Around the Track with Jalopy Jack
We’re gonna start off with some good news; this is alluding to what I’ve had on WLAR [We Love Auto Racing] at 718-707-1052 recently. Do most of you know that Tony George’s out? The reason I ask, do most of you care? End of good news right there. You see, I thought that might turn out to be good news. I thought it would be a good time for the optimism to come out. I thought just maybe this meant that somebody in IRL or Indianapolis Motor Speedway finally woke up and smelled the American drivers who should be there on Memorial Day, attracting American fans. It doesn’t mean that at all. Neither Bobby Santos III nor all the other great American drivers who can’t bring multibillion corporations to the table are going to get their much deserved break. All this means is that Tony George has been ousted because he screwed up the bottom line. It seems the family of Hulman’s that run IMS didn’t approve of the $50 million that Tony George spent like a big shot. On the contrary, we won’t even get the Indy cars at New Hampshire next year. To add insult to injury, even more races for the IRL will be on road courses. Like a frustrated musician who can’t play professional classical music and settles for avant-garde, IRL’s more and more just a localized Grand Prix circuit. For those that can’t do the real thing, but with Indianapolis thrown in. The fact that the Indianapolis 500’s held so close to the Monaco Grand Prix proves that Indy still has international lure and the spoiled brats that run Formula One are afraid that they might lose a little talent and a golf partner at some luxurious, stuck up, members only, high browed country club. So unless that dirt slinging, balls out, Sprint car jockey has General Motors in his hip pocket, don’t count on him making Indianapolis. Enough about that.
Mixed feelings are coming back about the incident at the Brick Yard 400 concerning the penalty in the pits of Montoya. It could be that NASCAR just showed another card of their hand. What it means to me is another way of getting to sleep. I mean that race was just so boring up to that point….I just decided to once again make lemonade out of lemons. So in cases of insomnia I just chant over and over again, “Montoya, Montoya, Montoya”. And the race at Pocono wasn’t anymore exciting. Didn’t even had to chant “Montoya, Montoya, Montoya” to sleep through that one. Watkins Glenn was another story. I had big things predicted for Marcus Ambrose. Sure enough, he won the nationwide race and as you know, scored second in the Cup event. And who did he lose to but the one and only, Tony Stewart. So I feel I scored a 1-2 punch in that one. This week will be Michigan which I put up with only because it formed the mold for the cookie cutter tracks to follow. This is the soup before the meal.
Funny since it’s the next track that’s shaped like a bowl. And that of course is Bristol. But it’s more then Cup this time. Don’t forget fans on Wednesday 8/19 at 7PM on Speed, we’ll see our beloved Modifieds from Bristol. It’s only on for an hour that starts at 7PM, then at 8PM we have a 1/2 hour break, so your mind can switch gears and watch the stupid trucks. Why do I call them stupid trucks? Because the trucks have been getting the attention that the Modifieds should’ve been getting all these years. Please refer to past columns about what I said about the limited driver roster for the Modifieds. By the way, the insiders tell me that Jimmy Blewett should take this race.
I’m speaking of “Showtime” Jimmy Blewett, as promised he was at Riverhead Raceway on 8/1. That night at Wall Stadium we had a terrific Modified feature. More about that in a bit. This past Saturday, 24 Modifieds of the tour-type variety showed up. And so did their fans. It was one of the 3 largest crowds of the season. It was two 50 lap features and in the first, the #66 of Pete Brittain started on the pole and kept it all the way. Behind him to the finish was “Showtime” Jimmy. They never touched. In the second 50 lapper, Blewett was involved in a melee that wasn’t his fault at all. He pitted for damages and checked out OK and came back to the field, but I’m wondering how many people expected him to win. Well, there were at least a couple of incidents during this race and we wound up with the #14 of Ted Christopher on the lead and Blewett right behind him. The winning move took 1/2 a lap and when it was completed between 3 and 4, TC tried a slingshot out of Turn 4 on Blewett. It didn’t help. There was all Blewett from there and without touching anybody. This has many looking forward within anticipation to this Saturday night and the John Blewett III Memorial at Wall Stadium.
This one’s for the weekly Modifieds and it’s a distance of 76 laps. And if this one looks too easy for Jimmy Blewett, don’t worry. We’ve got the other 4 divisions competing.
Going back to 8/1, another terrific race that night was one that I was looking forward too, the annual 40 lapper for Legends. Like the Modifieds, it was a 3 car train to the finish and the winner was kind of surprising. Good thing this race was good because the car count was disappointing. Only 17 Legends made it that night with some stars missing. After looking all over the pits, I finally realized that Ryan Flores for some reason wasn’t there. The Factory Stocks that night had a surprise winner by the name of Paul Hartwig, Jr. He has been a very typical driver this season at Wall as he has been unable to compete every week. This was only his 6th time out in a Factory Stock and only 4 times this year. And fans, I can assure you that this man’s actually racing Strictly Stock. Unfortunately this past week, he got caught in some wildness that he didn’t recover from. But guess what? So did Richard Petey. After a good looking Heat win, Petey got caught in somebody else’s rough stuff at the end of Lap 1.
And the more he tried to recover the worst it got. The race ended on a happy note however. The officials were trying to finish under a very mild, almost nothing drizzle. The last 2 car incident forced a yellow and checker to be thrown at the end of 14 laps, just 6 shy of the scheduled 20. In front at that time was Whitey Miller and this was a happy occasion for many people. And I can assure you that the #27 tooled around by Whitey is also Strictly Stock. One absolute abomination was the officials handling of the 25 lapper for the Sportsmen. Now the week before it was a rough deal that took 45 minutes. I can’t always sit in on the drivers meeting. But I do know that for the drivers meeting before this show on the 8th, they said the Sportsmen Feature would be limited to 30 minutes. There were at least 2 restarts where it was the officials who took up the valuable time and not the drivers. They’re supposed to be communicating by radio? It looks more to me like communication was coming from smoke signals that weren’t yet even sent. The most rinky-dink track I’ve ever been to could’ve gotten the restart going faster with a messenger coming from the next county with a lineup. And the last restart wound up getting a weak green with the first 4 cars totally out of order. Some of the drivers expected the start to be called back. It wasn’t.
First and second place finishes wound up getting a very lucky break out of this. While 3rd place Charlie Kremer III had to really work to catch them. And then it winds up that #59 of Joe King was disqualified for something really minor. So the whole thing was a mess. The way I see it is there’s no excuse for this type of thing. The ¾ Midgets were back for their final regular season race at Wall. Previous winner #26 Frank Fischer was almost taken into the 4th turn wall by a hot but over ambitious move and the “People’s Champion”, Mike Tidaback, never took a green flag for a competitive lap on this night. This never happened to Mike when TQ’s were TQ’s. But now their 4 wheeled computers that are too big for a laptop but not quite big enough to run a power plant. But 2 youngsters who’re learning them and learning them well, finished 1st and second in this 25 lapper. Ian Cumens in #79 who’s 17 years old finished ahead of the look alike #39 of Alison Cumens, who’s 18 years old. They’re brother and sister and both have been approving with every RPM. We got some of our racing future in the skills of these 2 kids. I was a little upset though in the fact that Alison wasn’t interviewed in victory lane. With a great job she did, all the talk these days of lady drivers, the family angle I was just very surprised she was given no mic time. I know they had 7 features to run, but given Alison 30 seconds in front of the large crowd isn’t going to keep everybody until midnight. One more thing I want to say before I close out the last 2 weeks at Wall Stadium. The Street Stocks. Previous week only 9 cars were in the pits. I visited most teams [like that should’ve been so hard] and said to some that some tracks would lower the purse with a poor turnout like this. They were down from 14 cars the week before. But here’s what pleased me. Every driver I talked to reminded me that they’re there to have fun. That’s something a lot of these racers these days forget about. That night the #09 of Gregg Miranda won his 2nd of the season. The funny thing here’s that before the races, I was a guest in his trailer and he was telling us how happy he was to win the 1st feature with his family there. This past Saturday he took 2nd in a ride that was just as satisfying, because he put together some terrific laps to hold the remaining boys behind him. One of these remaining boys is a young man who everybody can see is very happy to be at Wall and he’s there every single week. He drives the #60X and I’ve seen him in his very serious mood before the show, as he was trying to get something together in the engine compartment. His 4th place Saturday night sent this man home a happy camper. I’m speaking of Mike Tillett. About a year and a 1/2 ago, during the winter a bunch of us, mostly drivers, got together at S and S Speedways. No prize money there, you just spend it, you just spend it. Mike Tillett was one of those that came along for the fun of it. You can bet your last admission dollar that when Mike Tillett goes racing, it’s for the joy and fun of it and without the frills, bells and whistles that some of his competitors will not show up at the track without.
And one more thing concerning Wall: A few races to look forward to concerning tour-type Modifieds. We’ll not have to wait until Turkey Derby this year. On Saturday 10/24, these Modifieds will be at Wall for a 150 lapper paying at least $10,000 to the winner. It might be more. Don’t yet know the starting time or other divisions that day, but I feel we can expect quite a field at Wall on 10/24.
On WLAR either this week or next week, I’ll have some ideas of what a track should try but I almost guarantee they won’t. HUBADA, HUBADA, HUBADA. I can just hear the track operators explaining away this one. Just something that could help the low budget racer a little. But we’re out of time here on YankeeRacer and WLAR will be picking up the slack. If all of my ideas could be converted to race cars, no track in the world would have a car shortage. I also want to apologize for the length between this column and the last. This was due to the Cup races taking place on Monday and my slave [I mean work] schedule taking over after that. When are these people I work for going to finally realize I have a racing empire to run? So until next time, keeping the fans in the stands and the cars on the track, this has been Jalopy Jack.