Story by: Langley Austin ~ langley@RACE22.com

Wytheville, VA(February 19, 2010) -- The smells, the sounds, the sights ... Today at Hickory Motor Speedway, it was a return to a normal way of life for me being back at a race track for the first time since the checkered flag fell at Myrtle Beach Speedway on Thanksgiving weekend.

I headed to Hickory for a simple photo shoot to begin working on a new clients new website for this season and as it turned out they weren't the only team descending upon the historic 3/8 mile track today. Among the cars turning laps at Hickory on Friday was a handful of UARA-STARS Series drivers including Alex Yontz, Garrett Campbell, Ronnie Bassett Jr., Robert Johnson and Ty Dillon as well as Hickory regulars, Dexter Canipe Jr. and Austin McDaniel. Track promoter, Kevin Piercy also had his son turning laps in a car there this evening.

With eight different drivers taking to the track to test for upcoming races, it was a great day to hit the track for the first time this year and gave me a chance to chat with some of the drivers and more people at the track. Getting to see and talk to Greg Marlowe, Danny Presnell and Kevin Piercy as well as seeing some old familiar faces like Ed Berrier, the former crew chief for Yontz, who is returning to Late Model Stock Cars with Junior Johnson's son, Robert and former Friendship Speedway champion, Rock Harris, who was with Johnson, but has moved to the role as Ronnie Bassett's crew chief.

Also, it was a chance to catch up with Yontz a little after the disastrous season he had in 2009 and to chat a little about his new business venture. Yontz is excited about the 2010 season and what it might bring as he will be competing in a mix of series races with a full-time effort in the UARA-STARS behind the wheel of the Barber Automotive car and periodic starts in his PASS Super Late Model. For those of you who don't already know, Yontz has started a new chassis building business with Basic Racing Enterprises and while he's not built a lot of cars this winter, he's hoping to build a strong presence over the next year.

And, to no ones surprise, Yontz in his ghost white car was the fastest on the stopwatch today despite the fact that his car looked terrible and he never bolted on a set of new tires as most all other cars did. Yontz' fastest lap was a 15.44, which isn't extremely fast, but obviously the entire pit area expected him to be fast as everytime his car hit the track everyone there was reaching for their stopwatches. Yontz hopes to return sometime next week and he plans to have his setup much better and we could see some really fast laps out of the guy, who everyone is expecting to be the driver to beat in the UARA in 2010.

Yontz wasn't just there to drive though as he was playing the role of "crew chief" for chassis customer, Garrett Campbell. Campbell had a few bumps in the road today during testing, but the young driver seems to be turning the corner with his program and certainly having Yontz helping isn't hurting the effort. Campbell blew out a freeze plug in one of the two cars that he brought to the track and he didn't seem to be too good early in testing, but by the end of the day he was close to breaking into the 15.40's himself.

Another driver, who seemed to get off to a slow start, but picked up greatly throughout the day was Ronnie Bassett, Jr., who coming into this season on the UARA-STARS Series tour has only two Late Model starts. Bassett with the leadership of Rock Harris as well as a little driver coaching from Greg Marlowe picked up speed all day and eventually ended the day nearing the 15.40's as well and more importantly, he was becoming more consistent all day long.

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series team owner, Richard Childress' grandson, Ty Dillon and NASCAR Hall of Famer, Junior Johnson's son, Robert Johnson were both turning laps testing today and were both consistent right off the trailer. While Johnson mostly made short runs during the day, Dillon made a long run, which I think was around 100-laps and he remained consistent throughout, which is a good sign for him in the 150-lap UARA-STARS Series season opener.

Austin McDaniel had a "bad" looking #12M car, but the young driver didn't turn many laps throughout the time he was there for testing and neither did, Dexter Canipe, Jr., who had his Limited car there before taking it to a sponsor appearance this evening.

It was a great day and it was awesome to get back to the track and see familiar faces ... Hopefully I'll be hitting a couple more test this next week and we can bring you more info on more drivers at more tracks and get you as up to date before racing season begins on March 13th!  For some more info from the test check out our twitter feed at http://twitter.com/race22