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4 Days and 4 Nights with Corey Latham

WE ARE ...
LATE MODEL STOCK CARS!

4 Days and 4 Nights with Corey Latham

Written by: Corey Latham ~ corey@race22.com

4 Nights......And 4 Races

As I ventured into the week of the 4th, my mind wasn't on the usual things, going to the beach, the mountains, whatever, it was on what racetrack I was going to be at. I had it set in my mind, I was going to a different race each night, and by the grace of God I pulled it off. Barely.......dragging.

Night 1.....Wed. July2.....Rusty Harpe Memorial

Off work at 3 and headed to Caraway for the second annual Rusty Harpe Memorial race. This was one I was looking forward to, I had watched Rusty race his whole career and it hit a soft spot in me honoring someone who I had seen so many times that was no longer here. As I pulled up to Caraway Speedway the usual suspects were in the office, track owner Russell Hackett and his daughter Renee. As I signed in my credentials I was telling Russell how I had got stopped by the state man for speeding and just got a warning. In typical Russel style he said "If ya didn't get a ticket what are you what are you crying about, you should have slowed down". Thanks for the tip there Russell............

The weather that evening was picture perfect, and by the looks of the crowd, I'd say the biggest event Caraway would have all year. Got to meet some new faces, Owen Kelly from the JR

Owen Kelly(73) aboard his JR Motorsports entry at the Rusty Harpe Memorial 200.

Motorsports stable is one that really stood out. His voice is much different than anyone elses being that he's from Australia, but his personality is what you wish everyone was like. Owen would start the race in the 9th spot, with Jason York smoking the field for the Bud Pole award.

The race was one of the better ones I had seen at Caraway in some time, with battling all over the track. Watching B.J. Mackey come from the back of the field was something to behold, almost every lap it seemed he would gain a position. All the racing was great, but the fiery crash at lap 59 almost put a damper on everything. Brent Raymer plowed into the back of a stationary Cris Bowen who was up against the outside wall. Raymer said that he never saw him with a white car against a white wall. And I can believe that, the track is nearly in the dark, some more lighting would be at the top of my list.

B.J. Mackey would take the win for his ole' friend Rusty Harpe, a

Davin Scites sips on a little water during the pre-race activities at Caraway Speedway.

very emotional win for the whole team. The only damper on the evening was when the local sheriff's tried to throw the whole team out of the track while they were in victory lane for not having armbands, that was a reeeeal nice touch of class.

I hung around to watch my buddy A.J. sanders run the mini-stock race, he usually wins wherever he goes, and he wanted to win on "Rusty's" night as bad as anyone else. As I hung out with UARA competitor Ryan Robertson, we watched a great battle for the lead with A.J and Michael Tucker taking the white flag side-by-side. As the cars came back into our view from pit road in turn 4, the 2 leaders were no longer at the front, they had wrecked in turn 2 out of our view. I went and said my goodbyes and motivated to the house. I hit the pillow at 1:30 A.M.

Night 2......Thursday July 3rd.......South Boston

Kris Bowen's #80 machine was visibly tore up after a hard crash at Caraway Speedway.

After getting some good sleep and taking a vacation day Thursday, I was off to beautiful South Boston Speedway for the SoBo 200. Taking the hour and 45 min. drive up there is one of the more pleasant trips, the scenery along HWY 58 is nice at any time. I pull in the track at about 3:30 and head in to talk to Cathy Rice for my credentials. If you ever get a chance while your at SoBo, stop and tell Cathy how much you appreciate what she does, she is truly one of the best track operators there are.

I knew that some of the drivers from Caraway would be heading to SoBo the next day, but I wasn't expecting the field to be 28 cars strong, that was a pleasant surprise. All the big dogs were there, and as I walked down pit road I spotted my buddy Rodney Cook. Rodney had ran his other car at Caraway the night before, and after qualifying good he slid back after halfway at Caraway. "I tried to save a buck and didn't put new brakes on it, I thought I could get one more race out of it, I bet I never do that again. This car

Frank Deiny, Jr. gets a lot of attention from the media as above he gets interviewed by our very own, Doc Love after placing 4th.

here has some gooood brakes on it."

Qualifying was done and Philip Morris was on the pole. As if anybody would doubt that would happen. Philip has been on a tear this year at Motor Mile and it looked as if this race would be no different. As the on-track autograph session was getting ready to start, I looked at the grandstands and they were absolutely full, a very welcomed sign after my last few visits to SoBo had very lackluster crowds. Two races in a row with full crowds, maybe people still do care about local racing after all?

The race started out great with some good side-by-side battles but settled down rather quickly. Morris was gone and the only question was how many cars he would lap. Toward the end of the field, Mr. Cook was giving Chad Harris the Jimmy Spencer passing rule, one lap to get out of my way, the next one I'm gonna

Rodney Cook(14) looks over his car before they get ready to qualify at South Boston Speedway on Thursday, July 3rd.

move ya, and he did. Deac McCaskill and C.E. Falk played some bumper tag for the second spot for a while but other than that there wasn't much going on. I had expected track points leader Justin Johnson to rebound after getting tore up at Caraway the night before, but his race was over by lap 7 when he got tangled up in the 6 car caution. He looked to only have fender damage but a broken spindle ended his night. Morris sounded like he was running on 7 cylinders on lap 150, and soon after the whole field passes with McCaskill running away with it to take the win.

It was good to see Deac get the victory, he hasn't been running like he has in the past and this was a boost in the arm for those guys for sure. The lights went out and me and the crews of Justin Johnson and Rodney Cook sat on the pit wall and took in the impressive fireworks display. I went to the parking lot and talked

CE Falk and crew push their #40 machine around the track in anticipation of qualifying.

with a few fans I had met earlier in the day and headed to the house once more. Hit the pillow at at 1am.

Night 3.....Friday July 4th......Caraway......again

As Friday rolled around I was starting to drag a bit. Trying to accomplish regular errands during the day and going to the track at night was a bit much. But the 4th at Caraway is always exciting, it means some modified racing is happening and I don't miss many Whelen Modified Tour races.

The modified season this year has been terrible weather wise. After 7 events we already have had 4 rainouts. I checked the radar and it looked good so I headed to the track. Rolling in I saw many familiar faces, being that I have grown up watching these guys since I was four years-old. Scott Rigney was there in his new car and my buddy Brandon Ward was there in his new car also, a former Donny Lia machine, and we all talked about everything

Justin Johnson's night ended when he broke a spindle(pictured above) at SoBo.

besides racing. Walking down pit road I stopped and talked to my day job boss, Grady Tutterow. Grady owns the car that John Smith wheels on the mod tour and has been a car owner for many years. After talking for a few moments, I found myself still working for my regular bossman on my day off, I was taping up the grill for qualifying. The guy can get you working and you don't even realize it.

15 cars had ran and then the skies opened up, well, it dagum near flooded. Torrential rain, along with extreme wind, and to cap it all off we had dime size hail. As I took refuge in the Robertson racing teams trailer, the hail was bouncing off the back of the loaded racecar and bouncing all the way to the front. We were locked in there for nearly an hour, and let me tell ya, being locked up with a raceteam in 10X10 space for an hour can result in and

Rain filled the pit area at Caraway Speedway and flooded the event for the NASCAR Mods.

As the race went off, it was much different than our last visit to Bristol. As the race in May was very tame, this one was pretty wild from the get-go. Corey LaJoie started up front in the 4th position and got into it immediately hitting the wall on the exit of 4 and then racing hard with Richard Boswell. The entire race was pretty exciting with the early exits of B.J. Mackey and Matt DiBenedetto, the wrecks in between, on to the fierce battle between Ross Furr and Darrell Wallace Jr. for the last 25 laps of the race.

After Alex Yontz had won and all the other races were over, they had one of the most impressive fireworks display I had ever seen. Then it was time to hit the road again, little did I know that the fireworks had been advertised throughout the entire state of TN(a little bit of a stretch). The crowd was scarce inside the track, but outside there was another 50,000 people watching from different roosts. Nearly 45 minutes later I was on my way to Johnson city

overabundance of BS. The rain stopped, the race was called, and I took my shoes and socks off and waded across pit road to get to the car. This night I was home by 9.

Night 4....Saturday July 5th...Bristol

On the road to Bristol, I rolled in at about 2p.m. Upon getting there, I learned that there were many incidents in practice. My buddy, Garrett Campbell, had a motor expire in the first practice of the morning and was a spectator the rest of the day. They were in great spirits considering, and as we talked more of the wet stuff began to fall and me and Langley headed down the road to Quiznos to grab a bite to eat. As we're eating, it was coming down so hard we couldn't even see. His girlfriend calls and ask if we are coming for qualifying, they have dried the track and are ready to go. Just 2 miles down the road it's flooding where we are, we took off back to the track.

I took up a space on the pit wall next to Garrett's grandpa and watched qualifying, disecting what we saw. It's amazing what you can absolve in your brain when you just sit and listen to these guys that have been around racing for 40+ years. Jamey Caudill ripped one off and was on the pole with always strong Alex Yontz starting outside row 1.

What was left of one of Matt DiBenedetto's right rear tires after he pitted to change tires at Bristol.  A tire failure ultimately ended the defending winner's day later in the race.

to get a motel. I got there and the wonderful idea that I was wide awake and was going to make the 2 1/2 hour drive home. I got home at 3:00am after stopping numerous times and walking around the car.

The 4 day adventure was complete, and I did it without getting a room at all. Stupidest thing I've ever done, it's taken me nearly 3 days to recover from this one. Was it worth it? I went to 4 major races in 4 days, of course it was ...