Didn’t I tell everyone not to miss this show after last year’s edition? Those who went were treated to some great racing. Those who stayed home had to settle for our live updates. This weekend, the North-South Shootout™ continued to demonstrate that it is one of the premier Modified races of the season.

The folks in attendance at Concord Motorsport Park (CMP) were treated to what the Race of Champions (RoC) used to be. For many years, the RoC was the event that featured Modifieds that campaigned from various areas under different banners and brought them all together for one race to see who was best. For the second time in three years, John Blewett, III proved to be the best of the bunch.

I flew into Charlotte Friday and rented a car from the guys who “pick you up”. I asked for directions at the counter and the folks there gave me the perfect route to get to Lowe’s Motor Speedway (LMS). I knew those were the directions I had been given and headed out on my own radar. An hour later, after circling the city of Charlotte a couple of times, I stopped for lunch and again asked for directions.

The lady at the restaurant knew where I was going. She gave me a shortcut…directly to Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Fed up with people who had no idea where CMP was and who all wanted to help me get to LMS, I headed up I-85 like I should have in the first place. I got off at 601 and drove straight to the track.

The first person I saw when I entered the grandstand area was Bill McCaffery. Bill was the first car owner for which I ever worked. McCaffery left Long Island many years ago when Grumman closed down their Calverton facilities. Bill had flown in from Maryland to see the show. I took a seat in the top row with Bill and Brad Vollmoeller, another Long Islander, to watch the Modifieds practice.

Bill and Brad related some news to me that was tragic and disappointing. John Betts, the founder and original owner of McBetts Racing Engines, had been involved in an accident Thursday in his Vintage Modified. I was told that his car was T-boned and that he suffered an ankle injury that required surgery and a pin. Good luck getting through airport security with that John.

I took the opportunity, when there was a break in the action, to crossover into the infield and see what the schedule looked like. Dale Wolbrink let me know what was going on although from the sound of her voice I almost wish she hadn’t. Dale sounded like she had had a tracheotomy and this was only Friday, before qualifying had even started.

I found my way up to the press box, which would be my home for most of the weekend. Dale and the folks at C&C had a phone line installed so that we could have Internet access. Although this was dialup and as slow as molasses in January it certainly worked well for our live updates.

There was one problem that I rectified on the way to the hotel after Friday’s festivities were finished. I needed telephone and electric extension cords to allow me to post from an area of the suite were I could see the track. I figured out the qualifying on paper, typed it up and copied and pasted it to the Forum Friday night.

I stayed at my favorite hotel again. It’s great to stay there. There was no meeting of the VFW in the lobby this year. Both nights I was pleased to meet a member of Kannapolis’ finest, in uniform, making sure the lobby was secure.

It was time for dinner. 11:30? Dinner? A young man pulled up to the hotel with a sign on the roof of his car. “Wild Wings?” I said. He replied, “Yup”. I asked, “Gotta Menu?” He replied, “Yup, better hurry, we’re gonna close.” I had the best cheeseburger I have eaten in years from a place that advertises, Nuclear Hot Wings.

I cranked up the AC and went to sleep. You know this isn’t the hotel where one would “Stay Smart”. That’s because I would have arisen at 6AM when the cinnamon rolls were first served in the lobby. I got up around nine and treated myself to a southern favorite, biscuits and gravy.

CMP was swarming with activity when I arrived Saturday. The C&C gang was pulling out all of the hero cards for the event and practice was ready to get underway. I got situated with phone lines, extension cords, surge protectors, chairs, the cooler, the cup and my phones. Just after noon, when practice was completed, I ventured back across the track.

I was glad to see Howie in the infield. Actually Vicki was glad that I saw Howie in the infield. I had her on the phone and Mr. Hodge is the expert when it comes to power. Shopgirl was not scheduled to get her power back until I leave Fort Lauderdale…next weekend.

One of the prime interests on the Message Forum has been over the pending “Silly Season” with respect to the Whelen Modified Tour. Unfortunately, very few people have answers. The first piece of the puzzle is likely to be Ted Christopher. Once Ted is locked in somewhere, I think that everything will start to sort itself out.

Rumors have circulated that Jim Galante would close the doors on his operation after this season. The fact that Christopher was driving Ralph Solhem’s #0 at the North-South Shootout™ added more fuel to the fire. I am sure the speculation will end shortly.

One driver that is sure of his rides for next season is Zach Sylvester. Zach has a full-time ride at Stafford in an SK Modified owned by Mark Aspinwall and Glenn Johnson. Sylvester will return for his third full season on the WMT driving the Sylvester family #15.

Zach drove the #19 Modified owned by George Bierce at CMP. Sylvester also plans on running some open shows including some True Value Modified Series races in 2006, possibly in the #19 car.

The pedal car race was won by Ashley Crowley, the twin sister of Shawna, who won the NSS 150 last season. Ashley sported the livery of WSMT Champion #69 Junior Miller. No truth to the rumor that dad Kevin and Uncle Brian were forced by this result to work on the Advance Auto Parts Modified during the feature event.

I didn’t know what to call the dual consolation races when I posted them on the Forum. The Announcers were having a difficult time keeping what they were calling them straight too. “Them guys” kept calling the Non-qualifiers race the “Consi”. So I called the two consolation races second chance heats, even though it was the third opportunity for those who participated to make the show.

Frank Fleming, who drives the Speedy and Talmage Thomas owned #07, got screwed in the first second chance race. Frank, the twenty-year veteran of Southern Modified racing, was running away with the race when two excessively slow cars suddenly blocked his entry into the first turn.

Aubrey Fishel was limping along the inside. Brandon Hire had been running a little faster but had slowed along the outside. The race director had requested Hire’s spotter direct his driver to turn in at the end of the front stretch to keep the track clear. Apparently he didn’t realize how slowly Hire was moving. By the time Fleming got there the track was virtually blocked and the contact with Hire’s car knocked the front end off of the #07. Frank did get into the show with a provisional but that team would have fared much better had they not had to deal with that mess.

The Non-qualifiers race for the SKs was cancelled and the balance of these limited Modifieds were added to the feature field. They should have just paid them some tow money. These slower cars that were added created a mess.

Early on it certainly appeared that the SK race was going to be a crash-fest. The SK race didn’t seem to be amusing many folks. In fact the happiest people I saw during the event were two kids that were playing a game of catch behind the VIP suites with a ball of packing paper that had lay in waste at the rear of one of the C&C trailers. At least there was some good racing between the cautions.

Oh yeah “Them guys”? Was that commentary in English? “Them guys”. Change “them” lugs. “Them” four race. “Them” announcers am something. It was also interesting to listen to two of the announcers making contradictory statements when providing analysis of the competition without either taking exception to the others comments.

I don’t know which one of them kept saying them but he should take one of those grammar classes. Speaking like that can be charming when used sparingly. I thought Mike Fields was going to jump off of the roof. “Do it again!”

Woody Pitkat and Jimmy Blewett put on a show at the front of the field racing each other hard after each restart. Blewett’s TS Hauler’s #12 appeared to be handling a little better in the corners but Pitkat’s #52 handled down the straightaway. After the race the #12 team found that their battery was going bad and that may have contributed to a loss of power.

Woody took down the win in the Davidson Foods, TSI #52. Blewett held on for second followed by Tommy Cravenho, Rowan Pennink and Ronnie Silk. Cravenho, Silk and Todd Ceravolo put on a great show carving through the field getting to the front. Ceravolo finished sixth.

The Third Annual North-South Shootout™, John Boy & Billy Genuine Spring Water Modified 100, Presented by Pabst Blue Ribbon Beer finally got underway. It was worth the wait. Pole sitter, Donny Lia, dashed off to the race lead followed by Zach Sylvester. It stayed that way through several cautions.

When the caution flew for the fourth time, the second time on lap twenty-nine, Ted Christopher, Matt Hirschman, Eric Beers and Frank Fleming chose to pit for tires. It was a great strategy that didn’t quite work as well as planned. No one had to change tires. The requirement was that the car had to be jacked off of the ground.

The Shootout teams were required to make at least one stop between lap thirty and lap seventy. By taking tires one lap before the pit window, these teams would only have to jack and go on their mandatory stops and the theory was that they would gain a tremendous amount of track position by passing teams that still needed to change tires.

One might ask, “Why not just jack and go anyway?” Well the tire wear at CMP was pretty harsh and fifty laps was actually a pretty long way to go on that rubber. Track position was the name of the game but the faster cars were going to need fresh tires.

The caution flew again after thirty-six laps were complete. There was an accident on the backstretch and Donny Lia headed for pit road under the direction of his crew. Lia didn’t see the pit road flagman, who may have been blocked by one of the tow trucks cleaning up the mess. Todd Szegedy followed Lia down pit road and both were penalized for pitting too soon. That’s right, two of the fastest cars had to restart at the back. That has got to be promoter’s dream.

When pit road did open up, almost all of the leaders headed for the pits. The #99s of Jamie Tomaino and Pete Brittain and the #33 of Ken Heagy chose to stay out. The strategy that was employed earlier by the Solhem, Hirschman, Bohler and Thomas teams would have worked perfectly…except pit road got congested and their drivers had difficulty getting their cars to their stalls. The Blewett, Chase and Bierce teams beat that strategy with a little luck and great pit work.

Pete Brittain, Ken Heagy and Jamie Tomaino headed the field to the restart. It seemed as though it took an hour to run the next five or six laps as the caution flew multiple times. Brittain led, Heagy passed Brittain for the lead twice and led for a few laps. The triumvirate that had stayed out when the rest of the leaders had pitted, ducked to pit road after forty-one laps were complete. Two of them were subsequently involved in an accident on the ensuing restart.

John Blewett, III drove a very smart race, as did Brian Loftin. JB wanted to run a comfortable pace. It wasn’t fast enough for the young lions Coby and Sylvester. Blewett let them by after some bumping and the #77 and #19 dashed away to race it out between each other.

As the race wore on, so did the leader’s tires. When Coby and Sylvester got caught in heavy lapped traffic, Blewett made his move. It took John about two or three laps but with little less than a quarter of the race remaining he regained the lead and would never be headed, fending off Sylvester for the win.

In the closing laps of the race, Brian Loftin tore towards the front in his red #23. It was clear that he had one of the fastest cars on the track. Another driver that closed quickly on the front was John’s brother Jimmy Blewett who pitted for a right-rear tire with nineteen laps to go and passed several cars in the final laps. Brian and Jimmy finished third and sixth respectively.

After the race John said, “It’s a nice feeling to be able to do something like this twice. I did it with the Chases and that was great.” When I suggested to John that this win might be different because it was with his family’s team, he replied, “It’s no different because that’s a family team too…I always felt I was part of their family. All wins are special and tonight is pretty special.”

Blewett said, “I ran hard enough to get to the end. It turned out at the end we had a pretty good car though.” When I told Blewett of Brian Loftin’s late race charge John said, “I knew he was going to lay there, he was kind of laying there in the beginning…we were going pretty hard. I was a little concerned with that last caution with like twenty to go that somebody who had laid a little bit was going to come on but I had a little more left. He might have been able to get to my tail but I could have poured it on a little more.”

Zach Sylvester was pretty happy with his effort. Zach said, “It was pretty good. I’m happy with it. We came up a few laps short, we could have got him (Blewett) with a couple more laps but we’ll take for the first time being here.” It looked like Sylvester really enjoyed his experience. He said, “It’s funny because my spotter said, “this track is made for you”…sure enough.”

Donny Lia and Todd Szegedy were the show. After having to restart at the tail end of the field after their stops, the two tag-teamed the field. Donny and Doug Coby exchanged crossover moves on lap 97 with Donny eventually taking the spot. Lia and Szegedy finished fourth and seventh respectively.

Szegedy was upset that he had made the mistake of coming down pit road when it was closed. Todd said, “The run was great but you can’t come in with the pits being red and that’s inexcusable. The driver is not supposed to do that. I don’t know if we had something good enough to win. The car was great…but I had to use the hell of it to get up through the pack. Driver error, the number one way to lose a race.”

Todd drove a team car to the #50 of Chuck Hossfeld numbered 5 for the event. Both cars were sponsored by H.M. Hughes Construction. Hughes is a company based in New York City that erects major commercial and industrial buildings.

Chuck said, “I had a fun, fun weekend. Basically Phil was his (Szegedy’s) crew chief and (car owner) Don (Barker) was my crew chief and I think we made all the right calls. It was amazing how everything was the same. We had absolutely everything the same; we even made the same adjustments on the pit stops. I lost my power steering really early, like halfway and that was such a shame because I think we made all the right calls and adjusted the car right but I was just hanging on for life at the end. I just want to thank everybody from the whole team to some of Todd’s friends from the south here to H.M. Hughes.” Chuck ran well and held on for eighth.

Doug Coby said, “We blistered a right rear tire. We made a good decision when to pit. Pitted under green flag was out so that was good. Got out front, stayed out of trouble and blistered the damn thing, just like the heat race. I think we’ve got to make a couple changes to the setup but I think we’re a pretty good car here. Seventh last year, fifth this year, getting better. You know if the tire didn’t go away I think we would have stayed up with John and had a good race to the finish.”

“Showtime” Jimmy Blewett, who I mentioned earlier had made a late race charge, missed the Riverhead Raceway banquet which was held Saturday night. We were informed that he was awarded the Modified Rookie-of-the-Year Award in his absence. Jimmy said, “The SK race was good but he (Pitkat) had just a little more car than us. We came in the pits and realized we had a dead battery at the end. I had a couple of shots where I could have got him but he runs me clean and I didn’t want to have to booger him to get the win.”

Jimmy related from the Modified feature, “Brad LaFontaine came over the radio after we pitted and said, “Alright Showtime, there’s twenty laps to go. Let’s Go!” You know really twenty, thirty lap races is where I came from so busting through a pack is really not all that new to me, it’s the longer hauls that I have to get used to. I really have to thank Brad LaFontaine. The car was unbelievable.”

Bob Polverari announced that he has retired. The ageless wonder said, “The car was pretty comfortable. Our second set of tires just didn’t work for us. It’s just fun running down here. This is where racing all started down here in the south and these people have really been so good to me I’m just glad that I ended it here.” Polverari finished twelfth.

I got a copy of the final finish from Dale Wolbrink, who now sounded like death. I hope she gets some well-deserved rest. CMP is a great place for a race. I wish we were there more often.

When I returned to the hotel, my room was just the way I like it, frozen. It felt like the snow was about to fall in there. I could just picture my old roommates, Jerry Moran and Kevin Reardon donning snowmobile suits to keep from freezing to death with the room that cold.

When I got home Sunday, there was good news. No I didn’t save any money on car insurance, Vicki got her power back. All I had to do was write this. I might have something else for everyone before the banquet. There is a possibility that we could cover the Turkey Derby. If not, I hope to see everyone at Mohegan Sun.