just before I got there. However, the facility looked pretty nice and I’ll have to try again next time. I did get to go to Waffle House, so I guess it wasn’t a complete waste although driving 5.5 hours to eat a Texas Cheesesteak and hashbrowns is probably not a worthwhile endeavor.

I was just watching a TV show with Mikey Waltrip on it and they were asking him (once again) about his buying his way into the World 600 at Charlotte Motor Speedway (now called Coca Cola 600 at Lowe’s Motor Speedway). I am sick of hearing Mikey say that he did it because his sponsor deserved to be in the race and it wasn’t for him and he didn’t care if he was in the race. If that was really the case, why didn’t he just move the NAPA sponsorship to the car of Daytona 500 winning driver Derricke Cope and let the fans of Derricke Cope see him race? His excuse is a bunch of bull. Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t care that he did it — that was between his team and the team Cope was driving for. The rules allow it, it has been done before, so he didn’t do anything wrong. But the excuse he has been giving is beyond lame.

I just wish NASCAR would change the qualifying rules back to the top qualifers getting into the race and scrap this top 35 locked in thing. Maybe have the top 35 locked in and then a short qualifying race to make up spots 35-43.

I know this is old news to some, but Georgetown Speedway in Delaware reopened last Friday. Billy Pauch took the win. I didn’t make the opener, but I hope to go to the track at least once this year. – maybe even tomorrow. It is always good to hear about a new track opening or one that has been closed for a number of years like Georgetown reopening. Good luck to everyone involved!