Obviously our favorite number here at RACE22.com has to be "22" and today, March 7th has us just 22 days away from the UARA-STARS season opener at Concord Motorsport Park in Concord, NC. The race marks the "official" opening of the 2008 season, but there's a handful of racing going on before the tour hits the track and those races may very well include some of the tours top talents.

Caraway Speedway in Asheboro, NC, Southern National Raceway in Kenly, NC and Greenville-Pickens Speedway in Greenville, SC will open up their NASCAR Whelen All-American Series racing seasons next Saturday evening, March 15. Caraway's season opener will likely feature a strong field of cars including former, UARA tour regular, Lucas Ransone as well as last years UARA runner up in the chase for the championship and one of the three guys being predicted as the 2008 UARA champion, BJ Mackey. Mackey will likely use this race as a tune-up for the UARA season opener.

Mackey, who will be driving a new Dave Dunlap Chassis and his always powerful DP Performance Racing Engines by Darrell Poe is ready to go this season, but isn't 100% sure where he'll be racing if anywhere full time. Dunlap and Poe also happen to be his new car owners this season after his former team with MGM Racing closed down at the end of last season.

"I've teamed up with Dave Dunlap and Darrell Poe this season and we're hoping to run the UARA tour all year, but sponsorship will have to come through in order for us to stay on the tour this whole season," said Mackey.

Mackey also stated that he's ready to go to Caraway Speedway next Saturday for the season opener and get a race under his belt before the UARA season opener at Concord Motorsports Park. Mackey wants to get a feel for the new team and let them get a feel for him so they'll be prepare for the series opener. Mackey also plans to jump around this season whether he runs the UARA tour this season or not.

"There's some big races up at Langley(Speedway) this season that's got everyone talking and it'll be hard to turn down that kind of money even if we're running the full tour. Plus we want to go up to Motor Mile(Speedway) and run some, it's some good money. We went up there at the beginning of last season and I love the track, the facility is nice and the tech men are really good," continued Mackey.

Mackey isn't alone in trying to get his season jump started before the UARA tour gets underway, series defending champion, Ross Furr will be making a return to Concord Motorsport Park one week before the UARA-STARS season opener to get some laps in the NASCAR Whelen Late Model Stock Car race. Furr is hoping to get his season started off with a win before even getting the series season underway, but admits that the competition will be tough.

"We want to go over there and jump start our season with a win or atleast a good run, but with guys like Chuck Crump, Shaun Mangum, Jeff Melton and others its going to be tough, but I think we've got a good car and I love racing at Concord," said Furr of running the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series season opener.

Furr plans to defend his UARA-STARS Late Model Stock Car championship, but would also like to go for the championship at Concord Motorsport Park, a track that was built by his grandfather, Henry Furr and the home of his first UARA win last October, a week before he won the series championship. Furr will no doubt be a strong challenger to defending track champion, Chuck Crump. Furr and Crump also share a crew chief in Greg Peterson of Peterson Racing. Peterson should have his hands full on the opening night with both these drivers going head to head.

Also on that opening weekend of racing Southern National Speedway will get the weekly series season underway and among the challengers will be former Hickory Motor Speedway track champion and former UARA-STARS series champion, Matt McCall of Denver, NC. McCall will be behind the wheel of Jerry Moody's Pig Rig Ford Fusion and will have a new Ford crate engine powering him to the starting grid and hopefully as the first car to the checkered flag. Hopefully we'll have one of our correspondents on location at Southern National and we'll get the inside scoop on the new crate engine and it's performance on the track.

Following next weekends round of season openers at Greenville Pickens, Caraway and Southern National Speedway's will be a couple more season openers with Concord Motorsports Park in Concord, NC and South Boston Speedway in South Boston, VA. The following week we'll get the UARA-STARS season opened in style at Concord Motorsports Park as well as opening the seasons at Newport Speedway in Newport, TN, Hickory Motor Speedway in Hickory, NC as well as Dillon Motor Speedway in Dillon, SC.

We'll have a lot more on the other season openers coming up in the next couple weeks with more stories in the coming days ... keep checking us out we've got plenty more coming your way and some big breaking news from the world of Late Model Stock Car racing contingent.