I do. I’m bound, wound and on the rebound. Look out folks! Go to the fridge, get something to drink and hit the restroom before you get started reading this thing. It probably has something to do with the fact that Roy Bartow fed us so well at the track that I am reinvigorated and ready to start a six page article.

Before I get started I want to thank the folks from Ramar Hall for sponsoring MSS. I’d also like to welcome Mike Calinoff onboard as a sponsor. Mike is the new sponsor of the MSS Message Forum with his 2nd annual NASCAR Driver Development Clinic. For those of you who are not aware, I also write for Mike’s website, www.stockcarcity.com. That’s where I talk about guys with fenders.

Mod Series Scene has had some unbelievable weekends but I believe that Saturday night was a first. The MSS Message Forum hosted Live Updates from three Modified events simultaneously. Thanks go out to Charli Brown for his efforts at Bowman-Gray, Amie and Shopgirl posted from Riverhead and Denise and Jim DuPont provided the updates from Beech Ridge.

Everything with the updates appears to have gone well. The server didn’t crash and a bunch of people had a good time. Thanks to all of our other online Live Update helpers for posting in the Flash Chat area.

The tire brigade was under closer scrutiny this week at Riverhead. An official called me “Rona Barrett”. Thank you. I didn’t know I appeared so svelte. I do have a couple of things on Rona. I outweigh her by at least two spins, I’m at least a foot taller than she is and her highlights always appeared to be frosted and mine are natural.

The issue that relates to that subject was generated by the comments that Roy made at Twin State. I didn’t have to quote him. I am glad I did. It brought attention to a festering problem and leveled the playing field. Roy rubbed a couple of people’s noses in it and for that I do apologize, although I don’t know why.

Speaking of Twin State, I wanted to correct an error from that article. In “It Wasn’t That Bad After All”, I erroneously gave credit to the wrong team for lending us a rear end. The rear-end was loaned to us by Jeff Preece, the owner of the #40 team driven by Ryan Preece. Thanks again to all of the folks who helped us out that day.

Gregsy! How the hell are you! Greg and Venetta Narducci showed up at Riverhead and that was quite a surprise. Greg looked fantastic. I guess prayer works.

There was a Glenn Sullivan sighting. I heard him too. The Ferrante’s showed up and performed well early. I saw Mike Ewanitsko and he looked really healthy. Rich Pallai from Carquest was on hand as well. It was great to see all of them.

The T.S. Haulers transporter is for sale. Ed Partridge is expecting delivery of his new trailer shortly. Feel free to contact Ed at T.S. Haulers, 631-369-1265 if you have an interest.

Is Toyota coming to Riverhead? Well there is a dealership named Riverhead Toyota. However there is a humorous new Toyota commercial that was filmed just east of Riverhead in Aquebogue, NY. The commercial revolves around a little lad that needs to relieve his bladder. The commercial ends in front of the world famous Modern Snack Bar.

Chad Little was at Riverhead Saturday night. He has been spearheading the NASCAR’s efforts south of the border. He told me that the series is doing well and that they consistently have good car counts. NASCAR’s Mexico series is running fiberglass bodied Late Model racecars with a spec engine that might be comparable to what SK Modifieds use. Chad says that these cars cost the competitors about $30,000 to put together. It was great to talk with him.

Despite the rhetoric of the Miller Lite 140 being a “Flash” format race, thirty-four cars showed up to contest it. Originally this was supposed to be two sixty lap heat races and a seventy lap feature. That was changed.

Time trials set the top seven in the starting field and the balance of the competitors battled in twin twenty-five lap heat races. The heat races were pretty good, especially up front. The back of the second heat race looked like a Riverhead Late Model feature.

This format worked well. I would however like to see all of those who qualify through time run a trophy dash so they wind up with the same amount of laps on their tires. In the end the feature was one hundred and forty laps counting all of the caution laps. This meant that the guys who raced their way into the feature ran fifteen more competitive laps than it took to run the June race at Riverhead in 2005.

Bobby Grigas and the #09 team were parked after Bobby took his car to his trailer after the heat race. Apparently, he had broken a rack and pinion unit. Glenn Tyler, the next car in line was awarded his spot.

One car that didn’t get a provisional was the #79. It is my understanding that this was the first race in the history of the WMT that this car has attempted and failed to qualify. Wade Cole was awarded the final provisional based on the past champion reverting to driver points. In the past the past champion reverted to owner points. If that were the case, I believe Roger Hill would have gotten that spot.

Riverhead Raceway is one of the few places where the redraw occurs on the track during driver introductions. Bob Finan loves to charge up the fans. In the process of doing all of this on the fly, Bob overlooked the driver who was starting the race in the eighth position. Is anyone sure whether we’re actually in this race? Sorry Bob.

Finan was ready to get the race underway. He had the fans in the middle of counting down to start engines. The NASCAR frequency stirred with commotion. Apparently, several of the Tour regulars were upset that a light was out in turn one making it too dark to compete. Here we go again; remember last year at that other track?

Wayne O’Kula, a member of the King Racing #28 team and a Blunderbust competitor at Riverhead, told me that the turn one light had been like that all season. I spoke to a number of other people who are Riverhead regulars. Several backed up Wayne’s statement; others said that it hadn’t been quite as dark as it was Saturday night.

We were told that the light pole had been struck by lightning in a vicious storm on Friday night. Where the (expletive deleted) was I? I couldn’t sleep Friday night and I didn’t remember any lightning.

While we waited for a bucket truck to repair the light, I was reacquainted with the reason everyone is so happy at Riverhead; and I’m not telling anyone. Wayne pointed at a couple of guys who were quite lively. His comment gets honorable mention for quote of the day, “I’ve never seen a bunch of guys who were so happy they failed to qualify.”

The light was repaired and during that process a number of small flood lights were placed down in turn one by the fence. Great, now were going to blind the drivers as they enter the turn. The next time we have one of these deals where the lighting is “questionable” I’d like to make the drivers who are complaining about it have their teams duct tape flashlights to the side of their helmets.

As the bucket on the truck descended, Bob quickly asked the fans to count down and give the command. It sounded like he caught most of them mid-drink of their beer. The heck with it, let’s go racing.

I want to complain. When the caution comes out, who are the guys acting like children? Who are the drivers that are trying to steal one or three or five spots on the track? It wasn’t the Riverhead regulars Saturday night. It was Modified Tour veterans. This (expletive deleted) cost the fans at least thirty laps of green flag racing. It could have been a whole different show is this (crap) were dealt with properly.

The front bumper that we wasted at Riverhead two weeks ago was the bumper with which we started each of the Tour races this season. Two races at Riverhead two front bumpers to be replaced. These bumpers don’t get messed up from giving shots; they get bent up in the log-jams when a slower car bottles up three or four faster cars. It’s usually a car in the middle that loses their bumper.

Speaking of bumpers, Chuck Steuer wound up having his rear bumper fold straight down. I’ve never seen anything like it. The back of his car looked like a Zamboni. Send out Chucky and then we can have an all-skate.

By the way, one of the Grasso brothers put a piece of duct tape on the back of Jimmy’s bumper. His bumper, which is engraved with $HOWTIME then read slowtime. We’re having too much fun.

As I mentioned earlier, we started eighth. Jimmy took his time and picked his spots. He got up to fourth but was forced to pit for a flat right-front tire. Could that have happened because it fell from the top of Donny’s left-rear? We changed it and he went back on the track. He fought his way back for what appeared to be a top-five finish.

Meanwhile it was getting crazy out there. Ted Christopher and Mike Stefanik were having a good old fashioned street fight at the front of the field. They both knocked each other about. It appeared that Mike punted Ted and consequently got a flat as a result of the contact. Enter Donny Lia.

Donny might not have had the fastest car Saturday night but he was in the right place at the right time. Lia took down his fifth win of the season after a green, white, checker finish. Then we went to post-race tech.

We were invited. A bunch of stuff was checked and then we were told that we weren’t on the lead lap. NASCAR determined that we had lost a lap in the pits when we changed our flat tire.

This was not fair. I’m not saying that it wasn’t fair for us, it wasn’t fair for the rest of the guys on the lead lap who wanted to battle for position and it wasn’t fair for the others who were one lap in arrears as they didn’t get a chance to race us. One question; why weren’t we moved behind the lead lap cars on the final restart despite parading around under yellow for so long?

During the post race party, we had a drunken guy by our hauler who kept yelling, “I wanna go to the Jersey Shore!” People were calling him Reggie. I don’t know whether that is his name or whether he had a mustache that was similar to the one the Reg sported back in the 80’s.

I said I was wound up. As “Big” Bigalow says; “Strap In!” Jason Christley got to visit Riverhead for the first time. I asked him “What are you going to do here?” He told me, “I don’t know”. That sounds about right. That’s probably not fair to Jason. He’s just trying to do his job.

Mark Mockovak, the Whelen Modified Tour’s longtime Media Coordinator was canned between Twin State and Riverhead. As near as I can tell, the reason for Mark’s termination was that he wasn’t willing to take on this position as a full-time endeavor. Good choice Mark; they don’t deserve to have you.

I don’t want to go off on a rant here but what the (expletive deleted) is going on in the demented woozy dreamland of the person who made this decision’s vacuous skull jelly? (My homage to Dennis Miller) It would seem from what little information that I could gather that NASCAR is interested in marketing our program to a more elite clientele. This choice would be a tragic one laced with stupidity and irony.

Maybe someone in the ivory tower wants our sport to appeal to their friends who shop at prestigious retailers like Nordstrom’s and Neiman Marcus. Reality check McFly; there’s a reason that most racing people traditionally don’t shop there. They cannot afford to.

Most of those who want to “keep up with the Jones’s” don’t race and don’t go to races because they’re too busy worrying about whether their neighbor is going to plant better flowers than they do, get a gadget they don’t have or travel to a more exclusive place on their vacation. Does anyone think there are racing people could give a (crap) about (expletive deleted) like that?

Racers have to pay for their racecars, equipment, travel and lodging. Fans save to go to their races of choice. Regardless of our various incoming revenue streams, all of the people in our little community have to be very price conscious.

I was told, a long time ago, a simple lesson. If you serve the masses, you live with the classes. The converse of that statement is also true. If you serve the classes, you live with the masses.

Sport and other forms of entertainment serve the masses. To be successful, all professional sports teams, television networks and movie studios market to people of the lowest common denominator. This is how they increase their bottom line.

Maybe that’s why NASCAR has an office in Bentonville, Arkansas and not in Dallas, Texas or Seattle, Washington. While they might not be an official anything of NASCAR and their livery may not grace the side of a Nextel Cup racer, Wal-Mart is the only company that warrants a need for corporate America to open up shop in their hometown. That’s because Wal-Mart serves the masses.

This isn’t a plug for our country’s largest retailer. I’m not saying that people who shop at Bergdorf Goodman aren’t welcome to come watch us race. I do believe that there are people higher in the racing food chain than us whose behavior might seem to be retarded.

I’m sure that no one at NASCAR would be happy to see a t-shirt I saw at Riverhead this weekend. Emblazoned on the back was “L.I. REDNECK” fashioned in the style of a NASCAR logo. Jeff Foxworthy defines “redneck” as a “Glorious lack of sophistication”.

Far be it from me but why would anyone want to try to sell our sport to sophisticated people? If there is any truth to this we have definitely passed the stock car racing shark jump episode. Maybe there are people in Daytona who are embarrassed to be associated with their stereotypical fans and participants. To anyone who feels that way, may their golf channel feed be fuzzy and may they happily drive a Saab in eternal smugness.

Oh yeah, I did say there was irony in this too. The ironic thing is that Mark Mockovak may have been the only NASCAR employee, associated with our beloved Tour, who could actually relate with people who shop at those high-end retailers on a one on one basis. Way to go Einstein, whoever you are.

Someone also related that the reason for Mr. Little’s visit to Riverhead was to be our “baby sitter”. Gee thanks. And I thought he was here to see NASCAR’s oldest and finest division.

On the lighter side, the quote of the week is credited to a friend of ours who shall remain nameless. She ventured to Riverhead in shorts planning on just enjoying the race. Once she was asked to score for one of the teams she said, “Eventually I’m going to have to put on my pants”. You had to be there.

There were people who said that it wasn’t a packed house at Riverhead Raceway. However, I do believe that was the best crowd I have seen at that place for a Tour show since the Ewanitsko days. Let’s do it again. I liked the heat races too.

We’re off to Stafford Springs, Connecticut for the 17th Annual New England Dodge Dealers 150. Donny Lia will be shooting for his sixth win of the season and a sweep of the first three Tour races at Stafford. It will be great to see Rich Pallai on his home turf. I hope to see everyone there.