ron.brown11

I don't know Rodney, but I'll try and find out.

Here is the top the top 10 as I caught them. First: Car 63 Layne Riggs in Harvick's #62 Ford Mustang; Second: Car #14 Jared Fryar in his Ford Mustang; Third: car #8 Carson Kvapil in his JR Motorsports Camaro; Forth: Car 24 Mason Diaz in his Ford Mustang; With: Car 10 Kaden Honeycutt in his Ford Mustang; Sixth: Bobby McCorty in his #6 Ford Mustang; Seventh: Car 03 Brendan Queen in his Toyota: Eighth is #77 Connor Hall in his Toyota Ninth; Is Kyle Larson in his JR Motorsports car # 5 Camaro. Chad McCumby finished 10th in his #16 Ford Mustang. Three cars that really impressed me: Riggs driving a new car to him, and winning the race. Mason Diaz started in 24th, and drove it to finish 4th. That's a lot of passing.. Bobby McCarty started about 8th, but was sent to the rear (30th) for spinning a car out (and that was a questionable call by the officials). Bobby passed the most cars (25), to get to 6th. And he did it cleanly. It was a really good showing for the Ford drivers tonight, as they finished 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th, 6th & 10th. Thankfully nobody got hurt in the 2-3 spins that happened. The whole night was a good show of all involved.

Riggs took the lead with 57 laps to go. Kaden drops to 6th, and Larson is 10th. He's driving the same car that Dale Jr drove at Wilksboro. Riggs' crew chief stated that Layne says that this is the best car he's ever driven. I guess, Rodney Childers spent a year building it for Harvick. They're under a comp yellow with 27 laps to go. Queen is 4th.

At lap 75 under yellow, Kaden is 5th. Fryar is running a strong 3rd, Larson is 11th. Queen is 4th.

40 laps in, Kaden is up to 8th. Riggs is really strong, running 2nd in Harvick's car.

Mayfield didn't last long, dropped off the track after just 15 laps. Kaden is up to 12th, 18 laps in. Larson is now 15th, as they are under yellow for a single car spin.

Some interesting things from the starting line up for the CARS tour late models. Jeremy Mayfield is in it, starting 31st. I can't remember the last time I saw his name in a race. Kyle Larson is making his CARS debut, starting 16th. Kaden Honeycutt didn't have a good qualifying run, clocking in 17th. Lanye Riggs qualified 3rd in Kevin Harvick's #62 car. This is only the second time that car has been on track, as Harvick ran it at the North Wilksboro race. Fryar will start 4th, and Brendan Queen starts 6th. Should be a good race! Kayden Kvapil won the Pro Late model race earlier, and Katie Hettinger finished second in the opening night 100 lapper. Hettinger was holding the series point lead prior to the start of the race. I don't know if Kvapil passed her tonight, but it is a very tight points race. I'm telling you, Katie Hettinger is a name to keep your eye on. She's a driver!

As much as I was disappointed for how bad Kaden's night went, the finish more than made up for it. I'm a big fan of Brendan "Butterbean" Queen, from Hampton, VA. I expect that he will get to either the truck of Xfinity series pretty soon. He lead all but about 5 laps (the last 5 laps), when Carson Kvapil got up to him. They raced 3 straight laps side by side, and as they say, rubbing is racing. And not the kind of rubbing that puts one or both into the wall. But with 2 laps to go, Bobby McCarty dove underneath both of them coming off turn two, and again nobody is crashing!! McCarty beats Butterbean at the line by 9 thousanths of a second. Again, nobody crashed!! It took me 10 minutes to stop clapping, it was that good. To show how really excited I was about the finish, I spent the next 10 minutes explaining it to my wife! That was a great race, with an even better finish.

Kaden qualified 3rd at Dominion for the CARS Tour race. Was running 3rd, 19 laps in, and something broke. What a shame, as it looked like he had a good car again tonight.

Outstanding!! I truly think that there is hope for asphalt racing in TX. Wishing you all nothing but the best Rodney!

Heck of a wheelman for sure. The talent is obviously there, and hopefully a team that has good sponsorship can pick him up. It's really hard these days to get good rides if you aren't bringing either a big sponsor, or a fat wallet. He led all but 30 laps (the first & last 15 laps of the race). At the beginning of the race, he was running 3rd, where he started. About lap 8, there were 3-4 cars behind him that were really getting aggressive, nearly wrecking him a couple of times. It looked like the flip of a switch. He just drove away from them, then passed the first 2 cars. As I watch the races from Langley very often, I figured that Hall & Queen were conserving their tires. But after the 2 comp cautions, and a couple more for crashes, he was still leading. He had 2/10s on second & third. On lap 16, Hall & Queen flipped the switch, and passed him on lap 15. Kaden ran about 2/10s behind them the rest of the race. With the exception of all the lights going out, and that hard 4 car crash, it was a fun race to watch. If the SRL & the CARS Tour can continue their upward trajectories, I really think that can have a very positive effect on asphalt late model racing across the country. This Wed is the Money in the Bank at Berlin Raceway. Carson Hocevar & Eric Jones from NASCAR will be on hand. So will Bubba Pollard. I was kind of surprised that William Byron won't be there defending his win there last year. He won at New Smyrna in Feb. Byron has a really good super late model program. But the car I think will win is a local youngster named Evan Shotko. I don't think he's 20 yet. Not only is he a wheelman, he's the head set up guy for several of the Berlin regulars in several divisions. Hocevar was a regular & a champion at Berlin before getting to NASCAR. I think Shotko is better, but doesn't have the big sponsors the he did. So like Honeycutt, $$$ may stunt their careers. I sure hope not.

With 15 laps to go, Connor Hall & Brendan Queen muscled past Kaden. Kaden finished 3rd. Both Hall & Queen are from Hampton, VA, and Langley is their home track. Queen has won the last 3 late model track championships there. Both have won numerous mains there over the last 5 seasons. Langley is really hard on tires, and I think that was the difference in the end. Both have run many short & long races there.

Well that wasn't fun. With 30 laps to go, all of the track lighting went out under green. Amazingly nobody crashed!! They were off for about 2 minutes. Kaden is still leading!

Hard 4 car crash, but Kaden is still in the lead with 38 laps to go.

With 45 laps to go, Kaden is still leading. They just got the last competition caution of the race. So far, except for the 2 comp cautions, the race has gone green. I expect that to change once it goes bad green.

Kaden started 3rd for the 125 lap race. He took the lead 15 laps in. After 48 laps, and 1 restart, he's still leading..

This is why I've talked at length on here before. FloRacing has an outstanding variety of racing from around the world. If you're into it (I'm not because I grew up in very cold winters), they even have snowmobile racing. Plus, it's a Texas company. There's nothing like being there in person, but it ain't bad.

It's true, sick minds do think alike Rodney. Late models & super late models have just about priced themselves out of a weekly show. If a track can put a good purse out there for a couple of specials a season, it's a lot more likely they can attract a bunch of the traveling late models. I love the mods idea, but the rules will need to limit the tires strictly, or make the run a crate engine (both preferably). That would put the onus on driving the car, as opposed to buying all the expensive stuff. I will always love the open mods, but they too are pricing themselves out of being a weekly series. NASCAR used to have a series called Grand American Modifieds (they may still have). The rules were fairly restrictive. No quick changes; stock front clips; only upper control arms could be tubular; 360ci engines w/steel or albumin heads; Steel non-rebuildable shocks; Steel cranks that weigh at least 52lbs; no aluminum rods with an inspection hole in the oil pan to check; stock type trans with at least 2 forward gears & reverse; must be able to start/take off from a stopped position; a clutch no smaller then 7"; no in/out boxes; 8" tires that are of a hard compound; 2600 lbs & max 58% left side weight with the driver; the track width no wider than 78" measured from outside to outside of the tires; must run a spool in the ear end; no drilled axles; coilovers on the rear only. I'm probably missing a couple of items, but the thrust of the rules is to try and keep the cost of the car down. There's a class that runs at LaCrosse Speedway that's very interesting. I have not looked at their rules for that division, but here's some of the cars I've seen race in it. Old (60s & 70s) late model/sportsman cars; modifieds; outlaws & 6 cylinder street stocks. Plus, all cars must run in a lap time bracket. If they bust that bracket, the are DQ'd. That way nobody can go faster than the bracket, and you can basically run anything. I know that some of the cars run a rev limiter, as you can hear the engines cut out. I was surprised the first time I saw that class race, but it was a blast to watch. As loose as all the cars are, I'm guessing that they must run old take off tires. One guy runs a 1965 Chevelle, that was an old late model track champion's car. It had been sitting in a field for over 3 decades! The entire purpose was just that. To get these old discarded race cars back racing, and at a pretty suppressed cost. Their average car count for that division is about 20 cars nightly.

That's the ticket Rodney, streamlining the show. Nobody wants to sit through shows that drag on forever. If you look at the really successful operations around the country, they usually have 2 major things in common. Limit the show to no more than 4-5 divisions (4 seems to be the magic number), and that the show is over in about 4 hours. A third thing that helps a lot too, is not having 2-3-4 classes that can't be told apart from one another by the casual observer. Hell, there shouldn't even be any qualifying, except for the highest class of cars, that are running that night. Nobody wants to sit through 2 or more classes qualifying. Qualifying is almost as bad as sitting through packing the track. Another thing that gets fans mad/bored is having drivers that make the show about them. You know, the ones that prolong cautions after they spun/got spun, just sit there until a caution comes out, or contests a lineup position when they were a straightaway behind the position they're contesting when the caution came out. That's one of the reasons that I love the shows from Stafford Speedway. They will simply park you for the night, or longer should the need arises. If you get out of your car and walk away, they drag it off the track (not gently either), and you'll get a month off to think about it. The funny this is, you'd think that would hurt car counts. It doesn't! Almost all of the drivers, in all the classes respect that the show is for the paying public, and they try very hard to give a good show. Every track can have some stinky shows, there's no avoiding that. But if that's the norm instead of the exception, that's a track that going to have issues with fan and car counts in their near future.

I'll need more than a starter kit lol.. I went through an entire military career, and more than a decade of owning/operating my insurance agency. I never kept a day planner or calendar to remind me of things. Now, I am very grateful for the invention of post it note pads. I still have a great memory for things that happened in the mid to distant past. Names & current memories not so much. But in fairness to me, names have always been hard. Because everyone has their name on their uniform, I never gave much emphasis on remembering names. I wish I had though.

Nick, you don't want to watch me type. You wouldn't want me doing play by play lol.. I jotted down a few things, and the rest was trying to remember details. Oh yeah, only after the race was either over, or under a yellow. You see, I can type while I'm watching something, you just won't understand what I was trying to say. I doubt I would understand either. 24nomo, I agree. There were a few cars with asphalt damage. As much as I think the heavier cars are going to cause a problem, I think the width/grip of those tires will be even a bigger problem. This new car has a tremendous amount of lateral grip, right up until they don't. And that ledge seems to be very narrow. I really think that Brendan Queen has a bright future, if he can stay funded. Last season, at Langley, a guy offered him a chance to run his modified (it was a decent car, but no where near that of the defending champ's). He qualified on the front row, and through several cautions to keep the field close, he beat the 2 time defending mod champ going away. He ran some dirt races (not sure what tracks), and won a couple of them too. He was worried that he was going to be labeled as a 1 track wonder, so he raced at other tracks when it didn't conflict with his title hunt at Langley. I was really happy for him when he was able to hook up with Lee Pulliam. I'm thinking the Lee's pretty happy too. Last year he won the Hampton Heat at Langley, in his family owned car. It's their biggest race of the season, and a pretty good payday too. Lots of big names were there. He qualified up front, lead a couple of laps, and then fell to the rear of the lead lap cars. The announcers were losing their minds, worrying about him about to be lapped. And he was. At 1 point he was 3 car lengths short of being lapped. When he felt it was time, it was like he just flipped a switch, and drove to the front. When he made his pit stop, all they did was change tires. Not 1 adjustment. He's a young guy, but he's already learned how & when to race. To be there at the end, with something that's capable of winning. I think that he's won right at half of the races that he's run for Lee. With Lee's background, Brendan will get a lot of eyes on him at higher levels. I don't think it will happen, but I would really love to see Dylan Cappello get more chances to race. I'm guessing that "free time" isn't something that crew members of a Cup team have a lot of.

Bubba Pollard wins the ASA Super Series 150 in a Ford, William Byron was second, Chase Elliot was third; 11th was Ty Majeski; Sammy Smith was 4th; Derek Thorn was 9th. Suarez was 5th. That was about all of the top 10 that I caught without the ticker running. Good clean hard racing. Very enjoyable race to watch. There was a pretty good crowd considering that it's a week night.

At the stage break at lap 100 of 150, Chase Elliot, William Byron, Bubba Pollard, Danial Suarez, & Ty Majeski is you top 5. Derek Thorn won the last Snowball Derby is 6th. This has been a very clean fast race so far. Can't wait to see these last 50 laps!!

They just interviewed Jared Fryar. He was wearing a cool Freddy Fryar hat.

OK time now for the ASA super late model race!