We had a blast. A lot of folks checked us out in the Live Updates section of the message forum. Too bad they couldn’t be with us. In last year’s article about this event I wrote, “The Jennerstown Speedway is perhaps the racing facility that is best suited to host our beloved Tour on the East Coast”. Saturday, the racing action from the Pennsylvania oval did the talking once again to echo those sentiments.

There are plenty of reasons not to attend a race at a distance. Although monetary challenges may be the primary concern voiced by those who have chosen not to make the trip to a place like Jennerstown, the thought of an arduous extended road-trip probably weighs higher in the minds of those pondering the decision. Had this story been focused on my trek to the track, those souls might have thought they made the correct choice to stay home as the venture there consumed nearly ten hours of time and several single digit salutes.

In addition to the great racing, here is another reason to make this journey in the future. Visit the Flight 93 Memorial. It is quite moving. At present, the temporary site does not look all that different from the wonderful pictures that Howie & Mary brought us last year.

An attendant at the site explained to a group of us Friday the novel plans for the permanent memorial. It will include a ninety-three foot tall “Tower of Voices” with forty wind chimes at the proposed new entrance to the site on RT 30. The sound generated by the wind chimes will represent the voices of the forty victims of the flight that crashed outside Shanksville, PA. RT 30 is the same road that passes just to the north of the speedway about twenty-five minutes west of the proposed site entrance.

After checking out the memorial, I drove by the track and visited the site where the Saturday evening post-race festivities were scheduled to occur. Traveling down the road from the track to RT 601 and the Somerset hotel area brought back a lot of memories. There’s Lamonica’s, there’s the High D.U.I. Crash Area and there is the auto parts store were I found Wade Cole changing the starter in his hauler last year. Why was Wade’s hauler there again?

At that point, Wade had already taken the rear-end of his ramp truck apart. Before I arrived Cole had caught a ride with someone to go to a truck dealership to get some shims that weren’t in stock at the auto parts place. NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour inspector, Rick McGaughey, was keeping Wade’s crew chief, Ted Sheldon, company. I could see the new carrier bearings and the smell of burnt gear oil loomed.

As it turned out, the pinion gear was shot too. When I saw Wade Saturday morning, I don’t think I had ever seen him happier or more relaxed. He said, “I’ve got a rear-end that’s good as new in my truck. At least I don’t have to worry about that anymore!” Wade told me that he and Ted finished the repair at about one o’clock in the morning. God bless them. They do whatever it takes.

I won’t bore everyone with the sordid details but I have eliminated another hotel chain from the list of those where I will stay in the future. Previously hotels that have the number 6 or 8 in their names had been dashed. Now the place that has a sunrise on its’ sign has been dispatched.

I tried a car wash Saturday morning on the way to the track. The place is completely automated with no apparent staff. I kind of figured it worked like a self-serve checkout at the grocery store. I fed the machine a twenty-dollar bill and got fifty-six quarters change.

Jennerstown Speedway General Manager, Larry Mattingly, once again was there to greet me in the track office. Those who get press box access receive a VIP decal to wear on their shirt. I knew it was doomed to fall off. Fortunately I had a button on my shirt that could do a better job of holding it in place than the adhesive backing.

Later in the day I asked Diane Fulton, who once again served us in the press box, what purpose the stop sign served. The image glowed through a little piece of heat sensitive tape that covered it on my badge. Diane told me that once the stop sign appears, the VIP patron would no longer be served alcohol. It’s a good thing I don’t drink. I would have been cut off before I got to pit road.

I parked next to Howie & Mary in the infield. Our dynamic duo of digital imaging were donning their equipment and getting ready to take some pictures. They were trying to decide where to start.

I took a brief stroll down pit road and said hello to many of the competitors. When I got up to the press box, I started to put together a roster for the Live Updates. Who is in the #86? There wasn’t anyone else there to answer my question. For a minute I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. That’s got to be Steve Whitt’s car. But there was another #06 in a different location. When I went back down and approached the car I found Ted Christopher behind the wheel of Eddie Whelan’s Modified.

Ed had brought a new Modified that only had test laps on it for Ted to drive. Mike Andrews, Whelan’s rookie driver, had brought his family owned #10x that he usually campaigns at Riverhead Raceway renumbered #36 for the Wheeler Bros. 100 in the J&S Motorsports hauler. This was a surprise, Ted told me just a few days earlier that he wasn’t even considering attending this race.

The crew was busy applying duct tape to the numbers on Eddie’s Modified to complete the number change. Rico Mariani, a former Mystique crewman, who had been serving as Andrews’ crew chief, was helping Ted pack out the driver’s seat of the former #36 with additional padding so that it could hold Christopher’s more slender frame.

During practice, Andrews’ car suffered engine woes. Apparently he had overheated the engine the last time he had raced it at Riverhead. The temperature gauges skyrocketed during the two times that Mike took to the track and the team decided that the only solution would be to change the engine. Evidently the J&S team felt that they wouldn’t be able to make the change in time for qualifying and the #36 was parked.

I am sure that there are those who might say that Eddie should have put Mike in the other car. However, if one looks at the go home list from Jennerstown, every competitor who did fail to qualify was a rookie. Keeping Ted in the #86 assured Whelan that he would have a car in the field. Even if something unthinkable happened, Christopher would have a driver’s provisional available.

It was hot and sunny at this event. It was good to get back to the air-conditioned comfort of the press box. John Ditzler was busy toting all of the catering trays, coolers, beverages and food up the long stairway from the concession stand. John has been coming to the races at Jennerstown for nearly thirty years and landed a job with the track this year. John told me that the owners have big plans to expand the facility. For Ditzler’s sake, I hope those plans include an elevator.

It was great to hear speedway announcer, Don Gamble, wrestle through addressing the names of our Whelen Modified Tour competitors through time trials. Don actually did a pretty good job. I just think he had difficulty identifying the car numbers. At least it kept everyone paying attention.

The team at Jennerstown is innovative. They started a Hall-of-Fame last season and inducted their 2006 class at this event. Reserved seating in the grandstands feature nameplates engraved with the seat-holder’s name. How many track owners do we see really interact with the fans? Dave Wheeler shot tee shirts up to folks in the crowd before the race. Mike Milliron stirred the fans into a frenzy in his captain’s hat to get the engines started.

Jennerstown also made a safety improvement since our last visit. They added a section of concrete wall that angles out from the front stretch slightly towards turn one. This shields the access there that was usually reserved for the ambulance in the past.

There had been water barrels, temporary barriers and the like protecting that turn one opening. Ironically, that opening offered a similar angle for crashes as the one that the infield wall afforded Jeff Fuller at Kentucky Saturday night. We are all thankful that Jeff has been released from the hospital and appears as though he will be okay. I am nearly as glad that Jennerstown addressed this issue much as where Arutes installed the SAFER barrier at Stafford.

Most of the areas in the infield, where the weekly competitors park their cars have been paved. Could that have been courtesy of a local sponsor? There was a sign at the track that boasts that New Enterprise Stone & Lime, “Brings Dirt Free Racing” to Jennerstown Speedway. Well, maybe they just provided the stone in the VIP lot.

I talked to Lou Ewanitsko during the autograph session. Lou used to race at Jennerstown when it was a quarter mile dirt track. Lou introduced me to Eddie Whelan. Jaws was there to capture it.

Larry Mattingly also brought Jimmy Spencer in for a separate autograph session. Jimmy had nice things to say about the Modifieds to the fans. Jimmy took note of what I was doing in the press box too. Spencer thinks the idea of the Live Updates is “Awesome”. I wish we could have discussed that further but we had a race to call.

Tony Hirschman had taken down the pole last year with a lap of 17.741 seconds. This year that time would have held up for the pole as well. He bested that time by exactly one tenth of a second. Hirschman’s poor luck in re-draws continued as third fastest in time, Eddie Flemke, Jr., picked the pole and Tony drew the short straw of the six that re-drew.

Whelen Modified Tour Officials had apparently announced that only fifteen yellow flag laps would be counted for this event. Supposedly, drivers could lose laps in the pits once yellow flag laps were not counted. I never quite figured out how that would work but when the first caution flew on lap 86 of 100, that point was moot.

Eddie Flemke dashed off into the sunset putting many of his competitors laps in arrears. Ted Christopher, who moved quickly toward the front during the first few laps, suddenly slowed and lost about eight spots on the eighth circuit. The way he was moving side to side it appeared that he might have thought he had a flat tire.

By the time that Tony Hirschman had advanced his position to second place, he was nearly a half lap behind the leader. The defending race champion turned up the wick and was reeling in Flemke at a pace that was astonishing.

Hirschman clearly had the fastest car all day long. It was quite apparent that Flemke had used up what good he had left of his car and tires. Flemke was a sitting duck and it looked like the #48 was about to cruise to a Victory Lane reprise. Then the caution flew.

By the time the yellow came out, for the first and only time, Ted Christopher had battled through the same string of leaders Hirschman had to put the #86 in third position separated from the duo out front only by a couple of lapped cars. Flemke made his car wide after the subsequent restart and Hirschman had a couple of laps where he might have been able to make a move on the leader before Christopher was on top of them.

Tony feigned a move high at the west end of the track. I figure he was going to try a crossover move on Eddie. When Tony did that, Ted shot to the bottom and pulled his car all the way along side the #48. Two and a half laps later Ted shot down to the apron at the other end of the track and pulled full alongside Eddie. Tony followed the #86 through the door Ted had opened and probably could have gotten by Ted had there been a few more laps remaining.

Although there were some that told me the race was a snoozer until the finish, there was passing throughout the field for the whole event. The finish was as dramatic and as exciting as we have seen on the Tour for quite some time. Even though the second and third place finishers didn’t see it that way.

Both Flemke and Hirschman used the line, “I don’t drive that way” in their interviews in Victory Lane and in the press box. After what I had just witnessed, it sounded like whining.

Had Eddie not blocked Tony so aggressively, he might have been able to fend off Christopher for second. Had Tony been willing to drive straight to the outside of Eddie on the restart, he probably would have run away with the win. Because they chose not to take the risk of losing what they had, it allowed Christopher to move in and take what he wanted, victory.

I saw no controversy over the way TC made his way to the lead. The subsequent comments from Tony and Eddie will create a great story somewhere. The story to me was the excitement of it all. I’ll let someone else string all of the rest of the quotes.

Ted stormed into the press box like Charlie in the Willy Wonka movie when he found the golden ticket. I have never seen Christopher quite that animated. He kept wanting to give everyone hugs and high fives like he ran out of teammates to keep the celebration going.

By the time I packed up my stuff and got downstairs, some of the teams had already begun to leave. I had offered to drive the two guys who were throwing the party to their “Bates Motel” like haunt but they were taking their truck. On the way out, Jimmy Blewett asked for a lift. That was kind of a surprise after last week’s thread. He and two others jumped into my fairly stuffed car and we exited the track with their bags on the roof.

Once they got out, I got my left-side weight back in order and took the three left turns to get to the post-race party. These guys bought a barbeque grille that was so big that it should have been equipped with headlights and a steering wheel so they could drive it home. Jerry kept asking ThE sHaDoW to move the grille back away from the building as the flames got closer and closer to the structure.

The folks that did go to the barbeque had a great time. I’m glad that many people did show up. Jerry thought he was going to shock me by showing off the condition of his room. Apparently he has a short memory and forgot some of the places where we shared rooms in the past.

I thanked the guys for the burgers and was on my way. My plan was to get out of there in time to be home before sunrise. I’d have to keep a good pace and not make any long stops.

So I was cruising down the Pennsylvania Turnpike, then there was the full moon. The lunar calendar will show that Saturday night was closer to the last quarter. An SUV I was about to pass drifted toward my lane. The driver appeared not to be paying attention and it looked like I might have interrupted a cell phone conversation.

I didn’t see anyone in the passenger seat. That was probably because whoever was in it was removing their pants. This person stuck their butt so far out of the window that they nearly wiped my windshield with it. The vehicle had New Jersey tags and a license plate frame from a Japanese brand car dealer from my hometown. I still don’t know who it was. New Jersey, Riverhead…New Jersey, Riverhead…Blewett?

Like Charlie Daniels said in “Uneasy Rider”, “I was too busy moving and hoping I didn’t run out of luck”. Driving through those mountain tunnels during the day in traffic is so different from passing through them solo in the middle of the night. The lights inside of these long tunnels in combination with their straightness create an eerie Wizard of Oz appearance to them when there are no other vehicles around. I smiled wondering what it would be like to be traveling with someone who was in the throws of a chemically induced condition in the passenger seat.

I chose tunnels over bridges for the remainder of my trip home. The appearance of the Holland and Mid-Town Tunnels is far different from those on the PA Pike. Didn’t they just spend several million dollars cleaning these things? The ride home took four hours less than the trip there and I was back to the coffin before the sun came up.

There are still a lot of things that need to be addressed. I have chosen not to discuss some of the issues that the Tour faces in the wake of Jennerstown and recent changes in the sanctioning body’s hierarchy. It may be time for another “State of the Tour” article.

There are a few questions that will probably be answered in the coming weeks. Will Ted Christopher get a permanent ride? If that ride is with Ed Whelan’s team, will Eddie field a second car for Mike Andrews? Will the rookies who didn’t make the show at Jennerstown show up for the next race? Thanks for reading along and we will see folks next at Loudon for the test session on Monday June 26th or at Thompson for the next race on Thursday June 29th.