Ok so the last blog was a bit of a downer. Sorry about that. Let’s pick up the pace a little here!
Holey smokes, that’s was a long day but man was it cool! Now you all know how much I love supermodified racing. You all know how I say they are the baddest cars on earth. You all know how much I brag about the raw power, yadda, yadda, yadda. I’m here to tell you that until you have felt a nitro car go down a drag strip, you have not lived!
See how I said ‘feel’ and NOT see? Dudes and dudettes, you don’t watch these cars, nor hear, nor smell. No, oh no, you FEEL them. Every single cell left in even the most die hard life time PBR drinker will shake, bang, smack, rattle, and otherwise attempt to exorcise itself from the body when these cars go down the strip.
I thought that this year it would be blase’ after seeing them last year. Much to the contrary, I was even more into it as we walked through Nitro Alley in “The Strip” at Las Vegas Motor Speedway. It’s so much excess in all aspects of the sport that it’s nearly impossible to take it all in and comprehend it. All I can say if you just have to FEEL one of these shows!
Then we headed over to The Bullring for practice and again I am going to tell you that it blows my mind how much deeper the west coast supers pile it into the corners. At the end of the chutes its seems as if they are trying to make like the cars running at The Strip and just keep on going straight. But then like a slot car they jerk to the left and make the corner and all is well.
I had a blast hanging out with Mikey Turner and Jim Belfiore. Talk about some stories! I met DJ Kaity and re-acquainted with Chet(one of the LVMS Bullring announcers), then Brent and Chris Seelman showed up!
Jim Birges was showing off his new Belfab car and turned in the fastest lap of the night @ 12.8 seconds. Not bad considering that the track record set last year by supermodified rookie Nick “The Middletown Madman” Heygood is a 12.59. AJ Russell was into the 13 flats but only after they repaired an issue with oil blowing out of the breathers and a loose injection nozzle. Jeff Russell had some problems with the injection as well but got things going with some decent laps. Rick Cameron shook the cobwebs off and went back supermodified racing for the first time in some 2 and a half years but never seemed all that comfortable in the car. Rookie Justin Mack is from Washington and a regular on the Northwest Sprintcar Racing Association tour and has some overheating problems in an older but beautiful Hyder. Another supermod rookie was in the Birges Purple People Eater and looked ok. His first name is Tim and I didn’t write down his last name.
Bryan Warf, Willie Northammer, Troy Regier, Bobby Dalton and Kirk Wartman are all in town and will run tomorrow. Word on the street is that Ray “Guitar Man” Stebbins is on the way down along with another driver and car in tow. It doesn’t look like we’ll see any of the Colorado cars as we were told that it took them 4 hours to go 7 miles with all the bad snow and they pulled the plug, turned around, and headed back home. I don’t think Mike McCann will be in with the 14 for Lonnie Adamson to run either as he’s coming from Oregon and I would have thought we’d have seen him tonight.
Either way it was fun seeing the guys again since the last time was back in April. I’m stoked for tomorrow as I think we will have a good crowd and some new fans that we can turn into big fans. Here’s hoping everything goes well with the webcast so those that can’t be here can listen in, but most of all, here’s to a safe, fast, and fun race!
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