Yes, we had another washout this weekend. It kind of looked like that would happen from the middle of the week forward. It wasn’t all bad news for everyone. Humor me and read along.

I got to the track at about ten o’clock Saturday morning. Practice was about to begin as I strode to the Press Box. The warm-up session for the WMT competitors was fairly uneventful.

Ralph Solhem and Danny Sammons probably wouldn’t agree with that statement. A brake problem precipitated a crash in turn three for the New Jersey driver. The #0 was too damaged to continue. Solhem’s privately built chassis would not attempt to take time. That left Ralph praying for a provisional starting spot and for rain on Sunday. His prayers were answered.

Donny Lia experienced some overheating problems during the session. His team changed the radiator in the #18 during the brief turnaround period between practice and qualifying. Lia responded by giving his car a great drive in time trials to second fastest.

The TAS crew had the front of the #15 car apart before qualifying as well. Apparently, they had changed the pulley setup on the front of their engine and needed to get some new belts. They were awarded a provisional spot when they couldn’t get Zach Sylvester out to take time.

Jimmy Blewett called me over on my walk through the pits. He wanted to know whether the “Six Champion Interviews” article was directed at him. Jimmy had some pointed words. I told him that if he would like, I would include them in my next article. I pressed the record button on my digital voice recorder. In the interest of equal time, I have included those comments here.

Jimmy said, “All the veterans, when they do it to the rookies, it’s okay and when the rookies do something to them it’s not okay. They have no defense but to go around and badmouth everybody and cry to the officials and cry to everybody in the pits. Then have everybody on their crews go on the computer and write a bunch of bull(expletive deleted) that makes no sense, because they can’t say it to your face, anything. They’re all a bunch of hypocrites. That’s what I have to say about it.”

The article that Jimmy was talking about is in the archives under 2006 in the “by year” section or under Walter Newcomb in the “by author” section titled “Six Champion Interviews – “Aggressive Techniques””. I don’t believe I had any negative feedback from this prior to Blewett’s comments. If one reads the article in its entirety, one will likely come to the conclusion that it is largely directed toward officials at NASCAR’s highest levels. Draw your own conclusions folks.

Todd Szegedy broke the track record in qualifying. Mike Ewanitsko held the previous record and he had set it driving the #17 for Ed Whelan in 2001. I believe that was shortly after the Stafford Motor Speedway was last resurfaced but I could be wrong.

There were a lot of very fast times in qualifying. In fact, the top-15 in qualifying all turned laps faster than Tony Hirschman’s pole lap from the August race at Stafford. August race winner, James Civali’s ninth place qualifying time in that event wouldn’t have been fast enough to break into the top-30 Saturday. Some surmised that tricky crew chiefs had figured something out, a new way to cheat. I told those who would listen that the cool temperatures and the low humidity on Saturday provided an opportunity for teams to really put some fuel to their power plants by opening up the jets in their carburetors.

Billy Pauch, Jr. drove the #06 which is usually piloted by Steve Whitt Saturday. Tom Rogers, Jr. attempted to make the show driving Frank Vigliarolo’s Riverhead car. Neither of the Juniors fared very well as both failed to qualify.

The hot topic in the paddock area prior to qualifying was the rain date. “Boy they already have a rain date. I guess they’re planning on sending us home” were the kind of comments that I heard. If there hadn’t been a rain date announced, all we would have heard was bellyaching that no one knows what the rain date would be.

Before I left the track, I wanted to know what the deal would be about any announcement were there a change in the situation. We were told to check with the track in the morning. If a decision had to be made, they would make it by 8AM. I just didn’t want to check into the hotel, lookup the Stafford website and see that the race was postponed on Saturday afternoon.

When I got to the hotel where you’re supposed to be smarter for staying, Charli B. rang my chimes. It had completely slipped my mind that we were going to be doing Live Updates from Hickory. Charli read me off the roster and I got it up on the Forum.

It’s really loud at Hickory when there are cars on the track. In fact it is almost impossible to hear someone on the phone during time trials. Charli told me that he would call me during the caution periods.

TBax, KA-TN, Shopgirl and I discussed football, gin and waterbeds on the FlashChat waiting for Charli to call. Too bad there were no yellow flags. It sounds like they had one heck of a race. Thirteen lead changes involving six drivers with no caution laps.

I ate at the Italian restaurant next to the hotel. It’s got the same name as a guy who scammed me out of money for Led Zeppelin tickets back in 1980. The food there is pretty good.

Vicki and I watched our two college Big-10 teams battle in separate games. Both of them won. We can’t wait until November 18th, when they play each other.

I was up at 7AM. When I went down for breakfast, the Kehley’s had already heard the bad news. I called the track to confirm it and posted the postponement on the Forum. About twenty minutes later, I saw it change on the Stafford website.

I was so tired from Saturday that I never even pulled back the covers on the bed. It was a nice cool night. Jerry Moran and Kevin Reardon won’t believe this next statement. I didn’t turn the air-conditioning on; I just left the window open.

On the way home I drove through a rain storm that could only describe as being of apocalyptic proportions. I was driving 45mph in a 65mph zone and I was blowing by other drivers like they were in reverse. Then the rain suddenly stopped.

The boat ride was rougher than normal. At least no one hurled. That’s where most of this was written.

We head back to New London, CT for our third attempt to get the one race at Waterford Speedbowl in the books this Sunday. As we had planned for the meet and greet last weekend, we will try to get together shortly after time trials, just on the spectator side of the gate to the paddock area outside of turn one. I hope to see everyone there.