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

A few final laps...

Spend hours on end in a blind somewhere in the woods, waiting for Bambi's uncle (the brother of the one who died in the fire) to come walking by, and you'll get to thinking. Thinking reminded me of a couple of things I needed to do...

* NASCAR has no one to blame but itself for the fact that most of the world thinks this year's Chase has been a bore. Typically, 2 race teams separated by only a few points would qualify as real drama. Problem is, Jimmie Johnson and Jeff Gordon are really one in the same — and NASCAR's ridiculously soft stance on the creation of superteams hasn't helped.

If Chad Knaus and Steve Letarte are working out of the same shop and same notebooks (which they are), is either really winning the Nextel Cup championship over the other? Of course not. It's a Hendrick Motorsports title, no matter who gets to stuff the trophy in the suitcase.

* The 2008 schedules are out for both Wiscasset Raceway and Oxford Plains Speedway are out, and, as promised, Wiscasset is making its stand as Maine's Pro Stock capital. The slate will included the DNK 250, the Coastal 200, a couple of Twin 125's and the final race of the PASS North Series slate.

The '250,' of course, is a direct response to the Oxford version of the 250 (you may have heard, there have been 34 of them to date) being handed over to the Late Model crowd. The Original 250 comes on July 20; the knock-off comes about a month later, on Aug. 17.

* In case you missed some of this stuff over the last few weeks:
- Jerry Gappens has been named by Speedway Motorsports Inc. as general manager of New Hampshire Motor Speedway
- Austin Dillon will drive for Andy Santerre Motorsports next year in the We Don't Have A Title Sponsor Yet East Series. Still no word on what the No. 44 and Sean Caisse's plans are
- It's Mason-Dixon Meltdown weekend in Concord, N.C. Cassius Clark is the defending champion of the event, which was held last year in South Boston, Va.