Late Model Stock Car racers showed up 14 cars strong with big regional names like Stephen Gahagan, Dennis Queen, Jeff Myers, Kaleb Pressley and Burt Cable taking part in the 75-lap race. Gahagan qualified on the pole with a lightning fast lap of 13.137 seconds around the high banked track. Queen qualified second with Kaleb Pressley third, Gary Kelley fourth and Junior Franks fifth. Gahagan then spun the wheel on the front straight and they inverted the top five putting Cable to pole position since Franks had to start sixth after winning the last Late Model Stock Car race.

Cable started on the pole flanked to the outside by Kelley with Pressley, Queen and Gahagan rounding out the top five starters. On the start Cable jumped out into the lead as Gahagan and Queen began to move up to the head of the pack. Gahagan quickly

Surrett and his staff, which includes several staff members from the now defunct Asheville Speedway in Asheville, NC has got Newport Speedway headed in the right direction and last nights racing action was a great indication of that. With the tier parking wrapping from turn one to turn four packed out and several hundred fans sitting in the large grandstands the Newport Speedway racers put on a great show.

In other racing around the region ...

Ace Speedway - Speedy Faucette crusied to his seventh win in a row at Ace Speedway n Friday night and the track announced that they will put up a $200.00 bounty for anyone who can beat Faucette in the next race. The bounty will hopefully grow, not many racers will come for $200.00, but they may come just to shut down Faucette's dominance. Dean Fogleman was second followed by Rodney Cook.

Caraway Speedway - Randy Benson recorded his sixth win of the season last night in a strong performance getting by Brad Brinkley for the win late in the race.

Concord Motorsport Park - The ASA South Super Late Models were in the house last night at Concord and put on a great show as Colt James took the victory over Drew Brannon, Jimmy Lang, Blake Lehr and NASCAR Nationwide series driver, Landon Cassill.

Franklin County Speedway - The ASA SMRT Modifieds were on tap at Franklin County Speedway last night with no Late Models racing and it was former Late Model Stock Car driver, Brian King who picked up the victory over LW Miller and Frank Fleming.

Greenville Pickens Speedway - Marty Ward picked up double wins last night in twin races despite being inverted to sixth after win number one. The finishing order for one of the races was Ward, David Roberts, Anthony Anders, Coleman Pressley and Kenneth Headen. Not sure if both races finished the same way or not, the story on the tracks website is unclear and no results had been posted as of the time of this post.

Hickory Motor Speedway - Andy Mercer continues to reign over Hickory Motor Speedway as he collected yet another win over Andy Loden, UARA-STARS regular, Jamie Yelton, Ashley Huffman and Grant Wimbish.

Langley Speedway - Nick Smith took the victory in the Hampton Heat 200 pocketed a cool $15,000 for his effort. Smith, who has been disqualified in two previous wins this season first at Langley Speedway and then again at South Boston Speedway passed tech and will be credited with the victory. The Edwards brothers took up second and third finishing positions with Danny second and Greg third. CE Falk took home fourth with Wayne, WV driver, Davin Scites claiming fifth in his first ever appearance at Langley.

Lonesome Pine Raceway - Nate Monteith grabbed another victory at Da' Pine in the Late Model division over Wayne Hale, Robbie Ferguson, Brian Blevins and Josh Hale. In another Late Model-ish division Paul Shull, the Mountain Man claimed the victory over Freddie Taylor, Jr. and Caleb Roark.

Motor Mile Speedway - UARA-STARS regular, Richard Boswell II took the weekend off from the UARA and put it to good use testing his car on the track where he would compete the following week and did it in fine fashion dominating the race and taking home the $5,000 paycheck. Apparently Boswell has found something and looks to improve on his third place finish from the last UARA race at Motor Mile back in April. Boswell was followed to the line by Morris, who had his six race win streak snapped by Boswell's victory. Morris was not competing with the Dodge engine that had been so dominant in the previous six races, but rather his Chevrolet engine. Boswell's JR Motorsports teammate, Owen Kelly from Australia was third with Chad Harris fourth and Shaun Mangum fifth. Tommy Lemons, Jr.'s tough season continued as he qualified a disappointing 27th and finished there.

Music City Motorplex - Andy Johnson won his fourth straight race in a special Friday night edition of the racing action at MCM followed to the line by Michael House, Chevy White, Bo Miller and Mark Day.

Myrtle Beach Speedway - No Late Models racing this week. Next Late Model race on August 2nd.

Orange County Speedway - No Racing Action this week. Next week a special PASS South Super Late Model and Late Model Stock Car double header.

Southern National Raceway Park - In twin Late Model races Kyle Hall and Scott Wise split victories over a very short nine car field at Southern National. Hall won race one over Corey Strickland, Wise, Sherman Davis and Thomas Burbage while Wise won race two over Hall, Davis, Strickland and Burbage. This track continues to struggle with car count and fans as rumors of the tracks shut down loom throughout the racing region.

South Boston Speedway - Despite expectations from many experts in Late Model racing South Boston's car count stay at a medium level this week with 16 cars taking part in twin races on the 4/10 mile bullring. Wayne Ramsey and Justin Johnson split victories with Ramsey getting race number one over Deac McCaskill, Johnson, Owen Miller and Dustin Storm. Johnson, who rebounded this week from his two July 4th week crashes won the second race over Ramsey, McCaskill, Dude Gibbs and Josh Oakley.

Tri-County Motor Speedway - The TCMS staff continues to do a poor job of reporting the action on the 4/10 mile track and as of this post we have no info on the results from TCMS. We may add info as we get it or you can visit the tracks website at www.tricountymotorspeedway and hope someone decides to update it before next Friday's race.

disposed of Queen and after a caution for a spin, Gahagan found himself restarting second on the outside of the leader due to the double file restarts and Cable, the leader was a sitting duck as the fast car of Gahagan was just too much on the restart pulling away from Cable.

Gahagan stayed out front for the rest of the race, but there were battles brewing all over the track as Pressley tried desperately to get to the inside of Cable after every restart, but to no avail as Cable was too stout for the young driver. Queen had his own battle going as the adjustments he made on his car after qualifying sent him the wrong way and he tried to hold off Franks for the fourth position. Franks got impatient and got into the rear quarter panel of Queen turning him in between turns one and two. Franks was sent to the rear for the contact,

but quickly made his way past Queen on the restart only to find himself sent to the rear again for contact with Tim Tipton later in the race.

Gahagan held on to win the race followed by Cable, Pressley, Jeff Myers and Queen. Myers had a quiet race never being a factor despite qualifying seventh and being one of the fastest cars earlier in the day in practice. Kelley, who started up front faded during the early 30 lap green flag run and was never a factor again, while Queen rallied from his spin out to grab the fifth spot.

Full Results from Newport Speedway:
1 - 47 Stephen Gahagan
2 - 97 Burt Cable
3 - 54 Kaleb Pressley
4 - 2 Jeff Myers
5 - 99 Dennis Queen
6 - 09 Darrick Coomer
7 - 87 Jackie Buckner
8 - 31 Junior Franks
9 - 22 Tim Tipton
10 - 6 John Clark
11 - 18 Gary Kelley
12 - 11 Bruce Green
13 - 11 Randy Bethea
14 - 41 Darrell Williams
DNS - 97.2 Wayne Webb