TBK-Light.com

Very dark clouds outside right now and a 40% chance of isolated thunderstorms tonight might postpone the racing. Hopefully it holds off and just thunders a little but I'm not very optimistic at this point. If it does get rained out I don't know if they run it tomorrow or what.

From what I'm hearing there's 25 late models at the track right now.

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"The track's wet, that's what I think about it. Fucking shit gets wet when it rains."
-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Jeff and I were hoping to go to Bluegrass Speedway tonight for some dirt racing... rained out. So now we're watching the weather to see if we can go up to Sportsdrome Speedway for some paved oval racing. Not looking super promising though. Damn rain is everywhere right now...

As soon as I saw the forecast for today, I decided to not even bother considering going tonight. It's pouring up here, and it doesn't look much better down your way.

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Yea, it's been coming down pretty steadily for the past few hours. Looks to be a total washout.

EDIT: The facebook page for the track has posted it's a rainout. Now to find out when they are going to run the postponement, if at all.

EDIT2: Late Model race has been moved to next weekend.

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"The track's wet, that's what I think about it. Fucking shit gets wet when it rains."
-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

So you guys steal the name we have up here for Wednesday competition...awesome.

At least we have actual races on Wednesdays.


Though it would be cool if the 'Bowl did a night of time trials like that.

Highlights from May 14:

The racing had to be stopped a couple times due to some sprinkles but somehow we dodged the rain by like half a mile on Saturday night.


Oh yeah, Langley Speedway definitely "stole" that name just to piss you off. It's not like they haven't been using that name for years down here.

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Jeff and I were planning on going to Ponderosa Speedway in Junction City, KY tonight for some dirt track racing because it's finally not raining for the first time in ages. But then I just saw this on their website: they're being forced to cancel tonight's racing because a water line broke and flooded the frontstretch yesterday. So even when it doesn't rain, we still get rained out. This season has sucked. The ARCA race at Salem is the only thing I've planned on going to that wasn't rained out, and even it was rain-delayed.

Kinda wishing I had gone to the late model race last night instead of sticking around for the All-Star.

So, at Auburndale, the exit from the pits and onto the track is a gap in the wall in the middle of turn 4. Apparently under a green flag run last night, a car was waiting to reenter the track. Race control gave him the all clear and the flagman at the entrance waved him on. He stalled out and by the time he pulled out onto the track, he pulled directly into the path of the top three, all who could do nothing to avoid him and they piled up.

I can only hope somebody caught this mental malfunction on camera.

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"The track's wet, that's what I think about it. Fucking shit gets wet when it rains."
-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

That's where that happened? lol, I heard about that in the pits after the race at Langley but didn't hear what track it was.

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http://www.youtube.com/TMRacingVideos

News travels pretty fast then lol.

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"The track's wet, that's what I think about it. Fucking shit gets wet when it rains."
-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

We had one intresting moment last night after the Thunder Stock race. One of the cars that wrecked was going around the track pretty fast, was coming into the pits. The pit entry is outside of turn 1 and its at the top of the banking and can be a bit hard to see over. The driver of Thunder Stock was going a little faster than he needed to be entering the pits as a tow truck was pulling out..and they kinda just ran into each other head on. Tow truck wasnt damaged, but it did damage the car which already had its nose ripped off.

http://www.realracinusa.com/forums/show ... hp?t=14880
Found some more info on the Real Racin' USA forums. Apparently the driver wasn't waved onto the track through the turn 4 entrance as I mentioned earlier. Instead they used the opening on the backstretch, which is only supposed to be an entrance to the pits from the race track. Not the other way around. So the cars were actually at top speed when the #20 was waved out and pulled directly in front of the leaders.

Here are a few pictures.

The #20 car and the damage to his back end. The fuel cell apparently folded completely underneath the rear end housing.



Tim Russel was the first one to slam into the back of the 20. HUGE damage to the right front of his car.


Anthony Campi was running behind the 36 in 2nd, also slammed into the back of Tim Russel's car.

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"The track's wet, that's what I think about it. Fucking shit gets wet when it rains."
-Dale Earnhardt Jr.

Highlights from Wacky Wednesday on May 18:

BTW, the deal with the timer is me pointing out a sandbagger to the officials, who are now suddenly acting like this is a big problem like they had no idea before I posted the video.

Highlights from Langley Speedway on May 21:

It was a pretty good night of racing, the Champ Karts made it interesting at the end and the UCAR race was a wreckfest. Also the Late Model race was alright, CE Falk had a bad qualifying run and came from 7th to 2nd during an 80+ lap green flag run. On a late restart I thought for sure he was gonna dump the leader Greg Edwards as payback for the bump 'n run from a couple weeks ago but he kept a level (enough) head and gave it everything he had to pass Greg cleanly but he'd just used his car up too much coming through the field.

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The mod race from this weekend, one of the best I've seen.

Rain kept me from going to Bluegrass Speedway Saturday night for some racing. That's three potential days I've had in the last week to see some racing action, only to have something trash my plans.

This Saturday afternoon is the much anticipated opening day for the Oswego Speedway. On tap is a 75 lap RoC Asphalt Modified race, 75 Laps of Big Block SuperModified racing and 35 laps for the Small Block Supers. The track, recently sold to John and Eric Torresse, kicks off it's 61 season of competition in style. This race is usally a good one so if you're in the area, stop by and check it out. Warmups start at 12:30 with the green flag for heat race #1 hitting the air at 3PM.

There is a threat of rain, but I was told that while they have Sunday as a raindate they're prepared to wait all night to get this show in. Oswego historically has been very good about stuff like that. If there's a window to race, barring something insane, they'll do their damndest to get it in.

There was some big controversy this week in the Late Model Stock Car world surrounding NASCAR and Caraway Speedway (NC) as the top 3 cars were disqualified from the Super 5 race, an extra distance, big money Late Model series at Caraway. The controversy is that the intakes of the top 3 cars were taken by Lynn Carroll (the director of NASCAR weekly racing) to the R&D center and determined to be too big on Tuesday. The problem is that it is almost certain that all the intakes had not been modified outside of what the rules allow and numerous engine builders are concerned that out-of-the-box bolt-on intakes may not pass inspection in the future which puts their businesses in jeopardy.
If you want to know more about it, Race22.com did a fantastic radio show about this last night which had two of the three DQ'd drivers as guests as well as the engine builders who went into detail about the process of engine building and the problems this ruling raises. Travis Swaim finished 4th and picked up the win as a result, he was also a guest on the show.
http://www.race22.com/spring2011news/XT ... how_1.html

I would really recommend listening to that if you've got some time as it was highly informative.

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http://www.youtube.com/TMRacingVideos

Hopefully the weather cooperates, this is the one race this weekend that I really want to go see, saw the SBS guys at Evans Mills with Roy Sova on the mike and that got me excited to get back to Oswego this weekend. I've been hearing good things about the car count in the supers too, and the ROC guys are usually fun to watch. Friday is looking to be a definite rain out so no races at Can-Am, but Sunday looks good so I'll likely head down to Utica-Rome for their season opener with Rolling Wheels as a backup plan.

Next week I'm hoping to make my first trip to Airborne Park Speedway in Plattsburgh for their ROC show, 3 hour drive one way but it should be worth it.

I went out to Langley today just to hang out for a while and see what USAR Pro Cup teams were testing for the race tomorrow. Chase Elliott was there along with his dad Bill and Tyler Young was also there testing. I was just BS-ing with a few friends and this one guy really wanted to meet Bill, so we moved over by their trailer and chilled for a bit until they looked like they weren't busy, then went over and talked to Bill for a couple minutes. He was real cool about it, shook our hands, and talked to us for a few minutes. Probably one of the coolest things of the day was that a helicopter landed in front of the track in the parking area and Bill went out there, got on it, and flew away, which I thought was one of the most badass ways to leave a racetrack.
After that Pro Cup prepped the ride along car to take a few people for rides and I had a real good time just chit chatting with some of the Pro Cup people as well as driver Tyler Young who had agreed to drive the ride along car, and he was quite personable as well. I was able to get a ride in the car and I told him that he wasn't gonna be able to scare me since I rode in the same car last year. He asked me who drove and I told him Bryan Silas. He responded with something like "Dang, that sounds pretty scary to me" which made me laugh a bit. He was wheeling the car a lot more than Bryan had last year because there was a bunch of speedy dry on the track, so I had an absolute blast in that car. That was one of the best days I've ever had at the track and there wasn't even a race going on. But tomorrow should be a fantastic day as well, I'll be manning one of the TV cameras in one of the turns for the Pro Cup race and then heading back to my usual position on the spotter's stand for the regular Langley divisions that follow.

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http://www.youtube.com/TMRacingVideos

With a brief 30min delay at the start due to a sprinkle we got the show in. SBS and RoC were snoozers, very little passing. However the SuperMods were rightfully the stars of the show and put on a pretty good 75 lapper. You did not want to be the leader in this one as the cautions came early and often. At the end of the night, Ray Graham gave us a prelude to what we'd see Sunday as he tried to go around the outside of 2 laps cars into T1 with about 15 to go. Michael Muldoon pushed up, Ray had to swing out a bit, got into the loose stuff and smacked the foam, game over. Randy Ritskes, driving the lighting fast Xtreme Chassis 88 car (a basically brand new car with only 3 races on it) took the win. Show started at 3PM sharp, and with one short rain delay and 2 lengthy red flags (oil and big crash in the Super feature) we were done at just before 9PM.

Oswego races the next three weeks before a break. My next visit to the Steel Palace will be July 9th for the King of Wings 50 lap Winged SuperModified race. For the love of God, if you've never seen the Supers, clear your schedule for the 9th and go. This one I can PROMISE you will be one not to miss. If you saw the Bristol Speed Record and thought that was fast, you ain't seen nothing yet. Average speed for the Supers around Oswego with the wings is knocking on the door of 150mph...