ron.brown11

In his first ride for Niece Motorsports today, Kaden finished 6th. I don't know if this was his first run at Atlanta, but if it was that's a really good start. Great Job!!

It was bound to happen, and a bit surprised that it took this long. Did CPS ever build/do anything with the part that they bought? They probably passed on buying the track footprint, because of the costs of remediation. I'm sure that the pit area would be classified as "toxic". My brother retired from General Electric Jet Engines 4 years ago. Right before he retired, GE bought all of the acreage of Tri-County Speedway, located about 10 miles north of the main plant. They turned that property into an office complex, removing most of the office workers away from the engine plant. He said that it cost more for the remediation then what they paid for the land/track. He told me about how many truckloads of contaminated dirt they had to remove, before anything could be built, I just don't remember now. The track was a 1/2 mile high bank track. I'd bet that there was at least 30 acres for parking. Then the original track owner/builder bought another 60 acres, and built a softball complex, that had 8 diamonds, with more parking. It was quite the sports complex. All of that now sits under a GE office complex.

Ryan Preece finished 2nd on night 4 to Ron Silk, the defending Whelen Tour Champ, and winner of everything this week in a tour type modified. On night 5 Ryan won and Silk finished 2nd. Preece had an awful Whelen points race on Sat, finishing a lap down and barely inside the top 20. He may not be able to run the Wed or Thur show, as he has qualifying on Wed and the Duels on Thurs. He said that he's going to try and make the show on Wed, but Thur is a no go. Too bad, because he's got his family owned car hauling.

Bubba Pollard started 11th, and ran mainly3rd to 8th most of the race. But his car really looked great on long runs. It really looked like Ty Majeski who started 17th, took the lead by about lap 35, and looked untouchable. With about 9 laps to go, something happened, and he started losing positions, finishing 16th. It turns out that he had a drive plate fail, and he lost an axle. I'm shocked he finished at all. I thought he had a tire going down, but the more he ran it looked mechanical. It looked like a shock broke or the panhard bar broke. Casey Roderick was strong all night to finish 3rd. Young Jett Nolan ran the top 10 all race, and fought his way up to 2nd, and that's where he finished. Chase Elliot started 8th I believe, but did finish 6th. But the was mainly because of Majeski falling back and Nason following suit. A perenial World Series Asphalt race winner, and series champ winner got taken out going into turn 1. It was a really hard hit. The car will need at least a front clip, and possibly an engine too. Derek Griffin is from the Northeast, and is usually very calm. He came unglued on the guy that dumped him. Thankfully no punches were thrown. The Memorial is for super late models, and they put on such a good show at New Smyrna vs the late model stocks cars. There were still 18 cars on the lead lap after 200 laps. Good race to watch!!

Thanks for the info Josh. Like I said, I just don't follow the NHRA as much as I used to. I wasn't at home to watch the Thur & Fri practice & qualifying so I wasn't aware of how they had done the F/C & T/F match ups. I think that I heard that who ever won that race got $10k, but that's just what I think I heard. I was just jumping back & forth with the Ice Breaker @ Florence and the NHRA. Then it was onto the races @ New Smyrna. I have been to the Bradenton strip, but that was way too many moons ago. From what they showed on Flo, and what my brother said from there, they sure have upgraded that facility!! I watched a Pro Mod weekend program online a couple years ago. It sure didn't look like this weekend. I'm happy for them, but even more happy for the teams & fans that will get to enjoy these upgrades.

They're running the 1000' track. I'm not sure that they will ever go back to the full1/4 mile track with the nitro cars. Jack Beckman is certain that the NHRA will do something to keep the nitro cars to somewhere around the 335mph mark. Both of those nitro series cars are already pretty unstable at 335. Beckman was still stunned 24 hours after Tasca's run. He said that he studied the computer printout from timing, checked the track's weather data, and went back and watched the video several times. He was certain that is wasn't a valid mph. Like having a big tail wind, or something else that might have helped push up the speed for Tasca. Beckman should know, he got the nickname Fast Jack for a reason. TBone, I don't know when/if you started following Cup racing, but in 1988 Bobby Allison nearly parked his 3500lb car into the main grandstands at Talladega. That was on top of numerous bad crashes at both Daytona & Talladega. If that would have happened, I don't think that NASCAR would exist today. They said that the restrictor plates were only a temp fix, until they could figure out a way to slow down the cars. Every Cup race since at the super speedways have sported the restrictor plate. The need to slow down the nitro cars isn't something new. They have decreased the percentage of nitro allowed into the fuel mix at least 2 times before. They used to be able to run 100% nitro, but thanks to Kenny Bernstien's huge numbers that he was attaining, along with several big nitro crashes (several different drivers), they started cutting the percentage of nitro allowed. A few years later speeds where starting to get some pretty bigs gains, so they lowered the limit again. I know of them doing that twice, but there could be more. I don't follow the NHRA as much as I used to.

The Pro Superstar Shootout just finished at Bradenton Motorsports Park in FL. All of the NHRA's biggest stars raced in 4 divisions, Top Fuel; Funny Cars: Pro Stocks; and a 4th class that pitted funny cars against a top fuel dragsters (the funny cars got a .2 starting line advantage). I didn't catch how they arrived at which cars would compete in that division, but it sure was fun. Chad Green in his Mustang funny car beat Texan Steve Torrence in his top fuel dragster in that final. I didn't hear what Green won for this class. In his winning interview he said that he couldn't believe that he was able to beat Torrence not once, but twice this weekend. Texan Erica Enders, the reigning Pro Stock World Champion won the pro stock final, winning a $125,000 in doing so. In what might be considered a surprise & upset, Austin Prock won the funny car final. Prock normally races a top fuel car, and the car he drove is normally driven by Robert Hight. It was announced about 3 weeks ago that Robert has some medical issues, and Prock was announced as his replacement driver. As both Hight & Prock drive for John Force, the decision was made to park the top fuel car, and just concentrate on the funny car. That seems to have worked out pretty good so far. His check for winning was $250,000. Nice payday! In top fuel, reigning champ Doug Kalitta won. The perennial top fuel driver finally won his first top fuel championship in Nov. What a way to show that his winning the championship wasn't a fluke. He too collected $250,000. But here's the most shocking bit of news from this weekend. There was a world record for the top speed ever in a nitro burning car. One car ran a 341.68 mph run, the fastest run ever by an NHRA legal car, and it wasn't a top fuel dragster either. Bob Tasca ran that ET in his Mustang Funny Car!! Fast Jack Beckman, a many time funny car winning driver was on the announce team for this weekend. He so didn't believe the mph, he left the booth and went to the timing tower to verify, and it wasn't a lie. He was stunned to nearly being speechless. And if you ever heard any of his interviews after a f/c win, you'd know that's something, Think of a John Force interview when he's being interviewed about anything. My brother & sister in law, who still lives in Cincinnati, left Wed, heading to Sarasota, FL to get out of the cold for a couple of weeks.I told him about it. He didn't know that this race weekend was happening this week. They decided to stop by Bradenton, as it's only about 15 miles from Sarasota. As they were walking up to the ticket booth, they heard a couple of nitro cars, but couldn't see what was happening. He heard them staging (whoever "they" were), and whipped out his phone, aiming toward the track. He never saw any cars, but he did get the audio of the run, but the video was just blurred chainlink fencing, but he sent it to me anyway. Then he heard the track announcers going crazy over the top speed that was just attained. That was Tasca's record run. He thought they were T/F cars. Beckman made a few comments tonight about that run. He said the he expects that the NHRA will make some rules "adjustments" to the nitro cars before the season opener, to slow them down. Sounds like NASCAR eh?? He was saying that the NHRA views 240mph kind of like NASCAR views the 200mph speeds at Daytona & Talladega, a dangerous speed there. These races at Bradenton is not an NHRA event. This was the show that Tony Stewart and others put together, kind of like an All Star race, or the SRX races that he and Ray Evernham have put on for the last 3 years.

Carson Kvapil (driving for Jr Motorsports) wins the Ice Breaker 125 at Florence. Connor Hall was 2nd, Cody Kelley 3rd, Earnhardt was 4th, and Sam Yarbrough 5th. Very good clean race, with a couple of spins & 1 car that ran off course in turn 3. Connor Hall drove his first race for the Nelson Motorsports' #22. Cade Brown won November's SC 400 race in a dominating fashion, but 6th was all he could muster today. Still, this was a very good, clean race for all. Great start to the season for these east coast late model stocks drivers. As there were no late model stocks running last night at New Smyrna, some of these teams that ran at Florence today, might head south to try their luck there. I hope that the races tonight at New Smyrna will run as clean as today's race.

Jody Measamer hasn't forgot how to race either. He just won the truck series race at Florence Speedway's Ice Breaker. I will try to give an update for the main event for the late model stocks later.

I never got to see him race, but had seen his name in results rundowns. My condolences to his family and all of his friends. Now it's time for him to go run in the track up there. God Bless Mr Young!

I just read that Kaden will drive the #45 truck for 12 races this year for Niece. That's a fairly well funded operation. He will be sharing that truck with Ross Chastain (5 races), Connor Mosaic (1 race), and Johnny Sauter will run the rest of the schedule, to include Daytona next week. This is the same team, but in the #41 truck that Bayley Curry will drive for. I think the Al Niece is a Texan, and is loading up on Texas drivers. Nice!!

They did..

Ryan Luza started 7th, and finished 5th in the 35 lap main in the Late model class.Isabella Robustro started in the top 10, and finished 6th. I'm so happy for her for finally getting back on track after having a brutal cash into the front straight wall last spring while running for the win at Hickory on the last lap.She got a bad concussion therein party much ended her 2023 reason.The hot lady from the Pro late model stocks last year was Kattie Hettinger, she's now driving their family owned team. She started 8th and finished 7th. So she has not yet showed the speed in the first race that they did last year while driving for the 81 team. I expect that both of these ladies will have better shows as the week goes on. Ryan Luza is running the Pro Mod late model. He started 7th, and finished 6th. Reg Rugerrio won the super late model race. Bubba Polard dropped out with a mechanical issue.

That's why I'm so hopeful about the CARS Tour & the SRL Series. I don't know if at some point they merge, but so far I don't see them trying to box out the other with rules variations. That there is what has caused a lot of the decline in asphalt late/super late model racing. Purses hurt too, but the lack of rules that will allow a team to run both series' has really hurt. This is where the dirt scene has absolutely killed it. Yes, purses really help too, but the ability for a team to pick & choose when/where they want to race is huge. Like minded rules really helps that. As I said here before, what the new CARS Tour ownership brings to the table is huge for asphalt racing. Also, with Harvick's interest in Kern Co shows that he isn't forgetting where he got his start, and earned his way to the top of the racing food chain. His home track was Mesa Marin. That was bulldozed over, and Kern Co was built a few years ago. I doubt that there is a better Sat night asphalt track in this country. It's really special. I will always have mixed emotions, when talking about how Harvick made it NASCAR's top 3 divisions. There's no doubt that he has the skills, as his selection to the HOF in a few years is certain. But if Chris Trickle doesn't get murdered in Las Vegas, would Kevin get the Spears ride that had already taken Ron Hornaday Jr to NASCAR's top 3 divisions? When Chris ran his last race in Tucson in the Winter Heat Series, there were already talk among those "in the know" around that series, that Chris was probably heading to the Charlotte area soon. He was good, Spears Manufacturing loved him, and so did fans. One of the people that was talking about his future was Lee Baumgarten, the track president of TRP. When NASCAR sold the lease at TRP, Lee became the track president at Phoenix International. David Hoots, who ran everything Winter Heat at TRP said the same thing. There were about a half dozen drivers that made it to Charlotte because of those Winter Heat seasons. The one I spoke most often to was Ron Hornaday. He kept his southwest tour, Winston West, and super late model cars at Carlos Serrano's shop for all of his races during the seasons he raced in them. Carlos would do some set up & crash repair for me on my mod. Carlos' shop was 2 blocks from my business office. Don't tell my wife, but there were many a day that I would tell her that I needed to go inspect a business to insure, just to go to his shop and hang out for a while. Especially if it was Winter Heat time. I got to meet some pretty cool racers, and a couple of inventors. You might not have heard of Dan Press, but he was a pretty good driver in his day. He also invented the gold track rear end center section. I didn't really understand them, but Carlos talked me into getting one. Yeah, it was a bit expensive, but boy was it worth it!

On page 60 of the Feb issue of Speedway Illustrated, Kaden was mentioned in an article that they did on the CARS Tour. It's in the 2 page picture caption. It doesn't look like Kaden will run all of the CARS Tour races, and that's a bummer. This isn't a R&S house car, at least according to R&S's site team/crew chief listing. I hope that he gets most of the races this season. Mr Usry has had competitive cars in the past, and Jody was a good driver in his day. I have no idea how strong the Wynn financial backing is, but it's probably stronger than what ButlerBuilt was. And they weren't on the car all the time. So I'm very hopeful for Kaden's season in the CARS Tour.

LOL I get it! I don't think that it's too far down the road before NASCAR's top 3 will be some sort of pay to watch (I don't see me paying to watch them). I've really enjoyed what FloRacing offers, and that's the only subscription service I plan on using. I'm definitely not going to be paying for several different service providers, so unless Flo starts dropping a bunch of tracks/series', that will continue to be the service that I'm willing to pay for. I've been impressed with them for 2 reasons. The first is the shear volume of racing that they show, from literally all over the country. Hey, snow sled racing is all over their schedule right now. I'm not watching it, but it's there. The second reason is that 4 years ago, pretty much the only racing they covered was dirt racing. I've been impressed at how quickly that they've added the equipment and broadcast teams to host all of the racing. Now some tracks are still in the process of adding more cameras, so they are stuck trying to show the races with just 1 camera. But those are a bit rare, as most have at least 2 cameras. As I get nearly all of my racing fix on tv or online now, there still is no comparison to being there. I was visiting friends in Tucson a week ago. Tucson Speedway was hosting their annual Chilly Willy super late model weekend. That was my home track when I raced my modified. I had actually forgot it was the same weekend that we were going to be there. So I can tell you I was absolutely bummed that I couldn't go due to commitments that I had already made. But hey, at least I could watch it online when we got home. But yes, I really wished I could have been there. Besides not being there in person, they only had 2 cameras. One was a fixed wide pan of the track, while the other was a manned camera. So you only got to see what they wanted you to see, and rarely caught the action throughout the field. Hopefully they will get more cameras in the future.

That's great news!! It will be very interesting to see what he can do with some stability for a change. He sure looked good driving an R&S race car at Florence a couple of months ago. I wonder if the 2024 paint scheme will continue to look like an old Wood Brothers car. I always loved that Purolater scheme. A guy named Woody Howard runs a scheme like that at Langley, only his number is 41.

24nomo, 2 years ago I would have agreed with what you're saying. But I also didn't see the SRL creating a national series, to go along with their late models, pro late models, & the modifieds on the west coast. I've seen several west coast teams running Five Flags, New Smyrna, and the Rattler races. I've also seen a few CARS Tour teams go west too. I think what we will see is the teams that really want a championship will make the haul. It may only be 5-10 cars, but that's exactly what NASCAR did in its early years. A group of 10-15 regulars, and a bunch of locals. Plus, I really think that the new ownership wants a bigger footprint, and they have already shown a way to accomplish that. ZMAX! Between the national sponsor & all 4 Tour owners being involved at the Cup level, they're going to find away to make it happen. The SRL already has a program to help teams financially (tow money & I think preferred pit selection too), if they will commit to running all of the races. The CARS Tour already has a program to help the drivers/teams in their selected 12 list. They get some tow many, a bump in the purse money, discounted tire and fuel costs. If the race purses are decent, expect that they won't have too much worry about starting a good car count. Compare the number of cars entered in the premier CARS Tour from last year to this year. The car count has nearly doubled. Rarely did they send cars home last year, because they had so many trying to make the show. This year they had to do that in several races, and in others they started several more cars than what they advertised on their entry forms. An awful lot of new team popped up. The biggest thing that dirt tracks have had over asphalt tracks for a long time was common rules. I think that the asphalt world is finally waking up to that. At least I hope so, because if they don't, this expansion will be short lived. Fingers are officially crossed..

At some point Mike, I think that something will occur to kind of join them together. I don't think that the SRL or the CARS Tour will benefit from fighting each other. But I hope that both can survive, whether that's individually or together. I perused both series' Pro Late Model rules, and they're nearly identical. I don't know if David Hoots is still involved with the SRL, but he started it. After NASCAR shut down the Southeast, Northwest, Midwest & the Southwest tour divisions, he started it. It was no accident that he retained the Southwest Tour name (I read that somewhere, and NASCAR blessed him using that name), and put the SRL first. He was the guy that ran all of the NASCAR Winter Heat seasons at Tucson Raceway Park. I don't know where he grew up, but he genuinely seemed to love the southwest region. My great friend, and engine builder for my modified, Rusty Hatten maintained and operated the jet dryer trucks assigned to the west coast. He had many conversations with Mr Hoots. He also tried relentlessly to hire Rusty to maintain a good bit of NASCAR's west coast equipment. Rusty just didn't want to move from Tucson to Phoenix (I don't blame him either!). As good of an engine builder Rusty is, he's even better at maintaining AF fighter jets. His skills doing anything mechanically is unbelievable. I was a pretty good jet & car mechanic, and a quality control inspector on fighter jets. I have absolutely no hesitation to bowing my head to his skills, none. Drifting isn't the biggest thing at Irwindale. They have robust drag strip there too. Between the oval, drag strip, drifting and track rentals to car companies doing TV commercials, the Huddleston's have kept Irwindale alive. I truly hope that it survives, but I still can't find anything that says who's going to operate it.

Well there is another surprise to the 2024 CARS Tour schedule. They are expanding the schedule to include 2 races at Harvick's Kern County, and 3 more at Irwindale. Kern will be March 2nd, and November 16th. The Irwindale dates are April 13th, May 11th, & August 31st. These dates are for the Pro Late Models only. I would expect that this will really tax these teams financially, as they are a predominately Atlantic coast series. Plus, the Pro Late Models tend to not have as much funding when compared to the Late Model Stocks division. The first 3 races will require a tow the full width of the US, as will the last 2. I would expect a lot of the west coast Pro Late Model drivers/teams will be buying a CARS Tour license. If this works out, and the races are a success, I would expect that the 2025 CARS Tour schedule will contain west coast dates. Also I would expect that the SRL & the CARS Tour rules are pretty close. With Irwindale having these dates, I'm guessing (hoping) that the track is going to remain open for at least the 2024 season. I looked at Irwindale's schedule on their website. They show March 9th as the opener for the circle track. There are no dates for anything (drag or circle) after March 30th. I would expect a full schedule will get announced very soon, especially since the CARS Tour has announced their dates there. I could not find anything as to who is going to run the track for 2024. Kern's schedule isn't posted on their site yet either. I'd love to know if somebody new is going to operate Irwindale. I'll keep looking.

Nick, I personally think that nothing will come from all of this. But I say that, predominately because I feel like NASCAR will give the teams/drivers a healthier slice of the money pie. I think if that happens, we probably won't hear much about the RTA staying public, with their demands about making the charter system permanent. I still think that will continue behind the scene though. Especially now that charters are starting to be really expensive to come by. Dale Jr wants one. Brad K says that RFK wants to expand. Trackhouse needs another one for SVG for 2025. Spire bought up another one already this year, at a pretty hefty price. This is exactly why the RTA has wanted charters to become permanent. It gives them a lot more residual value, if they choose to get out of NASCAR. But that only works for them IF NASCAR is still an operating/popular product. If SMI (or anyone else not named NASCAR) doesn't start a rival series. So if they were to decide to close up, then those really expensive charters are worthless. It's obvious that NASCAR is no longer a dictatorship that it was under Big Bill & JR, so now it just comes down to how "flexible" NASCAR is willing to be. How much is NASCAR willing to swallow. There are a lot of chess pieces on the board, and I'm not yet sure who has the next move. If nothing else, it's gives us something to speculate about for the next 12 months. But I still believe that things will work out, and NASCAR continues.

I posed the question on here a few months ago, "How long would it be before Tony campaigned a top fuel dragster"? Well that question has been answered, and for a reason I didn't see coming. Leah is taking a year off, so that they can try and start a family. I hope that all goes well for them.

I just read that Bayley & Niece Motorsports just signed 4 sponsors for their truck team for 2024. Good Luck Young Man!!

I've found other articles that say that the Huddleston's bought Kern Co, and Harvick is just an advisor. If that's the case, I think that Irwindale is/will close soon. The Huddleston's are just the operators at Irwindale, and wouldn't see them spending much time at a place that they operate, as opposed to the track that they own. I'm not saying that another operator couldn't come in, but I can't see someone wanting to operate the place short term, if the sale is pending or final. Unfortunately it's looking like a really good track is going to close, and most likely it will be permanent. I hate seeing any track close (dirt, asphalt or road course), because usually they don't ever return. But one thing I'm sure of, SoCal desperately needs another industrial complex, especially since so many companies are leaving CA.

So far Nick I haven't found much. By looking at the Irwindale website, they show drag racing until the middle of Dec. They also show the SRL All Star Showdown the first week of Feb. But I also read that the property has sold (or at the very least deep in that process). The planning board says that 90% of the Irwindale site is going to become an industrial site. Sound Familiar?? Ca. Speedway comes to mind. But everything in CA takes forever because of "environmental" concerns. But with Tim and Lisa Huddleston going to run Harvick Raceway, I think that things must be pretty far along in the sales/development process. Tim has a long history with the track, as he raced there starting in 1999 when it opened. Plus, if my memory is still working, he's a SoCal resident. Both tracks traditionally ran on Sat nights, so splitting time would be near impossible, unless he ran one and Lisa the other. And that's a possibility, as she was very much involved in the day to day activities from what I've read. But I would absolutely now expect that Irwindale will close, and probably sooner than later unfortunately..