Story by: Corey Latham ~ corey@RACE22.com

Altamahaw, NC(June 29, 2010) -- As Ace Speedway opened it's doors this past Friday, lot's of "would's" were floating around. Would the racing be as good as last week? Would there be more controversy? Would there be people dropping out or coming in new? Would the legendary Barry Beggarly be back once again? Would the Cook/Rumley feud continue? Could anybody beat Rodney Cook after his dramatic win a week ago? Well, the answers were yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and keep reading.

Another beautiful but humid night at the Speedway had teams itching to hit the track and get the evening going. One driver never made it past the first lap of practice, as RCR driver Tim George Jr. went out and creamed his car into the turn one wall on his first lap around the speedway and was forced to load up and go home. It was unfortunate for a driver, who was hoping to make his first career Ace Speedway start and was coiming off his first career Late Model Stock Car win at Tri-County Motor Speedway a little over a month ago.

Another face back from last week was the driver from Australia, Micheal Lia, who will be back again to race in August as he gets his paperwork together to move to America next season. John Moore not being there once again was a hot topic, as his motor is still being worked on after getting damaged three races ago. Moore and his team are competitive but race on a shoestring budget, and sometimes getting in line for motor repairs means simply "waiting their turn".

The big story of the night was before any qualifying or racing took place, point leader Rodney Cook was nowhere to be found as practice was ending and qualifying was about to begin. His team was there, and he had been there earlier, but practice yielded some bad news. A water pump went bad on his Ford motor so Cook had to fly back to Reidsville and pick up another car to race for the night. The water pump on a Ford is different than the Chevy's, as they are further back on the motor requiring more work and nobody at the track had one for them to borrow or a gasket to fit it anyway. Cook was also worried that it may have hurt the motor, so instead of taking a chance he just went and got another car, but getting back in time for the race was another story.

Qualifying went off without him, and not sure if it mattered or not, as his nemesis Dustin Rumley picked up his fifth pole in a row, beating Jason Payne by 0.064. Brad Kurth, Scotty Warren and Barry Beggarly would round out the top five, with all eyes on Beggarly. The former National Champion made his return to Ace last week after many years away, and looked noticeably off, but after testing this week and figuring out they had a bad set of tires the previous week, drivers in the pits were definitely worried, and for good reason.

With one 25 lap race to go Cook rolled into the back parking lot with the crew rushing parts to work on the car before the race. He and another crew member had prepped the car at the shop as it was set up for Orange County Speedway, where the team raced last Saturday, and they did all the work in just under 30 minutes to return to Ace. The team changed some sway bars and the gear, then put the carb on and it was time to fire them up to race, they had did it all just in time.

The top 6 drivers drew for positions, putting Beggarly on the pole for the 100 lap event. As the green fell, Beggarly quickly jumped to the lead as Rumley gets under Payne for second. Payne also gets by passed by Kurth and Warren, but not to fear as Payne's car this season has been a car for the "long run" and takes a few laps to come in. Beggarly's night in the lead would end on lap four as Rumley, Kurth and Warren all get by. With Beggarly stuck on the outside and cars flying under him, he spins in turn four and collects the cars of Bobby Griffin and Thomas Scott bringing out the caution. The good feeling of Beggarly being up front was gone from the crowd, and some wondered if it was just a fluke, but the legend would show them later it was no fluke.

In the first few laps of green, Cook was able to only pass one car, and it looked as if the storybook ending some had been waiting for was not going to happen, after all, the car was set up for a completely different track, and had not even one lap on it after the crew made the few changes they could in the pits and at the shop in 30 minutes. We were quickly going to see what it was made of, as the restart cone was displayed and Cook was the only one to take advantage moving himself from tenth to outside of Rumley for the lead. Needless to say the entire crowd came to their feet.

As the cars barrel into turn one, Rumley gets the slight advantage and smoke flies from the cars as Cook roughs him up and gets back along side. The two drag race down the backstretch with more fenders banging as Cook will not be denied and muscles his way to the top spot as the crowd goes wild. From broke down, no practice, no qualifying and with a car that wasn't even set up for this track, Cook has gone from 13th to the lead in five laps.

Now the eyes were at the front to see if this was just hard driving to get up there, the question was whether he could stay there as Rumley has been very strong the past few races. Cook looked to be fine and pulled out to a eight car length lead as he and Rumley motored away from the pack. The best race was for third as Kurth had it, but as was said earlier, the longer Jason Payne's car runs the faster it gets, and he hounded Kurth for ten laps before taking the spot away on lap 33. The comeback year for Scottie Warren also goes bad once again at the same time, as he has rear suspension problems putting him out early once more.

As the race carries on, we get a long green flag stretch, and Cook opens up a nearly full straightaway lead on Rumley for second. At lap 61 Rusty Gaspard slows on the frontstretch to bring out the caution. Will Rumley return the favor and take his chances on the outside? He would not, as the only one to bite would be Beggarly after making numerous pit stops to adjust on his car. Before the field ever goes green the caution is out once more as third place Payne stalls on the backstretch. Payne would fight back but talked about the problem after the race. "It just lost fuel pressure, I had no warning it just cut off. It's so hot out here, and running around under the caution for a while like that, it will boil the fuel up in the carburetor and stall it. I
 

tried to get my position back but they wouldn't let me, but at least I tried". Payne would be forced to start at the rear of the field but would rally back strong.
 
Cook pulls away until 25 to go when Gaspard brings out another caution. The crowd is getting antsy, will Rumley try his luck outside Cook this time? Nope, Bobby Griffin is the only one to take advantage and makes it work sliding into second between Cook and Rumley. The racing is good from second on back, as Griffin doesn't look to be as fast as a few cars behind him, but fast enough that they can't pass, bunching up the field. Beggarly is all over Rumley for third, and Jason Payne is back up challenging Kurth for fifth when Kurth spins off turn two to bring out the caution. Kurth is upset and pulls to the outside of Payne to show him that he cares.

The final restart of the night comes with 19 laps to go, and after another pit stop Barry Beggarly has finally got his car just right and pulls to the outside once more, Beggarly was definitely not scared of the outside lane. Beggarly grabs the second spot from Griffin after a short battle as Cook is driving off into the sunset. Griffin loses traction and falls from second to seventh in one lap as he gets freight trained on the inside. Cook is on the way to victory, but Rumley has a mirror full of Payne and Kurth for the third spot. Payne finally gets by after taking the white flag, and when Kurth follows his hole Rumley spins in turn three on the final lap putting him down to seventh in the final running order.

Victory lane was emotional this week once again for the Cook crew, but for different reasons. Last week it was anger and joy at the same time, this week it was amazement at what they had accomplished. "This is amazing", said a happy Cook after the race. "I told my guy riding with me back to the shop to get the other car, if we pull this off, this is just what kind of luck we have this year. I've got some good cars, but I still have to say I have luck on my side, I really can't believe I pulled it off. I pulled up on that cone restart at the beginning beside Dustin, and he did have a great car, but I let him know how rough driving really is. I'll admit to that right there, I booted him getting into the corner, but if you want to talk about me doing rough driving, I'll show you how it's done. I just can't believe we pulled this off I'm tickled to death for our whole team, they work their tails off".

"Right there at the end it was pretty cool seeing Barry pull up on the outside of me for those restarts. He showed everybody that he has still got it, spun out passed most of the cars on the outside, he drove the wheels off of it. that's good for Ace, we need some more cars over here, but we prove week in and week out you don't need a bunch of cars to put on a great show. I ran away there for a little bit, but from what my crew was telling me the racing behind me was pretty intense. It's just a matter of time before those guys catch up and they will start picking up their wins too, I'm just riding this as long as I can."

Barry Beggarly drove his heart out the second half of the race, and showed that while times may change, some things just stay the same. Beggarly gave everything he had literally, and had to be helped off the frontstretch, but in typical Barry fashion made sure he said a few words before letting anybody know he needed assistance. "We just worked on this thing all night,it was way too free at the beginning and we just had to tighten it up from practice" said a very hot Beggarly. It was really good on the outside, and with this cone deal and not counting caution laps, we could make adjustments and start right back up there on the outside. It was pretty good at the end, if we lost spots on the outside it wasn't that big a deal, we had to try it."

"It feels good to come over here and come out with a second place finish. I mean we finished second to Rodney Cook and he is pretty dominant over here so we can't complain. We'll work on it and get better and come back and try it again".

Interesting note: Beggarly isn't driving a known chassis, such as Marlowe, Pistone or FDJ like all other drivers in the Southeast. He is driving his own creation, sitting around this past winter he decided to use all the parts he had acquired over time and build his own car from the ground up and now in the second race out it has finished second, pretty impressive in today's racing world.

Results:
1 - Rodney Cook #14
2 - Barry Beggarly #82
3 - Jason Payne #9
4 - Bobby Griffin #85
5 - Dean Fogleman #7
6 - Brad Kurth #9
7 - Dustin Rumley #88
8 - Mike Chambers #27
9 - Thomas Scott #8
10 - Michael Lia #47
11 - Rusty Gaspard #23
12 - Kevin Parker #10
13 - Scotty Warren #29