They adjusted well as practice went off with some real fast times. Jason York led the practice until sticker tire qualifying runs were made as Jake Crum blistered the track on his last lap of practice with a 15.876 besting the track record of 15.976 by Kevin Leicht a year ago. He wasn't the only one who was fast.

Fast........Up Front

It Looked like the same ole' same ole' as the usual suspects posted the best times in qualifying. Jamey Caudill was able to come away with the Sunoco Pole award, followed by Jake Crum, Jamie Yelton, Richard Boswell II and B.J. Mackey rounding out the top 5 (the top 4 all broke the track record set last year). Others with great qualifying runs were Darrell Wallace Jr.(7th), Barry Andrews (10th) and Justin

Boston (14th). It was a nice surprise to see 2004 UARA Champion Jason York making his first start of the season at Coastal Plains. Jason has been a journeyman this year of sorts, but has been winning races and kept his 08' momentum going by being fast in practice and then putting the #78 machine in at the 9th position.

Time to Roll!

The stars and cars are ready, the weather is great and the crowd is pumped, it's time to go racin! At the green flag Jamey Caudill jumps to the front with Crum in tow. Lap 2, Jamie Yelton by Crum for second, lap 3 Yelton by Caudill for the lead, this man was on a mission. Yelton, who for the most part is usually conservative, wasted no time getting to the front and gave us all a taste of what was in store for the next 142 laps, him in front. Behind the leaders there is racing all over the track. Brandon

McReynolds and Roger Lee Newton are fighting, Curtis Truex Jr. is coming through the field from the back along with a very strong Kyle Grissom who started 18th.

Great Car, Bad Night

Lap 25 brings along all sorts of happenings. 5 laps earlier, B.J. Mackey was able to get around Caudill for 2nd, but it was all for naut. Lap 25 and the caution flies when Scott Andrews Jr. Gets loose and gets into Paddy Rodenbeck sending both cars around. As the field tightens up under caution, 2nd place B.J. Mackey heads to pit road. In the blink of an eye his night is done, the culprit, a broken caliper bracket. "I had the best car here, the leader was going hard and I was just riding, it's always something" said a frustrated Mackey. "I should have 4 wins this year

and stupid stuff just keeps happening".

"Casper" And The Neon Car

Two of the best in the business showed up at Coastal Plains with new looks, or should I say looks we haven't seen in a while. Ross Furr left his newer chassis at home this week, in favor of the white car that led him to the 2007 UARA Championship. And it was a good choice. By lap 20 Furr had moved inside the top 10 from his 16th starting spot and looked to be one of the fastest cars on the track. The other driver looking "different" was Alex Yontz. Usually in the all black car also, he rolled out the beautiful neon orange and gray car and it was a rocket also. Alex started 6th, never fell back further than 7th, and survived to finish runner up.

Going For Broke

Coastal Plains is a very racey track. With Characteristics of Concord and Lowes Motor Speedway in 4/10 mile size, it truly produces some great racing. And by the way the field raced Saturday night, they thought every lap was the last. On lap 46, Richard Boswell II gets by Jake Crum for the 3rd spot, but Crum wasn't letting go that easy. Crum ducked back to the inside of the #72 for several laps and made contact several times before Boswell finally got comfortably ahead. Back a little further in the pack, one of the best races of night was taking place between Clay Greenfield and Brandon McReynolds for the 9th position. For right around 30 laps these 2 ran side-by-side with neither giving an inch. Finally, at lap 67 after running their cars to death McReynolds gets by to take the position. Behind them, Curtis Truex Jr. is picking up the passing points as he has done so well this year as

he moves from his 23rd starting spot up to 12th by halfway. If Truex ever qualifies up front, the field had better watch out.

Lap 75 (Halfway)
1.Yelton 2.Crum 3.Caudill 4.Boswell II 5.Yontz 6.Jason York 7.Ross Furr 8.Kyle Grissom 9.Roger Lee Newton 10.McReynolds

Heated Moments

As we get to lap 89, the #25 of Ross Furr was looking to be back in his championship form of a year ago. He makes the move around York for 6th, but York isn't done and goes back by just 3 laps later. In front of them, cars get together in turn 4 and the # 48 of Scott Turlington is left sitting in the middle of the track. 3rd place Jamey Caudill slams his right side into Turlington, cars scatter, and as the jam gets back to York he locks his brakes up and Furr gets hard into the back of him causing both to spin. All cars pull away both York and Furr weren't done. Feeling that Furr got into him a little extra hard, York rams into the side of Furr as they attempt to pull away. Now Ross is mad and pulls up behind the #78 machine to "knock him around a little". It becomes almost funny as York has his brakes locked up and Furr is pushing him through turn 4. Both drivers would let cooler heads prevail and continue, but York parks his machine for good just 10 laps later. In all the melee, Ryan Robertson who had just broken into the top ten, stalls trying to avoid the accident and goes a lap down, and that was the beginning of the end for his great run. He would finish 20th, 3 laps down.

It Gets Even Better

As we go into the later stages of the event, the drivers get up on the wheel even more, if that was

even possible from what we've already seen. Boswell once again gets into it with Crum, moving him up high and taking the 2nd spot, Yontz follows as well as the #3 of Kyle Grissom. Grissom was the sleeper, he started way back in 18th and steadily made his way to the front all evening. After a lap 130 restart for a spin by the #03 car of Dillon Smith, Crum starts to get aggressive and ducks back under Grissom to take the 4th spot back away. Behind them, possibly the hardest charging car of the night is tearing his way through the field. Rookie phenom Darrell Wallace Jr got into a tussle with Boswell way back on lap 33 and had to start from the rear of the field after fixing his damaged ride. At lap 132 he muscles his way by McReynolds and takes over the 6th spot and sets his sights on the leaders.

Let's Settle It Among "Friends"

Coming down with less than 10 laps to go, Richard Boswell was on a mission. Looking for his first UARA win, he had been so close, most recently at Orange County. Yelton was the man to beat this night, but Boswell wanted him to work for it and dove to the inside on lap 142 going into one. Coming off of turn 2 he grabs the lead from Yelton. What happened next, nobody saw coming. Yelton and Boswell, great friends off the track, always race each other extremely clean. Not this night. As Boswell screamed past and they dove into turn 3, Yelton gets into the back of him spinning the #72 hard into the outside wall. Boswell's quest for that first victory went out the window with 6 laps to go. Did Yelton get into him? Did Boswell come down? Only those two can answer that, it was too close to call, it was definitely two friends going for the win.

Sneaky

In all the mess, guess who has went from 4th to the lead. Our points leader Jake Crum. Yelton tries to get his spot back at the front of the field, but he doesn't even come close to getting that spot back. UARA officials smack the #8 with a pass through penalty for rough driving and he goes to the rear. On the restart we go green-white-checkered and Crum times the flag perfectly and checks out on 2nd place Alex Yontz. Behind Yontz that Wallace kid is up to it again as he gets to the inside of Kyle Grissom and as they come to the line he nips him by a few feet and takes home the 3rd spot.

Notes:

Jake Crum. He is the most improved driver from last season. Not that he was bad last year, but he's so doggone good this year it's scary. Smooth,

patient, aggressive when he has to be, he has the whole package. And he's only 16 years-old. The real key to his success could be atop the pit box. Crew chief Nick Hutchins, a racer himself, is leading Jake to the championship and their banter on the radio sounds like they have been together for twenty years.

Ok, Darrell Wallace Jr. you are getting some props now. Darrell complained before the race "You never write about me!". After the top 5 parked on the frontstretch Wallace climbed from his car and the first thing he said was "Is that good enough?" Yes it was my friend, yes it was. That kid drove his tail off, one of the best displays of driving I've seen in quite some time. Better go watch him race now, in a few years it'll cost $95 a ticket to see him race.

Ross Furr managed to bring his battered car back through the field after the run-in with York to finish 7th, almost a win for this team after the way 2008 has gone. Look for Ross to be at Bristol in the car he ran there last time, except it might not be black.Tim Furr, Ross' dad said "I might have everything we got at the paint shop Monday, everything will be white".

Clay Greenfield had a great run going until a restart got the field waded up late and he got into the rear of Justin Boston, ending his night. Greenfield has been in the same boat as Furr, no luck at all. Someone even offered to pay to paint his car back to the green color he had last year for Bristol, don't know if he's going for that just yet.

Very early in the race the UARA scoring went out and all cars were scored by hand. It is believed that one of the cars ran down the wall and dislodged the wire connecting the officials to the transponders. The drivers may have some new rules in the drivers meeting this week about disposing of "loose sheet metal" during the race.

Where did this kid come from? John Gottsacker was hiding all night. He started way back in 21st, didn't make any waves and came home in the 5th spot. On a night with carnage and beatin' and bangin' he played it cool and made it up front.