Fall foliage, short-track style

As the racing season ends and I start worrying just what I'm going to blog about every day so Tracie Cushman can get her on-line fix in the off-season, I realize there's still plenty going on right now.

Here are some highlights -- pace laps, if you will:

* Don't know how I never found the time to blog about this, but Kelly Moore hasn't made any friends over the last couple of weeks. First, he takes Matt Kobyluck out at New Hampshire during a Busch East Series race, then he takes out Johnny Clark, D.J. Shaw and a bunch of others in the PASS North Series race at Beech Ridge last Sunday.

There's a great element that part-time competitors bring to a race. They aren't concerned with points racing, they're there just to win and, with a resume like Moore's, they certainly bring some cache. But those guys have to respect who they're racing with, too. There are guys out there with, as Denny Hamlin is so fond of saying, "bigger fish to fry."

Moore got off the gas while leading the field to a restart on lap 197 Sunday, giving Benjamin reason to duck to the inside and make it 3-wide across the start-finish line. As the field went into turn 1, they bottled up and the result was a heap of cars atop turn 1. Clark was mad enough that he got out of his car, ran across the track to Moore's pit stall and stuck his head in Moore's car to have a word. Minutes later, Clark could still be seen with his arms in the air in the infield.

Moore's accomplishments speak for themselves -- he's done a lot over a fine career. He's in danger of tarnishing his reputation, however.

* Drag racing enjoys a cult following unlike any other sport. Maybe it's because if you can breathe nitro exhaust and live to tell about it, you're winning. Winning what, I have no idea. But John Force's injuries on Sunday are big news -- particularly for a man who lost a teammate to testing crash earlier this year, is larger than life in the auto racing scene and has built his own safety research facility.

Godspeed, John. Godspeed.

And if you haven't seen this about Force already, you should check it out.

* Kyle Petty had no right to do what he did, slapping Hamlin in the helmet during Sunday's 400-miler at Dover. But Hamlin had no right speaking of Petty the way he did, either.
Not that anyone cares, but here's my 2 cents: Drivers are responsible for driving their cars -- and that includes being responsible for avoiding slower cars. For Hamlin to say that the disparity between the frontrunners and the backmarkers makes it impossible to stay out of their way is hogwash.

I'm guessing when Hamlin was winning everything there was to win in a Late Model across Virginia a few years ago, there was an even greater disparity in the fields. He had no problems then keeping his car clean and winning races.

* This isn't a good sign for Unity Raceway. The track's annual season-ending Long John Open on Oct. 13 is going head-to-head with the PASS Sportsman championship weekend at White Mountain Motorsports Park. The highlight of the Long John is a $1,500-to-win Super Street event.

Most Super Street/Sportsman drivers that have been willing to travel for big shows this year have done so with PASS. It would be nice to see Unity go out with a big show in a year where the track has made gains toward getting back on Maine's short-track map, but that won't be so easy in this case.

* Who's got a camper? Anyone? Anyone? There's a Milk Bowl this weekend, or so I hear... Man, have I got the blogging bug bad. When kissing a cow seems like a good idea, something's seriously wrong.