Junior, Hendrick team up for win

DAYTONA BEACH -- The more things change, the more they stay the same.

New cars, new color schemes and one of the most celebrated driver changes in NASCAR history produced the same old results Saturday night at Daytona International Speedway. Following up on the dominance of Hendrick Motorsports last season, Dale Earnhardt Jr. found his new digs quite to his liking, passing Tony Stewart as the field headed to the white flag en route to the win in the exhbition Budweiser Shootout.

"That was fun," Earnhardt said in victory lane, his first win in his first outing behind the wheel of Hendrick Motorsports' No. 88 Chevrolet. "The shootout is a neat race. I had a blast."

Earnhardt got drafting help from new teammate and 2-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson.

"I have to thank my teammates," said Earnhardt, who also won the 2003 shootout. "I didn't win that race without Jimmie pushing me. I just didn't win it."

Stewart momentarily broke the Hendrick stranglehold on the top-3 positions by driving past Earnhardt, Johnson and Jeff Gordon for the lead with less than 10 laps to go, but the fleet of cars in NASCAR's superteam ganged up to overtake Stewart.

"He's one of the best restrictor plate drivers there's ever been," Stewart said. "He learned a lot from his dad, and I'm not sure he's not better than his dad."

The Earnhardt-Hendrick marriage was apparently blessed in Daytona heaven. Junior's followed in his father's footsteps with a mastery of restrictor-plate racing, and now he's paired with a team that's also had restrictor plate success. Between them, Earnhardt (3) and Gordon (5) have 8 trips to Daytona's storied victory lane in either the Daytona 500 or the Shootout.

Four of those wins are in the 500, a race Earnhardt knows he's capable of winning again. After taking the checkered flag on Saturday night, he told his team over the radio that his car was "probably a 500 winner."

That's bad news for the rest of the field, considering teams usually reserve their best pieces for the 500 and run backup cars or experimental ones in the Shootout. Ultimately, what Earnhardt's win Saturday night does is simply serve notice that Hendrick is poised to pick up right where it left off in 2007 with a 1-2 finish in the final Cup standings.

"I thought we'd have to be a lot more patient (for wins) after all our hard work," Earnhardt said.

Tapley is spot on

Steve Tapley has seen thousands of short-track races over the years from some of the best spots in the house.

When you're a spotter on a race team, you get that kind of privilege. When you're good at what you do, you get to Daytona International Speedway. Saturday afternoon, Tapley was on top of the massive tower atop the fronstretch grandstands, spotting for Fadden Racing and its 19-year-old driver, Max Dumarey in the ARCA 200.

Testing aside, an ARCA race at Talladega Superspeedway last fall, Daytona is the biggest track Tapley has spotted on -- so big, in fact, that teams are required 2 spotters. Team owner Mike Olsen manned the station on the backstretch for the 200.

"It's easier here than at Talladega," Tapley said of spotting at Daytona, which goes beyond the routine calls of 'clear.' "The cars move around so much there, it makes it hard. Mostly here you're just trying to let (Dumarey) know if he's hung out alone or let him know if there's people lined up to help him out. That way, he's not anticipating having help passing cars ahead of him when there's nobody there."

In addition to spotting for Dumarey, who has 5 ARCA races, a full Camping World East Series slate and 2 West Series dates on the slate this season, Tapley also spots for Maine racer Mike Rowe in the PASS North Series and PASS South Series.

"I do that when time permits," said Tapley, 45, of Hillsboro, N.H. "(Olsen's) really good about giving me time to help Mike Rowe out."

On lap 30 of the scheduled 80, Dumarey was caught up in a 20-car pileup following pit stops that put the team out of the race. Tapley was disappointed as he walked back to the infield.

"This is the hardest part for me," he said. "Until I talk to the driver, I always beat myself up. Whether it's here or at Unity, I beat myself up about what I could have done differently until I talk to the driver."

Dumarey absolved Tapley of any responsibility, saying the track had been completely blocked.

Test day

Don't believe the schedule. Drivers are still testing at Daytona International Speedway.

Only days after NASCAR chief Brian France pledged to allow drivers to loosen up and be themselves a little bit more, final practice for tonight's Bud Shootout may have put France's words to the test sooner than anyone imagined.

"Are we supposed to walk the line and see where we step over it and where are we going to get fined when we go too far?" Dale Earnhardt Jr. asked aloud during media day on Thursday. "What are they saying?"

Apparently Tony Stewart and Kurt Busch are trying to find out exactly where that line is and what exactly NASCAR is saying. After tangling viciously during practice on Friday night, the drivers -- who have a history with one another, including a wreck in last year's Daytona 500 -- were summoned to the NASCAR hauler for some serious tongue-lashing. Several media outlets are reporting that Stewart may have thrown a punch at Busch; and the Hartford Courant is suggesting that even that activity may have spilled over later in the evening.

Neither driver confirmed anything during television interviews during practice this morning.

France and NASCAR are in a tough position.

On the one hand, France has pledged for drivers to be themselves, and part of that, certainly, is to bring the sport back to its grassroots level to some extent. But allowing fisticuffs and on-track shenanigans to sneak through could be dangerous, too, if it is allowed to escalate.

Fines, yes. Absolutely. Points? It would be hard to justify stripping teams of championship points before the season even starts, for something that happened in practice for an exhibition race. Don't expect swift judgement here, as NASCAR will certainly play their hand carefully here.

Wrapping up the day in racing...

Does Kenny Wallace really need an energy drink? I mean, if anything, this is the guy who should take whatever is running through his veins, bottle that and sell it to guys like me who are up all night in front of a computer.

Despite that, Wallace has signed with Armando Fitz to run the full NASCAR Nationwide Series this season with sponsorship from Shark Energy Drink, the second-largest energy drink in the world behind only Red Bull.

Getting Shark into stock car racing has a New England connection. RT Raceparts of Hudson, N.H., will use its RT Beverage division to distribute Shark across the region. It's also likely that considering Rob Towers' involvement in racing, Shark will show up on cars locally.

I'm already hearing that up-and-comer ACT racer Joey Polewarczyk and the PASS North Series team of Ben Rowe could soon be among the first with Shark logos slapped on their cars.

*****

Vermonter and ACT regular Eric Chase led all 25 laps to win the Crate Late Model feature Friday night at the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing at New Smyrna Speedway. It was the first career Late Model win for Chase, who finished 11th in the ACT standings in 2007.

"Man, that was a wreckfest, but we made it through,” Chase said in a release issued by ACT. “It was nervewracking trying to get the first lap in; we had 3 yellow flags and a red flag before one lap was complete. I almost crashed the car on one of the restarts, but we held on and got the job done.”

In another feature, Louie Mechalides, led by crew chief Johnny Clark, rallied to finish 10th in the 35-lap Super Late Model feature after being involved in an early multi-car wreck. Driving for Jay Cushman, Trevor Sanborn ran in the top-6 for most of that race before pulling off in the closing laps.

*****

NASCAR Camping World East Series driver Max Dumarey, a native of Belgium, qualified 5th for Saturday's ARCA 200 at Daytona.

Dumarey was a rookie in the East Series last season while driving for owner Mike Olsen. Dumarey's spotter is Steve Tapley, who also spots for Mike Rowe in Super Late Model competition.

Day 1.5: Late night by the lake

Kind of like it used to be here at Daytona International Speedway, once you get by Dale you're going to make some magic happen.

This time around Dale is not the late Dale Earnhardt. Dale is Dale Ross, one of the seasonal employees of the track who wards over the infield gate at the speedway. Roll up in rental car with identification from north of the Mason-Dixon line, and, well -- let's just say you'd better be prepared to catch some flack.

"They let too many of you guys in here," Dale said, referring to media members. "They come from all over the world. What do we need you (northerners) for to cover a southern race?"

It's a very good question. Maybe Dale's heard that NASCAR's popularity spans the globe. Maybe he just doesn't care.

But once you're by Dale, the world of DIS opens up. The massive grandstands, the endless backstretch, the twisting turns of the road course and, of course, Lake Lloyd.

Two things jumped out at me most, my first impressions of one of the world's most famous racing facilities.

First, the grandstands along the backstretch are incredibly expansive, larger than television is able to capture -- in part because the camera angle from the frontstretch tower makes them seem short and also because the cars blur by so fast it makes them seem short.

Second is just how far you have to drive to even get close to turn 3 after entering from the tunnel below turn 1. It seemed that we drove forever, past several different motorhome lots, from one end of Lake Lloyd to the other, by several garages. Heck, we even got lost trying to get out. There really are that many ways to go, the racing surface is so large.

The other thing that caught my attention, of course, were the bass in Lake Lloyd, gurgling to the surface to feed under the lights of the track. Unfortunately, I'm apparently an outdoors writer without an ounce of self-respect -- all this access to water and hungry fish in open water and my fishing gear is almost 1,500 miles away.

Amazing how peaceful such a hornet's nest of activity can be, less than 12 hours before roaring stock cars start piercing through the air and across the pavement.

Day 1: Getting here

This is on the list of the top 5 things you expect to hear when you're in an airplane, some 35,000 feet above solid ground...

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain. It appears we are experiencing some difficulties with ..."

This is on the list of the top 5 things you DON'T expect to hear when you're in an airplane, some 35,000 feet above solid ground...

"... with the lavatories. It seems they are not flushing. We're about an hour and a half from landing in Orlando, so if you can please hold on, that would be greatly appreciated."

It's no wonder I don't fly. First they tell you to stay hydrated, then they tell you not to flush. What gives?

*****

You're not in Kansas anymore, Toto.

How do I know? As if the palm trees standing outside the pit booth at New Smyrna Speedway weren't enough, The Caretaker certainly took care of clueing me in.

Stopped off for one of the best burgers I've ever had, at a true authentic burger joint -- a Steak 'n Shake restaurant. I highly recommend the vanilla shake. And the double cheeseburger. Wolfed that down, then high-tailed it with The Godfather over to New Smyrna for the first of 9 consecutive nights of racing at the World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing.

It didn't disappoint, no matter that The Godfather and I waited almost 20 minutes in line just to get to the pit window. No, Unity Raceway this isn't...

And yes, they race all night. And yes, it does get chilly in the wee hours in New Smyrna -- but still not as cold as it was when I left Maine earlier in the day, and no white stuff on the ground.

*****

New Smyrna Speedway rose out of the Florida flatlands like a real "Field of Dreams." Very, very eerie. It's darkness along a county road, interrupted by the glow of lights and the roaring race engines (even the crate ones!).

It's as high-banked and fast as promised, and they wadded up more than a few cars pretty good, too. But that's part of the whole process, I suppose -- throw an entire season's worth of racing into barely more than week.

Awesome. I can hardly wait to head back...

Following the pack

So, if a group of Mainers can head to Florida for Speedweeks, then so can I.

Jay Cushman has been fielding cars in New Smyrna's World Series of Asphalt Racing for years now, and he's taking young Maine driver Trevor Sanborn with him this year. 2-time PASS North Series champion Johnny Clark is there working as a crew chief for Louie Mechalides' Super Late Model effort. Clark's usual crew chief, Robert Green, is heading down to work with Cushman.

I figure if they can do it, so can I.

I've never been to Daytona, but I will be there for the 500. I hear it's a pretty big deal. We'll see.

I know this much — I'm as excited for New Smyrna as I am for Daytona. From people who have been to both, I'm hearing that I'm not too far off the mark for that sentiment.

I know it's supposed to snow here every day this week. I also know it's been in the 80s all week in eastern Florida. I'm not one to shy away from old man winter, but I admit it's probably going to feel nice to throw on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts come Friday afternoon. Did I mention the flip-flops?

Then it's 10 days of covering racing's rock stars. When I told Oxford Plains Speedway owner Bill Ryan that I was going to be there for 10 days, he asked if I knew a good divorce lawyer.

Funny. I get that.

Beaches. Stock cars. The Daytona 500.

Do I even need to be married anymore?

Daddy wants to drive "a NASCAR"

Uh-oh. I feel a rant coming on...

You know what I can't stand? I can't stand hearing someone refer to a NASCAR stock car as "a NASCAR." God, does that ever grind my gears. I mean, it's one thing if my wife says it or Kelly Ripa says it (let's be honest, we'd take it with a grain of salt) but when a self-proclaimed race fan says it...

Oh, man, oh, man. Revoke the "official fan" card. For life. Know what I'm saying?

Saw on another message board where someone said Dale Jr.'s "NASCAR" was going to be on display at a local business this week. Jeezum criminy — my 4-year-old knows the difference.

And while we're on the subject:

* They're not Pro Stocks.

I can't believe I'm about to quote Marco Thomas (heck, I'd venture that even Marco can't believe I'm about to quote Marco Thomas), but he's absolutely right. A Pro Stock is a drag racing car, not a short-track oval car.

It's a Super Late Model. Period. I will forever refer to it as a Super Late Model, even if I'm covering the 50-lap (Super Late Model) feature at Wiscasset Raceway this summer. If the regional touring series running the same cars (read: PASS North Series) says they're Super Late Models, I'll go with that as the standard.

Pro Stock is a northeast thing for some reason. Rest of the country calls them Super Late Models. Let's get with the times here people.

* NASCAR's done some good things regarding the top-35 automatically qualifying for its races this year, grouping those cars together at the end of a qualifying session to give them a fair shot against one another. I'm with that.

Ideally, I'm an idealist. I'd like to see the fastest 43 qualify for each race – period — but I understand that it's not the best economic model for the sport.

Having said that, NASCAR's got to take a hard stance against the points-swapping thing. I don't understand it, nor to I want to commit the time to understand it. I just know that when Ginn Racing and the No. 14 folded last year, it gave Paul Menard in DEI's No. 15 a spot in every race. This year, rookie Sam Hornish Jr. has a spot in the Daytona 500 and Kurt Busch has a champion's provisional at his disposal, despite the fact that Hornish had trouble just qualifying for races last year.

Neither case comes even close to being just.

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 1

Doug White purchases Wiscasset Raceway

It began with conversations that Dave St. Clair didn't think were that serious. Then, in a midweek auto racing story in the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel that followed the late-May Coastal 200, it was reported that while the track was for sale, there were no serious inquiries.

That got Doug White on the telephone, and in a matter of a few hours, the .333-mile high-banked Wiscasset Raceway was en route to becoming his.

In the days and weeks that followed the announcement of the sale, White's energy served notice that he could singlehandedly change the face of stock car racing in Maine. A former driver himself, he announced his intentions to resurrect the Pro Stock division that the track and aligned himself with the regional touring PASS North Series.

Instantly, the facility went from being a place that existed soley on its own to one that spread its wings to gain attention across the region. That kind of attention also served to ignite a Pro Stock vs. Late Model debate that had subsided somewhat. But now, Pro Stock supporters had a track that was picking up the cause for them.

2008 promises to be an interesting year for Wiscasset. White will try and run the Pro Stocks weekly, and he has pieced together an ambitious schedule of touring series and big shows. How fans and teams will respond to his plans will speak to the future of the track under his leadership.

*****

2. Bahre sells New Hampshire track

3. Oxford 250 still the Oxford 250
4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaves DEI

5. Busch involved in scandal at All-Star Speedway
6. Car of Tomorrow
7. Clark-Chapman rifts
8. Return of the outlaws
9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports
10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Seeing should be believing

Most of you have probably seen John Daly's outstanding blog devoted to television coverage of NASCAR, but if you haven't, it's an absolute must-read for those among us who aren't at the track every week watching in person.

An entry earlier this week about old Cup Series races being rebroadcast on ESPN Classic got me to thinking about my own biggest pet peeve with auto racing coverage on television. I'm as annoyed as the next guy when it comes to the graphics, the talking heads, the boogity-boogity-boogity and the terribly dull coverage of ABC/ESPN. But my biggest disappointment always comes at the camera angles themselves.

We're routinely reminded of how big Daytona and Talladega are — 2 1/2-mile restrictor plate behemoths. We're told of the breathtaking speeds at places like Michigan and Atlanta, and even to some extent at Bristol, where the racing seems to defy physics. We're brow-beaten with talks of sellout crowds numbering 100,000 to 200,000 strong.

But we're never given the chance as an audience to put it into perspective for ourselves.

I want to see wide-angle shots from atop the tower at Daytona. I want to see a panoramic view once in a while of 15 or 20 cars in a pack at Atlanta. I want to see just how ridiculously fast 43 cars look on the small Bristol high-banks.

The closest thing I ever saw was the IMAX film NASCAR had a hand in making a few years back. Seeing those IMAX views of the entire backstretch at Daytona, to this day, have fueled my desire to see the place for myself once and for all.

Once in a while we get glimpses on television that could put things in perspective — usually only so advertising graphics can be shown over a shot from the blimp high above the track — but mostly we get extreme close-ups, in-car camera shots and the crying wives.

The best thing about a NASCAR event in person is that it's an event — something so large in scale it assaults all of our senses. The speed, the massive crowds, the sounds, the colors, the smells, the physical size of the tracks. Let's showcase that event. It's all part of the race package, isn't it?

A package we should see from time to time on the boob tube.

Finalizing, fueling up and feeling things out

I'm 10 days away from making that big lefthand turn toward the beaches of Daytona. Between now and then, I've got to find a way to be motivated enough to write about ice fishing and snowmobiling, and I've got to put in place a plan that keeps my wife from leaving me once and for all while I leave her stranded in the Great White North for almost 2 weeks...

* There's still almost 2 1/2 months until the Camping World East Series (Hey! I got it right on the first try!) opens its season at Greenville-Pickens Speedway, so Andy Santerre's got some time. But the 4-time driving champion turned car owner still isn't sure exactly what his lineup is going to be for 2008.

All we really know is that Austin Dillon will pilot one of the cars out of the ASM stable, but what used to be the No. 44 is up in the air. Sean Caisse is still looking for employment in either the Nationwide Series or the Truck Series, but he's been unsuccessful, according to Santerre. Santerre also said last week that he's got a verbal commitment from Casella Waste Systems to sponsor the car again this season, but nothing had yet been signed on the dotted line.

Should Casella stay true to its word (and Santerre has no reason to believe they won't), it will be entirely up to them who they'd like to drive. That doesn't mean Caisse won't be back, but it also doesn't mean he will.

Welcome to big business, folks, NASCAR style...

* I'm not sure about this new 4-race Champions Series that PASS is offering this year. It's designed to give North Series and South Series drivers more incentive to compete head-to-head, but there are 2 glitches in the format as far as I'm concerned.

3 of the 4 races are in the south, and a driver needs only to compete in 3 events to be eligible. If Tom Mayberry's trying to get more North drivers to head south, this will likely encourage them to do that -- but if we're looking for South drivers to come this way, what's their incentive? They don't have to add up the travel costs, and they don't have to risk being uncompetitive on unfamiliar soil.

* The announcement last week that Torco would become the official fuel of the American-Canadian Tour may have seemed a curious one, but 2 different sources unrelated to one another passed on some interesting information to me in the aftermath.

Seems ACT had serious concerns about what teams were doing to fuel in the interest of finding a competitive edge. For a series rooted in close competition through evenly-matched race cars, it's as close to a scandal as you can have. If the best teams in the biggest races were that much better in cars with sealed engines and spec shocks, one has to wonder where the advantage came from.

Truth is, insiders were thinking that advantage was coming from the gasoline.

Having Torco eliminates the problem in 2 ways. First, everybody's using the same thing, purchased at the same place. But Torco also plans to meet with ACT this week, according to Torco distributor Rob Towers, and lay out a detailed plan for testing and inspecting fuel used by race teams.

* I'm sorry, but every time I hear Sprint Cup Series I have to laugh. I mean "sprint" -- who are we kidding? If that series has any problems, one of the biggest has to be that its races are anything but sprints. They're long, drawn-out affairs that make you feel like you just spent the day in the waiting room at the dentist's office.

* File this under the "Totally Shocking" department.

Won the media award at the Northeast Motorsports Expo, and I'm one of 5 finalists for the Speedway Expo media award this year. But somehow, I was left off the Speed51 media category this year.

Can you believe that?

Oh, and while we're on the subject of our favorite PR outfit, I had to chuckle when I saw their Top 10 short track racers list. Four of the top 7 were their own clients, including the top 2.

Now, I'm not suggesting that Joey Logano isn't the best young short track driver out there right now -- he was rightly named No. 1. But Donny Lia as the No. 2? Seriously? Ahead of any of the other guys on that list?

Heck, ahead of any of the Super Street drivers at Wiscasset Raceway???

Come on. This is exactly the kind of "journalism" that has been called into question both here and in other places this off-season. I guess doling out $4,000 a year gets you named one of the top racers in the country...

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 2

Bahre sells New Hampshire track

After years of suggesting that his track was for sale, and further suggesting that son Gary wanted no part of ownership in his absence, Maine native Bob Bahre finally cut a deal for his 1.058-mile facility in Loudon, N.H. For $340 million, O. Bruton Smith and Speedway Motorsports Inc. bought New Hampshire International Speedway in November and promptly renamed it New Hampshire Motor Speedway.

SMI now owns 7 tracks which will host a total of 12 Cup races in 2008.

For the time being, there will be 2 Sprint Cup Series races at the track. But the future of NHMS is murky. Will Smith move one of the New Hampshire dates to Las Vegas? Will he move both dates eventually to other tracks, leaving New England with no Cup racing after a decade and a half of seeing stock car racing's premier circuit? Or, surprising most pundits, will things remain status quo -- with 2 Cup dates every summer at an improved, world-class facility?

Questions also abound regarding the future of regional touring divisions, like the Camping World East Series and the Whelen Modified Tour, which have been staples of Cup weekends in Loudon. How are the national support series, the Nationwide Series and the Truck Series, to be affected? Will we see Indy cars back on the flat oval"

With SMI's purchase, there are more questions than answers regarding NHMS. But make no mistake -- Smith's acquisition ``has implications that stretch across New England. Fans, teams and short-track promoters are all keeping a watchfull eye at what happens on Route 106.

*****

3. Oxford 250 still the Oxford 250

4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaves DEI
5. Busch involved in scandal at All-Star Speedway

6. Car of Tomorrow

7. Clark-Chapman rifts

8. Return of the outlaws

9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports

10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

A marriage made in... well, I'm not really sure

OK, so chalk this one up under the heading of "Partnerships I Never Saw Coming."

The American-Candian Tour announced this week that Torco Race Fuels is now the official fuel supplier of ACT Late Model racing. That means the roaring brand of fuel better known for its association with those drag racers in the nitromethane crowd will now be powering up the choked-off, barely-breathing, sealed up tighter than a biohazard waste receptacle outside the hospital emergency room, crate engines of ACT machines.

I don't get it. Maybe the fine folks over in the ACT marketing department (yes, you know who you are, you Montreal Canadiens-loving lunatics) figured this was the best way to dispel the myth that these Late Models have no horses under the hood.

There it is in black and white, however. Torco is expected to "pony" up for both championship and point standing awards.

“Our relationship with Torco will address major issues involving the technical inspection of our race cars," said ACT president Tom Curley, "and the full support we are receiving from (Torco and RT Raceparts) will help to maintain the integrity of the fuel required in our rule book."

Ironing out my TV blues

Funny how this whole thing works sometimes, isn't it.

After months of dodging Steve Perry — thanks to some not-so-flattering things I've written about his involvement in PASS Super Late Model racing — I hear he's looking for me. I go into cold sweats, wake up in the middle of the night convinced there's someone knocking, hide out in alleyways and dark closets. It can't be good.

And then I get the e-mail I've been dreading, from Perry himself. I cringe as I open it. I'm thinking: lawsuit.

Turns out, the big guy isn't so bad after all. He wants me to co-host his local cable television show "Mainely Motorsports" this week. He's heading to Florida this week for some NHL hockey (I know, not the first place you think of when you think ice hockey) and auto racing, and he wants me to co-host the show with usual cohort Marco Thomas.

And I say, what the heck, I'm in.

I've got to level with you here. I stick to the opinion that most people who have never met me don't like me — they think I'm obnoxious, smart-mouthed and arrogant. Well, 2 out of 3 ain't bad, right? Isn't that what Meatloaf told us? But I also think that when people get to know me, they generally like me. I don't take things too seriously, and I like to laugh and poke fun.

Just ask Ken Minott or Bill Ryan. They'll tell you.

Long story short, going on TV might be good for me. People can see me — you know, so they know who they're taking a punch at in the pit area some night at Unity Raceway. And, it's the real me — not this blog persona you've all come to love and loathe simultaneously.

One thing you should know before you tune in — yes, I'm really that bald. (It's a fashion choice, not male-pattern baldness...).

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

3. It's still the Oxford 250

After nearly a full calendar year of announcements, question marks, analysis, mud-slinging and just plain curiosity, the TD Banknorth 250 arrived in late July last summer and looked like, well, the Oxford 250.

Oxford Plains Speedway owner Bill Ryan announced in 2006 that the race would undergo a significant change (along with the track itself) as it handed over the prestigious event to the Late Model division. Much was made in the weeks and months leading up to the event regarding all the new drivers and teams who were readying to take their shot at the biggest race of the year. Some voiced excitement over a leveling of the playing field by going to the more cost-effective Late Models; some voiced extreme displeasure over allowing a longtime support division to run for the big prize.

As it worked out, however, the event was just another in the long line of 250s -- exactly what Ryan predicted it would be. Roger Brown of Lancaster, N.H., didn't win the most exciting 250 in history, nor did he win the worst race in Oxford's history.

There was pit strategy, lead changes, a late-race pass for the win that came with a small amount of controversy and a front fender serving as the margin of victory. Like in years past, qualifying didn't disappoint either -- nearly 100 cars (95) attempted to make the show, with 28 first-time qualifiers getting in. Some big names didn't make the show (Jeff Taylor, Patrick Laperle), while some upstarts did (Josh St. Clair, Jeff White).

The faces may have been new and the cars may have looked and sounded different, but the race itself was exactly what Maine race fans have come to expect.

*****

4. Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaves DEI

5. Busch involved in scandal at All-Star Speedway
6. Car of Tomorrow
7. Clark-Chapman rifts
8. Return of the outlaws
9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports
10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Catching up to the rest of the media types

Oh, in case you missed it, Bruton Smith announced last week that he finalized his deal with Bob and Gary Bahre. For $340 million, he's now the owner of the 1.058-mile facility in Loudon, N.H. -- the track that will host 2 NASCAR Sprint Cup Series events this season.

Jerry Gappens officially assumed his role of general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the track's new name.

Yeah, I reported that back in November, like everybody else. I also reported that Gappens was the GM a couple of weeks later. Jokingly, a friend of mine told another friend of mine that I must be behind the times -- because I didn't have anything last week on the blog about the "official" announcement.

OK, now that I've mentioned it all -- again -- do I get a ribbon?

*****

The new Dale Earnhardt Jr. was on display at Daytona International Speedway this week, and he's apparently fitting in quite nicely at Hendrick Motorsports.

Not only was his No. 88 Chevrolet Impala fast in single-car runs during testing at DIS, but he's also taken on the Hendrick personality of refraining from saying anything incendiary.

It's no secret that the rest of the Cup garage has been chasing Hendrick for the last couple of seasons -- and with the COT's debut last season, it became ever more apparent. Now that Junior's in a Hendrick COT, he still wouldn't call out DEI for inferior performance.

"I mean, I really was proud of where I came from and proud of the team that I had last year, and it's hard for me to really put into words without...," Junior said of the difference in the two organizations before stopping himself. "I'd rather -- I choose really not to discuss it that often because I don't want anyone that I've worked with in the past to get the impression that I am in a much better place and much more happier and I've got better people, because it really just comes down to the tools and how you use them."

It's exactly the kind of answer you'd expect from Earhardt, though it's hard to buy that he's not happier now than he was working for his stepmother, whom he had a rocky relationship with.

*****

Doug White, owner of Wiscasset Raceway, may be one of the few people in the area excited about SMI's purchase of New Hampshire Motor Speedway. In fact, he went so far as to say he's hoping Bruton Smith does sell off the track's 2 annual Cup dates -- the sooner the better.

As a short track promoter in the area, White knows that if a Cup facility goes belly-up, it leaves racing fans on the lookout for action somewhere. He knows that staying home and watching Cup races on TV only takes you so far, and eventually people want to get out to the track.

Like other promoters in Maine and New Hampshire, he certainly will keep a keen eye on what goes on in Loudon. The loss of NASCAR racing in New England would hurt the overall picture, but short track racing would get a boost.

Either way, we're putting cart way before the horse with any discussion of NHMS Cup dates -- or a lack thereof...

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 4

Dale Earnhardt Jr. leaves DEI

"He changed his number!!"

There was once a time when a woman running out of a grocery store, full-on panic sweat rolling while yelling those very words, had NASCAR fans howling. "Oh, yeah, right," they would say to their buddies. "Like THAT would ever happen."

But happen it did. And with Dale Earnhardt Jr.'s move to Hendrick Motorsports, an era was ushered out. No more ultra-cool red and white No. 8 Budweiser cars, and no more watching Junior grow up the way you watch a nephew turn into a man.

Now that he's with the most powerful team in the sport, Earnhardt has -- in a gutsy and admirable move -- tossed excuses out the window. There's no more talk of inferior equipment, or of being pulled into the operations side of a race team. Undoubtedly, once the marketing blitz is over that reminds us all to forget about beer forever ("Here, have an AMP instead!"), Junior will only have to worry about driving race cars.

He'll do so, too, as a teammate to 2-time defending Sprint Cup Series champion Jimmie Johnson and 4-time champ Jeff Gordon. And while we've had the No. 8 to look at since the passing of Dale Earnhardt Sr. seven years ago, now we'll have an awkward green and white machine with gaudy twin red 8's on its side.

Earnhardt left behind the team bearing his name for a team capable of winning a Cup championship -- now. Early on in 2008, at least, he'll just be trying to get back to victory lane -- a place that shut him out for the entire '07 slate.

He's got a new number. A new marketing ploy, and, hopefully for his legions of biased supporters, new results.

*****

5. Busch involved in scandal at All-Star Speedway

6. Car of Tomorrow

7. Clark-Chapman rifts

8. Return of the outlaws

9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports

10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Fishing and auto racing collide on frozen lake

Talk about living the good life. I mean, does it get any better for a combination outdoors/auto racing writer than this?

I can file two stories from the same place and count it as, like, 4 days of work. Wow. Where do I sign up?

Former NASCAR driver still revered around these parts, Ricky Craven, is joining with the Moosehead Chamber of Commerce to host the 1st annual Moosehead Lake Togue Ice Fishing Derby on Jan. 26-27.

The derby, designed to help Maine's Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife clean some of the lake trout (togue) out of Moosehead, will raise money for local and national charities. There are cash prizes for the 3 biggest togue caught, and all anglers bringing in smaller fish will be given raffle tickets toward several prizes.

For more info on the derby, visit www.mooseheadlake.org or RickyCraven.com.

Godfather leaves happy... or, at the very least, cold

Apparently I'm doing a well enough job here in northern New England. Confirmed early this morning, The Godfather returned to his balmy Connecticut bungalow satisfied that the Connecticut Motorsports Media Mafia is firmly entrenched here in Maine.

Or something like that.

It was not an uneventful weekend for The Godfather, although I did learn that in some places, apparently, single digit temperatures in the middle of the night constitute "cold." Not that the esteemed Mr. Courchesne and I were out carousing in the middle of the night. Not by any stretch of the imagination.

As my wife will attest to, I was home by the reasonable hour of 4 a.m. each night this weekend. (What? That's not reasonable?)

We did manage to get some actual work done, however. Here's what we learned over the weekend (and by "we" I mean "I," because Courchesne was so cold he couldn't write anything down after his tape recorder froze up on him...):

* 4-time PASS North champ Ben Rowe is going to enter some ASA races with his Richard Moody Racing team, though the exact number of events is TBD. Rowe said they'd at least like to hit Bristol, Milwaukee and Indianapolis. Bonus for RMR: An ASA car is legal in both PASS Super Late Model Series, so it's not an expense that will be wasted.

* As I've suggested all along, it looks like the PASS North Series will have someone other than Speed 51 handling it's PR duties. Word out of Augusta was that Norm Desjardins would be doing the press releases, etc., and some combination of photog Norm Marx and his wife, Fran, would be involved, too. PASS owner/president Tom Mayberry has also offered Marco Thomas the job on a couple of occasions already this off-season.

But what would an award-winning motorsports journalist know, anyway? As reader "Kristen" pointed out in a recent comment on the blog, maybe someday I'll be a "good motorsports journalist," just like my friend Mike Twist (her words, folks, not mine...)

* USAC's coming to Maine. It's Ford Focus midget series will be at Wiscasset Raceway in May. Of course, giving the ambitious slate new owner Doug White has put together there, it's easier to say what WON'T be happening at the track than what will be. I'm not sure, but I think they're going to race Sprint Cup Series haulers there in a 25-lap feature in November. Those haulers have to have 1998 or 1999 bodies on them, though...

* Caught up with the most recent ACT winner, the same guy who also just happens to be a 3-time Oxford Plains Late Model champion. All Travis Adams will promise is that he's going to be at the season-opener in April at Oxford. He's having a second baby boy in May, and is putting his focus into the one thing he's yet to do at the track -- win the 250.

Fair enough.

And, as I told Adams on Saturday, stop after the second child. Beyond that, they start to out-number you...

Trust me.

NORTHEAST MOTORSPORTS EXPO: White moving forward

Failure, as they say, is not an option. At least not in Doug White's mind.

The Wiscasset Raceway owner is set to begin his first full season at the facility after purchasing the track last summer. Honored this weekend as the state's Promoter of the Year by the Northeast Motorsports Expo, held at the Augusta Civic Center, White is hoping to spring Wiscasset forward by reaching back into the past.

Read the complete story in today's Kennebec Journal.

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

5. Busch involved in scandal at All-Star Speedway



At All-Star Speedway in June, we saw the dangerous side of including NASCAR's star power in racing at the local level.


Sprint Cup Series driver Kyle Busch drove a car owned by Steve Perry in the All-Star 200 the night before the Cup race in Loudon, and Busch throttled his way through the field. Problem was, he did so twice to win -- the second time after illegally changing tires on the car.


PASS North Series rules prohibit cars from making tire changes during feature events, unless it's to repair a flat tire. Busch pitted and reports from All-Star indicated that his crew intentionally punctured tires after the stop to make them appear to have been flattened during the race.


Controversy swirled after the checkered flag as teams started to receive word of what had happened.


Two central issues were at the core of the calamity.


First, Busch was not immediately stripped of the win -- that didn't come until the next day. Fans had to sit through a faulty victory lane celebration, one that only served to take a stab at PASS's credibility. Having Cup drivers compete in local events is good for everybody -- promoters, teams and fans. Having Cup drivers whip the locals only hurts the industry and certainly doesn't make short-track drivers look very good.


The other issue came in the form of a conflict of interest. Perry, now the owner of the television show Mainely Motorsports, was working as a marketing director for PASS at the time. Whether or not his car and driver were treated with favoritism was irrelevant. All it took was the appearance of that kind of favoritism to injure the PASS reputation.


Would Busch have been at All-Star without Perry's involvement? Probably not, especially considering their relationship during Perry's involvement with SP2 Motorsports, which fielded Oxford 250 rides for Busch in past seasons. But Perry should have either arranged for a seat for Busch is some other owner's car, or he should have cut ties with PASS at some point prior to the event.


Perry's heart may have been in the right place -- helping local short track racing and the Super Late Model division in particular -- but the execution of the entire All-Star night left a bad taste in the mouths of teams and fans alike.

*****

6. Car of Tomorrow
7. Clark-Chapman rifts
8. Return of the outlaws
9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports
10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Harvick to run Oxford 250

Oxford Plains Speedway owner Bill Ryan can tell pretty early in the conversation when a driver is serious about his entry into Maine's annual summer stock-car racing classic.

"When they're like, 'What's the practice schedule?', I know they're pretty serious about it," Ryan said on Thursday afternoon, moments after confirming that defending Daytona 500 champion Kevin Harvick has filed an entry for the 35th annual TD Banknorth 250 at Oxford Plains on July 20.

Harvick first approached Ryan about running the race roughly three weeks ago.

"It moved along pretty quickly from there," Ryan said.

The entry parallels that of former NASCAR Cup Series champion Kurt Busch, who competed in the 250 in 2004. Like Busch, Harvick will prepare his own car for the Late Model event. Kevin Harvick Inc. will field and crew the car on race weekend.

Ryan said Harvick and his wife were discussing his 2008 schedule, deciding which prestigious short-track races they wanted to run. The TD Banknorth 250 was near the top of the list for the driver who runs the No. 29 Shell Chevrolets for Richard Childress Racing in the Sprint Cup Series, according to Ryan.

Matt Kenseth and Kyle Busch each participated in the Oxford 250 twice, and other current and former Cup drivers like Kevin Lepage, J.J. Yeley, Denny Hamlin, Ricky Craven and Terry Labonte have also run the race in recent years.

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 6

Car of Tomorrow


Obviously, this story would appear much higher on the list if I were focused solely on the national stock car racing scene. But just because we're giving local interests the nod in this space doesn't mean New Englanders weren't affected by NASCAR's Car of Tomorrow.

Two rather uneventful races at New Hampshire International Speedway in 2007 made sure of that. Just ask the 100,000 people who paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 bucks a whack to watch a 43-car parade what they thought.

In that small sample of COT competition, some things became painfully evident. The improved competition NASCAR hoped to produce didn't materialize (at least not immediately) and a few teams (read: Hendrick Motorsports and Joe Gibbs Racing) had the early handle on the COT's performance and took advantage of that.

Only a late-race charge by Jeff Gordon in June provided anything in the way of drama during either Denny Hamlin's (June) or Clint Bowyer's (September) marches to victory lane. If NASCAR doesn't get the competition it seeks from the 2008 season -- when the Sprint Cup Series runs the COT exclusively -- then the multi-year project will prove to be a bust.

A big bust.

*****
7. Clark-Chapman rifts

8. Return of the outlaws

9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports

10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 7

The Clark-Chapman rifts

This was supposed to be the year in which Cassius Clark and his team ended the Ben Rowe-Johnny Clark stranglehold on the PASS North Series championship. Fresh off a 2006 in which Clark drove his Ed Chapman-owned car to more victories than anyone else, the team was by and large the pre-season favorite.

But before the engines even fired for the first practice session of 2007, Clark's team hit hard times. Clark and Chapman split after disagreements on the direction the team was taking. They patched things up in time for the rain-delayed season-opening event at Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, but it was just a sign of things to come.

Before the season was at the midpoint, they formidable pairing had split for a second time. Again, they patched things up in time to keep going and finish out the year.

Unfortunately, the rift only served to underline the entire slate of racing for the No. 8 team. Disqualifications following victories at Speedway 95 and Wiscasset Raceway and repeated engine troubles througout the year were merely overshadowed by what was happening off the track.

One of the region's best teams -- and one that long represented what a limited budget and hard work could accomplish in a sport where money means more and more to success -- was damaged by the discord. What's more troubling is that these types of wounds don't generally heal within race teams.

One little thing becomes another, and then becomes yet another, until no one is talking, even while working under the same roof on the same car during the week.

The team is good enough to contend for its first PASS North championship in 2008, but only if what happened in 2007 doesn't continue to follow the driver and owner.

*****

8. Return of the outlaws

9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports

10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Lawler added to Expo lineup

PASS South champion Ryan Lawler, a Texas native now living in North Carolina, will be at the 20th annual Northeast Motorsports Expo at the Augusta Civic Center, show director Tim Attaya confirmed.

Lawler will join 4-time and current PASS North Series champion Ben Rowe to sign autographs at the event, which will be held Jan. 5-7. Sunoco Race Fuels has put together a special hero card featuring both Lawler and Rowe that will be available for signatures.

For more info about the Expo, click here.

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 8

Return of the 'outlaws'

It wasn't one race here or there that fed this story, but a series of occurences over the course of a long 2007 season.

Patrick Laperle hopping in a car owned by Mike Lux at the TD Banknorth 250. Brad Leighton, a multi-time Busch East Series champion taking a shot at both the TD Banknorth 250 and the PASS 300 at Beech Ridge. Ben and Mike Rowe in the Labor Day Classic 200 at Thunder Road in Vermont. Venerable Dave Dion has made a habit over the last half-decade of being where the money is.

The decade dominated by racers chasing points and championships -- and the prize money and, hopefully, national prestige that goes along with those titles -- seems to be dissipating slightly. That's opened the door to more and more racers who are going places just to race.

What it's doing for the sport on the local level is not easily quantified, though one thing is clear -- it feels like we've stepped back almost 2 decades. Now, big events are beginning to feel like big events again (despite an over-abundance of extra-distance races with big purses), where you truly never know whose haulers are going to show up in the pit area until race day.

That's obviously great for fans paying to see quality racing, but it's good for track owners and promoters, too. It also doesn't hurt media coverage of the sport, as recognizeable names lend instant credibility to races in the eyes of sports editors across the region.

Again, it's not so much one event or another that's made this a Top-10 story, but it's certainly the beginning of a trend worth watching.

*****

9. DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports

10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series Title

One more time around

New Hampshire Motor Speedway just added another parade lap to its July event.

The track and sponsor Lenox Industrial Tools announced on Wednesday that the annual Sprint Cup Series event at the facility will be extended from 300 to 301 laps -- a promotion designed to go "the extra mile" for Lenox customers and New Hampshire Motor Speedway fans.

The Lenox 301 is scheduled for Sunday, June 29.

Denny Hamlin and Clint Bowyer were the Cup winners at Loudon last season.

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 9

DEI signs with Andy Santerre Motorsports

It was only a matter of weeks before the 2007 Busch East Series began that Andy Santerre Motorsports took the step it had long wanted to take.

During September of 2006, Santerre himself talked openly about his goals as an owner in the Busch East Series -- he wanted to work with Nextel Cup Series teams as an organization where developmental drivers could learn under his tutelage. At the time, the only driver Santerre had was Sean Caisse -- an unaffiliated young driver that Santerre had put in the seat of the No. 44 Chevrolets he had vacated.

But last winter, Santerre got the call he wanted. Dale Earnhardt Inc. put teenager Jeffrey Earnhardt at ASM, and Santerre began preparing the No. 1 Bass Pro Shops/Tracker Boats cars for the youngster with only short-track Late Model experience on his resume.

The work that ASM did with Earnhardt -- Earnhardt finished 5th in the final series point standings, winning 1 pole and posting 4 top-5 finishes in 13 starts.

Going forward, the grandson of Richard Childress, Austin Dillon, will join ASM for 2008. It's a sign that Santerre's work with DEI (which has moved all of its development operations in-house) opened eyes around the Cup Series world that it's a place where young drivers can find success.

It's also proof that Santerre might get exactly what he wants out of an ownership career in NASCAR's minor-league ranks.

*****

10. Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Reverse gear: 2007's Top 10

No. 10

Ben Rowe's 4th PASS North Series title

Ben Rowe avoids controversy like it's some kind of flat tire while leading a race at the white flag, and his success goes largely unnoticed. Simply put, his racing career follows a simple formula: find good rides, win races, win championships.

Not surprisingly, it works.

The talent pool may not necessarily be all that deep in the PASS North Series from top to bottom, but the few competitive teams that Rowe routinely beats out for the championship honors are at the top of the Super Late Model game, both here and further south. Testament to Rowe's ability as a driver, too, is the fact that he's now won the PASS title while driving for different teams. The 2007 crown comes while competing for Richard Moody Racing, the second team he's competed for in the series.

Rowe may only have won 1 race this year in PASS North competition -- 4 fewer than his father, Mike, who finished second in the standings -- but it doesn't tell the complete story. He finished 2nd a series-high 5 times in '07.

Rowe is an exceptionally clean driver, he has an ability to take a 6th-place car and get a 2nd-place finish out of it and he simply doesn't quit driving. How many times this year did we see that yellow No. 4 pit a bunch of times in the first half of a race while it was struggling just to turn left, only to see Rowe put it on the podium by the time the day was over?

Johnny Clark is the only other driver with multiple PASS titles, and with his 4th championship this year, Rowe has distanced himself from the field -- something the history books will reflect for many, many years to come. Like his father was to the generation before, Ben Rowe will be the benchmark for this generation of Maine racers in the decades that follow.

It's the Clark and Clark show... on the road

The depth of the talent pool in the PASS North Series can easily be viewed as being a tad on the shallow side, but there's no denying that the top teams in the series are as good at their game as anyone anywhere in the country.

More proof, you say?

On Friday night at Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola, Fla., 2-time PASS North champion Johnny Clark qualified 3rd for Sunday's prestigious Snowball Derby. Two spots behind him, in 5th, was Cassius Clark, a multi-time PASS North race winner over the last 2 seasons.

The top 30 starters for the 300-lap Snowball Derby were locked in by Friday's qualifying, as were 3 provisional starters. Unofficially, 25 cars remain to vie for the six remaining starting spots to come out of today's last-chance races.

Among the notables not yet qualified for the Derby: Maine's Trevor Sanborn, driving a Jay Cushman-owned Ford, the car Jason Hogan attempted to qualify for NASCAR Nextel Cup Series driver Kyle Busch, and Steven Wallace, Busch Series regular and son of former Cup champion Rusty Wallace.

Drag racing death mars holiday weekend

How's this for ironic?

Bowdoin's Christopher Gould gave up a career racing motorcycles because he thought it was too dangerous. On Sunday afternoon at the Moroso Motorsports Park in Jupiter, Fla., Gould was killed when his jet-powered Funny Car crashed after making an exhibition run at the Citrus Nationals.

Gould, 52, was in his 4th year driving Funny Cars on the exhibition tour.

"There wasn't a hidden agenda for him," said Brian Lohnes, who works for both the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) and New England Dragway in Epping, N.H. "He was doing what he was doing not because he saw it as some kind of stepping stone.

"He was a regular guy who was dreaming about doing something he loved, and he was out doing it."

According to Lohnes and other eyewitness accounts, Gould's car crashed violently after crossing the finish line. It was there that some type of parachute malfunction set in motion a grisly chain of events that led to Gould's death.

"He made a run earlier in the day, and the car had acteed strangely at the top of the track," Lohnes said, adding that funny car tragedies typically stem from throttles that hang open.

Whether the chutes deployed at all or deployed unevenly, which could cause the car to veer uncontrollably, was not known. The car made a "hard turn," according to Lohnes, into the grass alongside the strip and then tumbled.

Gould was pronounced dead at the scene. The remainder of the program was canceled.

A veteran of motorcyle racing, Gould gave that up more than a decade ago and first received clearance from the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) to compete in the Funny Car jet ranks in 2004. The cars, with the same bodies and chassis as those Funny Cars on the NHRA and IHRA circuits, sport small jet engines.

Gould only competed on a "booking" basis, meaning he was invited by promoters to shows nationwide -- thanks to his graciousness to both fans and race directors alike.

"This one hurts, it was close to home," said Joe Lombardo, track manager of New England Dragway. "Chris was living out his dream. He bought a jet car and start touring the country.

"He was really one of the good guys in this sport. There are a lot of people who treat this as more of a business, but there are some like Chris who do it because they love it. If you went down to his pit area and talked to him, even if he was working on the car, he would stop and talk to kids and their parents about it. He’s been on other side. In that respect, he was racing because it was fun."

Let's take a look back at 2007

Most days begin the same way for me now. Cold sweats. Disorientation. Incoherent mumbling. To myself.

It takes me weeks -- well, months really -- to come down from the adrenaline feed that is the 8-month grind of the local racing season. Races, stories, analysis, finishing orders, 2:30 a.m. blog entries... Truth be told, I'm not sure I ever really get over the post-racing season hangover. Like any functional junkie, I think after a while I just hide the symptoms from the rest of the world, until March rolls around and the season starts anew.

But these few weeks do give us the opportunity to look back at what we saw, kind of take stock of the year in motorsports, if you will. And if there are 2 things we fans like, it's highlight reels and top-10 lists.

Beginning next Monday, Dec. 3, and running every Monday for the next 10 weeks, I'm planning on running a top-10 countdown from the 2007 season. We'll start with No. 10 and each week work our way toward No. 1, examining one final time the biggest stories of the local season and some of the far-reaching national headlines, too. It'll take us right up to the week leading into the Shootout at Daytona...

If there's anything you'd like to see on the list, something you don't want me to forget, let me know. I'm sure it will all spark plenty of debates...

What the ELF is this?

So, who's your favorite Christmas elf?

Johnny, Cassius or Mike? You decide...

You can thank me later.

Oxford finale in NHMS crosshairs

If Oxford Plains Speedway's decision to close its 2007 season with a 150-lap American-Canadian Tour race was curious, then the track's recent announcement that it will finish up next season with an ACT event on Sept. 13 could prove disastrous.

For the first time in recent memory, ACT closed its '07 slate with a race other than the prestigious Milk Bowl, returning to Oxford on Oct. 6 for a 150-lap finale that ACT insider deemed "a favor." Though the Sept. 13 New England Dodge Dealers 150 at Oxford next season won't serve as ACT's finale (the Milk Bowl 2 weeks later will), it's a move by Oxford Plains that begs the question.

Why?

This time around there won't be the threat of cold weather, or the Fryeburg Fair just down the road apiece. Instead, that mid-September date comes smack dab in the middle of the Sylvania 300 weekend at New Hampshire Motor Speedway, the first race in the 10-race Chase for the NASCAR Sprint Cup.

You're not asking New England fans to choose which event to attend by holding them head-to-head, because for most there is no choice — and annual attendance of more than 100,000 speaks volumes to that end. Tickets to 1 of only 2 area appearances for NASCAR's top series are purchased long in advance, and the travel plans are made well ahead of time, too. With uncertainty surrounding Speedway Motorsports Inc.'s purchase of the New Hampshire track in the future, the September race could be the final one of its kind.

Tracks much further away from Loudon, N.H., than Oxford close their gates for entire weekends for fear of poor attendance.

The weekend of Sept. 20 is an open weekend on the 2008 ACT schedule as its currently comprised. The 2 Little Guy 100's are to be held on that same day as that ACT race, too -- the same day as the final points program at Wiscasset Raceway.

Nobody in the world of short-track racing should be held prisoner by the NASCAR behemoth, but the much smarter money should have been placed on holding the New England Dodge Dealers 150 the next weekend. It would help racers who want to compete in the Oxford finale, and it would save fans, once again, from being forced to make difficult choices with their racing dollars.

Rowe puts cap on '07 season

It's a day late and a dollar short -- and most of you have probably found it by now -- but here's an unofficial top-10 from the Mason-Dixon Meltdown last Saturday night in Concord, N.C.

The PASS combination event was won by a northern driver for the 2nd year in a row, with 4-time PASS North Series champ Ben Rowe passing Corey Williams for the win as the white and yellow flags came out in the closing stages of the event. Johnny Clark was 3rd.

Defenind Meltdown champion Cassius Clark finished 6th.

Mason-Dixon Meltdown

Unofficial results

1. Ben Rowe

2. Corey Williams

3. Johnny Clark

4. Preston Peltier

5. Trevor Sanborn

6. Cassius Clark

7. Richie Dearborn

8. Adam Bates

9. Mike Rowe

10. Perry Brown