| Phil Smith's Champ
Trail for 05/10/2011
Economy wise, things
have never been so bad. Millions of workers
are unemployed and fuel prices are soaring through the roof. Auto racing in
general has taken a hit. Competitors are staying home as are fans. Simply
put, they can't afford it. In the Northeast, Waterford drew a good crowd for
its opening day program as did Thompson and Stafford. Hopefully this trend
will carry through the season but don't bet on it. One track, in North
Carolina hit on the answer. They reduced the admission price to $10.00 per
event and so far have packed the place for the first two events. Most short
track operations are nothing more than open air restaurants. Most profits
that promoters make come from the sale of food and beverages. That's where
the real money is! The car racing is the draw that gets the people in the
place and as long as the promoter has enough to pay the purse from
admissions the rest is gravy. Give a working family a decent deal and they
will come. Get greedy and charge too much and they will stay home. You can't
sell beer, soda and hot dogs to empty seats!
The NASCAR Whelen
Modified Tour goes back on Spring Break before
returning on Friday, May 27 at Stafford for the TSI Harley-Davidson 125.
Rowan Pennink remains atop the point standings with a 20 point edge on Mike
Stefanik. Eric Beers holds down the third spot with Ted Christopher and Matt
Hirschman rounding out the top five.
The Stafford Motor
Speedway kicked off its Friday Night NASCAR
Whelen All-American Series schedule with 5 divisions of racing on Friday
night, May 6th. Keith Rocco picked up where he left off at the end of last
year as he scored his first Stafford win of the 2011 season in the 40-lap SK
Modified® feature event. Rocco, who won two at Waterford in early season
action, has a total of three wins for the year. Adam Gray took down his
first career victory in the 30-lap Late Model feature, Matt Galko was
declared the winner of the 20-lap SK Light Modified feature after race
winner Zach Aszklar's car did not meet the minimum ride height requirement,
Norm Sears returned to victory lane after a year away from Stafford Speedway
in the 20-lap Limited Late Model feature, and Don Wood drove to victory in
the 15-lap DARE Stock feature.
In action at the
Waterford Speedbowl, Jeff Pearl broke the ice
for 2011 as he won his 35th career victory. Bruce Thomas Jr. captured his
45th win in the Bob Valenti Auto Mall Late Model division, taking the
evening's 30-lap event. Ed Puleo overcame an intense battle in a special
50-lap Street Stock race, his second victory of the season while Chris
Williams was the winner of the 25-lap Mini Stock feature. Ryan Bigelow was
the winner in the visiting NEMA Lite Series 25-lap race.
In Modified action
south of the Mason-Dixon line at the Bowman
Gray Stadium in Winston-Salem, NC eight-time champion Tim Brown got his 55th
career victory in the first of two 25-lap races for the featured Modified
Division and it was Danny Bohn who was a surprise winner in the second race,
in just his third career start. Originally from New Jersey, Bohn works for
Ray Evernham and also races dirt cars. He started on the pole and led every
lap. Brown also went pole to pole. Jonathan Brown finished second to Bohn
while Burt and Jason Myers followed Brown.
The Thompson Speedway
will begin it's regular Thursday night
race programming this coming Thursday, May 12. The Sunoco Modified division
will see a big increase in their race pay off this Thursday thanks to
LaFramboise Well Drilling and Water Service of Thompson. The winner of this
week's 30-lap main event will receive $2,000.00 for their efforts and just
about everyone else will see additional money thanks to the local well
drilling and water service company.
In TV land NASCAR Now on espn2 can be seen at 5:00pm on Tuesday and
Wednesday and at 5:30pm on Thursday. NASCAR Now will air on Saturday at
10:00am. NASCAR Race Hub will air on the Speed Channel at 7:00pm on Tuesday,
Wednesday and Thursday This weeks race viewing begins on Tuesday at 4:00
with IndyCar Open Wheel Weekly on Versus. Wednesday's viewing begins at noon
on the Speed Channel with a replay of last Saturday night's NASCAR Sprint
Cup Showtime Southern 500 that was run at Darlington. On Thursday at noon,
Speed will replay last weeks Nationwide Series event that was run at
Darlington. At 3:00pm Speed replays last year's Sprint Cup Autism Speaks 400
that was run at Dover. At 6:00pm the action continues on Speed with the
April 17 NASCAR K&N Pro Series East, South Boston 150 that was held in South
Boston, VA. Speed goes live on Friday morning at 10:00am with Truck Series
qualifying from Dover. Starting at 11:00am the rest of the morning and most
of the afternoon until 4:30 will be consumed by Sprint Cup and Nationwide
Series practice. The truck series will qualify at 6:00pm followed by
TrackSide at 7:00pm. At 8:00pm Speed hosts a pre-race show that will lead to
the 8:30pm start of the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Lucas Oil 200 at
Dover. SPEED Center on Speed closes out the day at 11:00pm. Saturday's
viewing starts at 10:00 on espn2 with NASCAR Now followed by Nationwide
Series qualifying at 10:30. At 11:30 the action switches to Speed for NASCAR
Live followed by Sprint Cup qualifying from Dover. ESPN hosts the pre-race
show for the Nationwide Series which will lead to the 2:00pm start of the
NASCAR Nationwide Series 5-hour Energy 200 at Dover. At 6:00pm Versus has
the Lucas Oil Motorsport Hour. At 8:00pm Speed Center on Speed sums up the
days racing. NASCAR Hall of Fame Biography featuring Bobby Allison, follows
at 8:30. Sunday's TV viewing begins at 10:00am with Speed Center on Speed
followed by two hours of RaceDay starting at 10:30. FOX goes live at 12:30pm
with their pre-race that will lead to the 1:00pm start of the NASCAR Sprint
Cup, FedEx 400 at Dover. Rounding out the day will be Speed Center at 7:00,
Victory Lane at 8:00 and Wind Tunnel with Dave Despain at 9:00.
On the Speedway Stock
Market scene last week two of the three
speedway stocks had negative results for the week. Dover Entertainment had a
positive ending as they went up 0.07 to 2.02 while Speedway Motorsports
dropped 1.04 to 15.54 and the International Speedway Corporation dropped
0.92 to 29.68. NASCAR Cup sponsor Sprint went up 0.02 to 5.20 while NASCAR
fuel supplier Sun Oil dropped 1.57 to 41.09 and NASCAR tire supplier
Goodyear dropped 0.59 to 17.56. The car builders were also a victim of the
off week. Ford dropped 0.36 to 15.11 while General Motors dropped 0.18 to
31.91 and Toyota dropped 0.58 to 79.10. Ditto for the home improvement
sector as Home Depot dropped 0.16 to 36.99 and Lowes dropped 0.61 to 25.64.
The big team sponsors were all over the lot. Dupont dropped 2.16 to 54.63
while Coca-Cola dropped 4.12 to 66.33. Target Department Stores went up 1..41
to 50.51 while Aaron's Rentals dropped 1.36 to 27.43 and Fedex dropped 0.02
to 95.65.
Sunoco, Inc.'s
Board of Directors declared a cash dividend for
the second quarter of 2011 of $0.15 per share on all full shares of common
stock outstanding, payable June 10, 2011 to shareholders of record at the
close of business on May 19, 2011.
That's it for this week
from 11 Gardner Drive, Westerly RI
02891. Ring my chimes at 401-596-5467. E-Mail is smithpe_97_97@yahoo.com
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