Trip to the races makes the winter blues go away

Tony Stewart was running the back at Knoxville, Iowa in August of last year. Ever since then he stepped up his program. He went to Ohsweken in Canada and won the World of Outlaws Sprint Car feature race and ever since then he’s been on fire. His win Sunday made it 7 out of the last 15 NASCAR races that he’s won. He was 5/10 in the Chase, and he is 2 out of 3 this year. His old Crew Chief, Darian Grubb, also has a win, so the people that are around him have 8/15 races they’ve won. Zipadelli is back with him now. Zippy was his original crew chief on the #20 car. And he’s now the director of competition at Stewart-Haas racing. I wonder if the reason that Tony wanted his own team is because he had ideas on how to go faster and how to win races that other people simply weren’t listening to. It’s been an amazing run. And I personally don’t think he’s done. He’s won in every type of race: 360 Sprints, 410 Sprints, and even Karts. I know I talk a lot about Tony in my column, but the reason is that there sure is a LOT to talk about!

J.C. Howell is on our front page this week! J.C. had 6 guys helping him get two cars ready to run Saturday night at Kennedale. I think if J.C. could get enough guys he’d run a car in every class. I spotted a sign on the back of his car; I thought it was the best tail sign that I’ve seen for a while. Thank you J.C. for putting a smile in my night.

California Raceway: I was happy to see that the stands looked full at California Raceway. I’ve been sick last week after I looked at Bristol. And I finally got to my first races this year! Absolute gorgeous night at Boyd Raceway West of Fort Worth with 120 + cars and ¾ full grand stand. It was a really great evening. Brad and Missy Shirley, of Extreme Graphics, sponsored the night, and they had all the Extreme Graphics cars come out at intermission parked on the main straightaway. They let all the kids down on the track to get autographs. It was a HUGE success! Check out the pictures. The Plato family always does a great job. I first met Davey 10 years ago at Boone, IA. Met him before we came to Texas…he was an inspector at the Super Nationals.

Saturday night we went to Kennedale Speedway Park. Another 100 + car night. Great grandstand turnout and the SST Sprint Cars. Another absolute gorgeous evening! A trip to the races makes the winter blues go away. Richard Snyder and his track crew did an almost impossible task of getting the pits dried out to where they could run after five inches of rain last week. Everybody gripes about promoters who don’t try to get the show in hard enough, but that’s certainly not Richard and his crew. Hats off to them for having the pits in such great shape.

Today, this week, Sharyl and I are on our way to Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, MO for a tour of the track and a meet-and-greet with Forrest Lucas and his wife, Charlotte. Forrest Lucas has done more to support local racing than any other person in this country. So many people choose NASCAR as their vehicle of choice and Lucas Oil has chosen local racing. They support off road racing, circle track racing, motorcycle racing…the Lucas Oil Late Model Series is the premier late model series in the United States today. But they don’t just put their money on the big guys. Their sponsorship of the MLRA is a 3-state regional series. So it’s going to be interesting to meet Forrest Lucas and get an interview with him. The Goose says Lucas Oil Speedway is the speedway of dirt track speedways. When he found out I was going up there he told me he was jealous. I would feel real bad for Jerry, but he gets a LOT of places I don’t!

Charity Price has come on board from Arkansas. Her page is called Arkansas Diamond. Her home track is Diamond Park Speedway where she’s the track photographer. Check her out on the writers and photographers page.

I spent all day Saturday and half the day Sunday packing for the move. I will get to see two springs this year. You need to take the kids to the races because they’re the future of racing. If you don’t think so check out the pictures of Boyd.


LuvRacinRog

Leaving Texas.

I was amazed by the empty seats at Bristol. I’ve been to Bristol and saw seats go for $450! The racing’s good. Brad Keselowski won. It was good to see the Blue Duece back in Victory Lane. Two of my favorite drivers, Rusty Wallace and Kurt Busch both sat in the Blue Dueses and won races in it. There’s no doubt that Keselowski’s got talent and since Karl gave him the little ride, he seems to have respect for everybody too.

Cowtown Speedway opened with the POWRi Midgets and had 64 midgets. I think that’s an absolute awesome turnout. Dave Darland picked up the $5000 win. Boyd opened with 100+ cars, RPM was in the 90s, and a good bunch to start at Mountain Creek Speedway took care of the Friday night racing in the Dallas Metroplex.

I’m gonna miss the Texas racing. This weekend you’ve got a big show at 281 Speedway at Stephensville… IMCA spring opener. There’s an ASCS Spring Nationals at Devil’s Bowl. Last Saturday night there was 100+ cars at Superbowl Speedway in Greenville. Grayson County doesn’t open ‘til April the 7th.

The target date for the move is April 1st for Sharyl and May 1st for all our furniture and me. My grandkids are excited. Keifer says, “There’ll be a LOT more sprint car races for me this year!!” I’ll be less than 5 miles from Lexi and we can do afternoon swims at Lytle Park Pool. I rode my bike 16 miles from Sullivan to Lytel Park several times each summer from the time I was 12 ’til the time I was 16 and got me some wheels.

Talked to Buddy Haimes and Heidi. Buddy used to drive for me in the Mopar Magic car at Macon. Heidi’s won the track championship a couple of times there. They came down to Dallas and stayed with us. And they said Heidi’s not driving this year. Said they’re going to concentrate on business and just go to the races for relaxation. I’ll bet anybody two tickets to Macon that Heidi’s in a car by the end of June. Any takers?

Lonnie Hastings told me that Jared Webb was gonna retire. And I’ll take the same bet on two tickets that Jared’s in a car by June!

Strong bonds have this sport on all of us. Bryan Chase joined us from Pennsylvania. Covered the Modified Race of Champions at Selinsgrove. Not only is he a shooter, check his pictures out, but he’s a writer too. Check out ChaseFX on the Writer’s Page. Charity Price just came on board from Diamond Park Speedway. She’s going to help us there and at some of the tracks in Arkansas and around the area. She’ll be Diamond Parks regular track photographer this year.

Back on the first paragraph about the empty seats at Bristol. We all think they’re a bunch of arrogant jerks. But we’re kinda a reverse prejudice in our own little world. And we need those guys to be healthy to help fuel our sport at the bottom too. To go from a $450 seat in a five-years to half empty. I really don’t understand why. We have more coverage and more exposure…. Aaahhhh could it be the same thing as when the Midgets overexposed their self after WWII?? Every town had a Midget track. You could go to midgets 6 nights a week in my home area in Illinois. I don’t know if that’s the reason. But I don’t like seeing any track half empty.

Now at our end of the sport in the short track, when a track goes down, 90% of the time, you can blame it on the promoter. And whether its true or not, when you switch the promoter, people come back to the races. TV ratings are up for NASCAR, and maybe that’s all that counts to them.



LuvRacinRog

First Win with New Chief!

Okay! Tony Stewart’s back in the Winners Circle in Cup. I think Tony’s going to be tough to beat. It’s his first cup win with his new crew chief, Steve Addington? Vegas said that the cup race adds $100 million to its economy.

VAdirt, LarrE, and Goose are all in action. Va dirt made it down to County Line Raceway in North Carolina. Lots of good racing happened as he covered their opening night. LarrE was busy! On Fri he covered the Carolina Clash preliminaries at Carolina Speedway in Gastonia, NC, just outside of Charlotte. He covered the I-77 Chester Speedway Car Show Saturday afternoon. And Saturday night he was back at Carolina Speedway covering the Carolina Clash Finals. Goose was at Las Vegas and he covered the ASCS-USAC Showdown, the World of Outlaws Sprints, and the Championship Late Model Association. All us guys in Texas got raaaaiiiined out again. So I missed out on the USMTS Modified Show at Heart of Texas Speedway in Waco and at Cowtown Speedway. Big L got rained out at Superbowl Speedway. USMTS seems to have a hard time when it comes to Texas. So we normally got great weather and every time they come in they get weathered-out. But…we’re glad to see the rain anyway…we need it so bad!

March is great month for openings. I love opening nights. One year I covered 18 opening nights from Florida to Illinois. Everybody’s got brand-new paint. Brand-new graphics. Brand-new cars! And they forgot just how easy it is to tear them up, and how hard it is to fix them. Everybody comes outta the garage thinking they’re going to be the track champ. Lots of winners in the winter… lots of track champs in the garage.

Between crutches and rain…I’ve yet to see my first race this season! We were going to cut back our schedule to about 60 races, but I still think we can make that easy. I wanted to get 24 new tracks…and I think that’s a good possibility. So follow us around and see how we do.

We’ve got a new reporter whose home track is Diamond Park in Arkansas. Her name is charity price. She’ll cover her first race for LuvRacin next weekend. Looking forward to it. We also have a new reporter in the PA area named Brian Chase. Been active in racing scene up there for many years and I’m sure we’re going to get some great coverage outta Pennsylvania. He will be at Selinsgrove Speedway next weekend.

Hey, don’t forget to take a new kid to the races even if it’s the neighbor’s kid!


LuvRacinRog

You Might Need a New Crew Chief…

You Might Need a New Crew Chief…



Win the championship, swap your crew chief. Tony Stewart’s turning loose of Darian Grubb as Denny Hamlin leading the points in NASCAR. Joe Gibbs snatched him up, and put him with the intense Hamlin… and at the start of the season it looks like the perfect match. In the last couple of years Hamlin has won at the front of the field, dominated several races, and hasn’t been able to close because of problems in the pit and problems in the crew. This may be just the thing for Denny and Darian.



I went to Vegas with Sharyl over the weekend. And Kyle Busch sure has lots of advertisements on Vegas TV. I wondered why and then I thought: ‘heck it’s his hometown!’ And let me tell you something…Kyle Busch is a hometown hero. It’s nice to see good things for Kyle….and positive things for Kyle.



IMCA opened the season at Mountain Creek Speedway in Grand Prairie, Texas. And the feature was won by a car from Iowa driven by #19, Jammin’ Jimmy Gustin. I’ll tell you what… Charlie Upchurch and the crew has that speedway really looking sharp! It gives us another Friday night venue in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.



HOT opened! Great car count. Texas Motor Speedway has its World Dirt Track Championships. Great coverage by JM Hallas! There were over 150 Modifieds and Limited Modifieds. My mind’s a bit scattered. Sharyl and I are headed by for the MidWest. Lots of good racing but geez they’ve got snow!

Tony, Kyle, and Kurt

Tony Stewart is going to be a racing champion. Many of the events he is scheduled to run this year across the country at the short tracks are coming across my desk so he’s not going to hide out on his laurels. We all knew tony was a true racer anyway but this just confirms it thank you tony.

Kyle Busch says he’s gotta change his attitude if he wants to stick around. He said in an interview with the NASCAR scene that he felt like he was under a lot of pressure… he said “I’m looking around and there are a lot of guys who have been around for a long time and haven’t won a race and they’re still here. So I need to change my attitude.”

Felix Sabates was instrumental in getting Kurt Busch ride with phoenix racing. And he said “Kurt’s always been really good for me I’ve never asked him to do anything that he didn’t do I had two charity events last year I couldn’t get my own guys to go to... Kurt did them on short notice. I was home at 11pm one night and thought Kurt needs a ride…I called a guy and said I want you to hire Kurt. I called another guy and told him I want you to sell him engines. So I put it together for him. We didn’t have any room at our place. And I think everybody deserves a second chance.”

LarrE is in Florida. We’ll have great coverage from a variety of tracks. Including Acala, Volusia, New Smyrna… Sunshine Cher is holding down East Bay. You can see photos on the Fla state page. And get all the news from all the tracks and all the classes from the Winternationals on the Florida State Page.

James and Becky Bryant are having the first North Texas race at Super Bowl Speedway this weekend. The weather is supposed to be nice. Seems like most every other track is waiting until the first weekend in March to open. Sure miss going to Florida this year. Although the weather’s been good here in Texas. LarrE said he bout froze to death in Screven Georgia.

The World of Outlaws LM are running at Bubba’s Raceway in Ocala. Bout 95 miles North of East Bay at the same time as the Lucas Oil Series Late Models are running at East Bay! It’ll be interesting to see because Bubba’s raceway has scheduled the same classes on the same night as East Bay. It always looked to me that there was a lot of cooperation in Florida and the guys could move from one track one week to the next track the next week back to the first track the following week. But that’s not the case this year. I think all decisions should be make based on the best interest in racing. And then racing would grow and thrive.

Winter Blues

On the front page, we’ve got a tribute to Donnie Ray Crawford and his smile.

Kevin Swindell topped the field with his third win at the Chili Bowl! Seems like the cream always rises to the top. Sammy was second. Amy was overheard in the pits after the race saying “well, my kid can drive a race car!” The first time I saw Kevin s drive a racecar he was 15 yrs old at Florence Motor Speedway, Timmonsville South Carolina. (Cale Yarbrough’s hometown). He was racing with Pete Walton’s USCS Sprint crew on an asphalt track. He lapped everybody twice in a forty-lap feature except the second place car – his uncle Terry Gray. In 40 laps I saw him turn his hands to the right twice. It’s the best asphalt run I’ve ever seen. And it was by a 15 year old kid.

261 Midget drivers from across the country. Tony Stewart NASCAR Champ, Levi Jones USAC Champ. So many champs you couldn’t name them all. On Tues they have a race of champions. Check out VA Dirt’s coverage and Goose’s coverage on the sprint car photo page.

Well the next big crank up is the Winter Nationals in Florida. Are you going? If not, why not? East Bay runs three or four days for each different class…five tracks running 40+ nights of racing. You can see a complete schedule on the Fla page, including track phone numbers and links to the track website. I missed two years since 1993…that’s always a great trip! East bay is a bull ring track quarter. If I had to choose one race to go to each year I could pick opening night of the Lucas Oil Late Models at East Bay.

Volucia Speedway Park it’s a long fast ½ mile track … it’s 45 miles from Daytona. The World of Outlaws struts their stuff there…along with the UMP and All star sprints. The Asphalt World Series is at New Smyrna Florida.….seven classes run in 9 nights. Florida Speedway starts it all off early with Winter Nationals …. O’Bubbas raceway, formerly Ocala Speedway, has a full slate of dates.

Our home base for the last 9 years has been the Days Inn North in Tampa…one exit away from Busch Gardens. They have a $45 two person racer rate for the winter nationals. Give Dan Samborn a call at 813-977-1550. Jan and Feb in Florida at 45 a night is a steal. There’s no excuse for you not packing it up and getting the heck outta this cold to go to the races.

We’ll have several reporters covering the tracks in Florida. If you have any ideas, or you just want to say hi, stop in and talk to them. If you’d like to see better coverage in your area of local racers, or know somebody that would like to help us, talk to the guys if you see them in Florida…or contact me at racin@luvracin.com and put team 2012 in the subject line.

LuvRacinRog

Keep on Raining

Goose is on his way to the Chili Bowl. VA Dirt is on his way to the Chili Bowl. Rog is still on crutches – It sucks! I talked to Lonnie Hastings, and he said there wasn’t going to be a banquet at RPM this year. He said the Super Bowl Banquet that, James and Becky Bryant put on, will be January the 21. It’s raining in Tx! First rain that we’ve had all day long so long as I can remember. I hope it keeps raining. Last fall there was tracks that didn’t run: Devil’s Bowl, Grayson County Speedway, Abilene, and Waco: all four of them missed shows for lack of water. Everybody prays we don’t get rained out on the weekend and we didn’t get rained out any last year. Tony Hernandez is going to fill in for Greg Cooper at Grayson County while Greg is taking a travelling job with Traxxx RC cars.

LarrE Ervin covered the first show for us this year…Legends at Charlotte Motor Speedway, NC. LarrE covered 88 racing events last year for LuvRacin.com. There’s no schedule for Winter Nationals at Speedworld but lots of other action. See the Winter Nationals schedule on our Florida racing page. Lots of good things in the works for the New Year. Mountain Creek Speedway will be running on Friday night…so that’ll give us three Friday night tracks in Dallas and one in Waco.

I did 72 events at 26 tracks in 5 states in 2011. 12 of the tracks were new tracks. I’d like to do 30 different tracks this year…18 of them new. But only about 60 events. That way I can take Sharyl out one night a week.

We need development help across the Midsouth. We need reporters to get bios. We’re creating a local racing history on LuvRacin.com. I get emails every week from somebody that says “Do you know who the photographer was back in 1982 at (insert) track”… “Do you know where I can find some pictures of my dad at Thunderbird Speedway in a’89?” There are 250,000 plus photos of local racing on luvracin.com we’d like your track to be part of that history.

I think Kurt Busch may have the right owner in Phoenix Racing. He said that he was used to working with rough people in the construction steel business and a lot of people cussed. Said the only reason he was racing was to win and if he had to cuss a little win it wouldn’t be bad. I hope Kurt does well. And I hope Kyle takes a lesson. At this time David Reagan looks like the odd man out. Kid with so much talent and suck a great personality. You can go to Lowes on Tuesday night and David will be down there racing or helping. I’ve seen him come down to Florence and run when they had the Legends down there…I hope David finds a ride.

AJ Allmendinger got to ride in the Penske car. AJ will go to the front. I think Kasey Kahne, Tony Stewart, and AJ Allmendinger are the three people to watch this year.

All three are open wheel guys.