RICK @ the RACES ( 1st to 6th November 2011)
3/4/5 Nov Dirt Track World Finals Charlotte. NC
This past week, I made my second visit to the Dirt Track World Finals which are held annually in Charlotte, North Carolina. When the SUPER DIRT SERIES Big Block Modifieds were added to the weekend program for 2010 it prompted me to make the trip, and I didn’t regret it. After that initial visit, the Dirt Track World Finals were instantly added to my yearly ‘must do’ list, and I was looking forward to doing it again in 2011.
From my home in Cornwall, Ontario, the journey takes about 14 hours of ‘actual driving’ so like last year, my plan was to sleep in the car for a few hours somewhere along the way. I’d booked a few days vacation, and was ready to head south after I’d finished work on Tuesday (1 Nov) . In my job, I’m never certain what time I’ll get finished, but lucky for me, things were quiet that day, and I was done by 2-30pm. By 4-30pm , my HHR was loaded and I was ready to hit the road.
I crossed into the USA at Ogdensburg NY around 5-30 pm and was soon heading south. The drawback of driving through the night at this time of the year, is the abundance of deer. Just before Binghamton NY, I had a near miss, when a big doe, ran across the road in front of me. This kind of incident, ‘slows you down’ a bit and forced me to be extra vigilant as I continued my drive. By about 2-00 am in the morning, I’d reached the Flying J Truck Stop at Carlisle PA, where I parked up for a few hours sleep. My bed was already made up in the back of the HHR and I was ready to ‘crash out’.
By 7-00am I was back on the road again and heading west on 181 , towards Maryland , West Virginia, and Virginia. The Virginia stretch of 181 to the 177 always seems to drag on for a long time, and to make things worse , extra delays were in store for me. At Salem, just west of Roanoke, the highway was closed for ‘rock blasting’ where all the traffic had to exit for a long detour through the mountains . This put another unwanted hour on to my journey.
It was about 5-30 pm on Wednesday evening, that I pulled into the Hooters restaurant in Charlotte, where I’d arranged to meet my buddy and host for the weekend Martin Clarke. Martin, a fellow auto racing media guy , like me, is originally from the UK, (Colchester, Essex) and he now lives and works just a short drive from the Charlotte Motor Speedway. After supper we returned to his place where I’d be based for the weekend.
The World Finals are a three day event that start on Thursday and end on Saturday night. The ‘sign in’ began at 11-00am and I was one of the first in line. Other early arrivals that I chatted to, included DIRTCAR’s Gary Spaid and Modified driver Gary Tomkins.
Once the sign in was done , and I’d been issued with my ‘media vest’ , I went for a wander around the pits.
One of the first people I spotted was Tim Kerr, the lone Canadian representative in the Modified division.
Tim from Picton , Ontario raced in the event last year and was back down for some more action. I also chatted with, Ontario’s Stewart Friesen . After his big wreck at the OCFS Eastern States Weekend two weeks ago, he was unable to get another car ready in time, so was helping out his Sprint Car friend Jessica Zemken in the pits.
I also chatted to Mike Adderley # 99 , who up until recently was one of my local drivers (Watertown NY) . He has since moved to Charlotte NC and this is now his local track.
Mike became the latest driver to attache a Rick at the Races decal to his car. The ‘on track’ action wasn’t due to get underway until the afternoon, so I spent some of my down time taking a look at the local attractions. Last year I visited some of the nearby race shops, and my plan for this year was to visit, the ones I’d missed.
First port of call was the Earnhardt Ganassi shop where I saw the Juan Pablo Montoya and Jamie McMurry cars. 
From here I went to the Roush Fenway , where there was quite a bit to see. Amongst the museum displays , were the cars of Carl Edwards , David Regan, Greg Biffle and Matt Kenseth. 
( I had the pleasure of meeting Matt Kenseth a while back when he was a guest at the Canadian Motor Sports Expo in Toronto).
It was then time to head back to the ‘Dirt Track at Charlotte’ which is located just across the street from the super speedway. Most of the ‘on track’ action on the first night was for hot laps and time trials for all three divisions .
The World of Outlaw Sprints and World of Outlaw Late Models confined themselves to doing this while the Super Dirt Series Big Block Mods did their qualifying heats.
While on the center, I met up with my photographer friends Bobby Armbruster ( OCFS) Derek Covey (Fonda) and Mike Petrucci (Race Pro Weekly). Over the weekend Mike was in the right place at the right time to catch the Modified rollover of Ohio’s Rex King # 65, so I will include his shot in this report.
As the Sprints were doing their time trials, Mother Nature intervened , and the falling rain cut short the evening.
The weather forecast for Friday was for on and off rain until the mid afternoon, and sure enough, that’s how it turned out.
I had plenty of down time again and spent the morning on an organized tour of the super speedway.
This was very enjoyable and included a high speed ( over 80mph) trip around the track in a small mini bus.
Bob, our driver and tour guide later told me, he used to drive Modifieds.
After this I took an afternoon drive out to Cornelius NC, where the Micheal Waltrip Racing team is based.
One of my favourite NASCAR Sprint Cup drivers is David Reutimann # 00 and I wanted to see his cars. Little did I know, that just a couple of days later, I would learn that he’d been let go from the team, in favor of Mark Martin.
It was then time to get back to the ‘Dirt Track’ for the nights races. First thing on my agenda was my usual tour of the pits where I had a long chat with Keith Tomkins , who I found beside his son Gary’s # 673 car.
I’ve know Gary and his dad for quite a while , and I always enjoying talking to them. I also met up with Jeff Marshall , one of my local 358 Mod drivers from Fort Covington NY. He was helping out with the Twin Leaf team of Carey Terrance and Dale Planck.
Thanks to Jeff, there are now two Rick at the Races decals attached to Dale’s Late Model.
Once the racing action got under way the Modified Feature provided a victory to another of my local drivers, ‘T Mac’ , Tim McCreadie of Watertown NY.
The Late model feature went to Jonathan Davenport while Donny Schatz won in the Sprints.I didn’t stay to see Schatz take his win, as by now, it was past mid night and I had to be up early in the morning. Martin my host was leaving for a vacation in Puerto Rico and had to be at the airport early in the morning.
Once Martin was safely on his travels I went to a Saturday morning classic car show that is held regularly in a Charlotte shopping mall parking lot.
There was plenty of ‘eye candy’ there, which included the likes of Ferrari, De Tomaso, Jaguar , Lambourghini and many others.
After this I made another visit to the Hendricks Racing Museum, which I’d visited last year .
With all the history and success of this team, it’s always worth a second look.
I returned to the ‘Dirt Track’ early for this, the final day, because I wanted to get a good parking spot, where I could get away quickly at the end.
The racing was really good and was being televised live by the SPEED TV network.
As mentioned earlier, it was the Super Dirt Series Modifieds that had attracted me to this event, and their big race was a good one. It went the full forty laps without a caution with Billy Decker and Matt Sheppard trading the lead in the early stages until Sheppard pulled away. In the mean time ‘T Mac’ was carving his way through the pack and by lap 34 was on Sheppard’s back bumper. On lap 37 he managed to edge past and charged the last three laps to the checkers. Matt Sheppard’s second place was enough to wrest the Super Dirt Series Championship from his nearest rival, Decker.
By now it was 10-15 pm and with a long journey ahead of me, I got ready to make my exit. As Donny Schatz was taking his second Sprint Car win , I took off, choosing to miss the final Late Model race. ( won by Jimmy Owens)
By midnight, I was at the McDonalds restaurant at the foot of the Fancy Gap mountain in Virginia, before heading further north and into the night. I was ready for a sleep by about 2-00am and parked up the HHR ‘somewhere in Virginia’.
Once awake, I was on the road again , taking it easy and heading back up 181. With plenty of stops on route which included a Chinese supper in Ogdensburg NY , I was back home in Cornwall , by 7-30pm on Sunday night.
This concluded my 2011 Dirt Track World Final trip to North Carolina, and possibly my last racing event of the year …. well, Maybe !