Story by: Corey Latham ~ corey@RACE22.com

Altamahaw, NC ~ Rivalries. Some are better than others, but one thing is for sure, tracks across America need them. It gets the fans blood flowing and creates sides for the masses to jump on, bringing on great discussions.

But, for the combatants involved, it can be peaceful with good racing, or it can get downright ugly. Rodney Cook and Dustin Rumley started one this past weekend at Ace Speedway, and from the looks and sounds of it, this next Friday probably shouldn't be missed. We have already skipped "peaceful".

The field was up a bit from the previous week, with two new drivers entering the mix for the 75 lap affair. Michael Lia was back from Australia in Rodney Cook's backup car and will be there this week also, and the legendary Barry Beggarly made an appearance in his black #82. Just the talk of Beggarly had the pits abuzz, as it should because Beggarly will go down as one of, if not the best in Late Model history, not a bad guy to get advice from.

Dustin Rumley was able to pick up his fourth pole in a row up, but the field is starting to get a little closer as Brad Kurth was only six hundredths behind. Robert Turner, Jason Payne and Bobby Griffin would round out the top five. Cook would have a terrible qualifying night after finally looking to get the time trails jinx off his back as Rodney has never been a good qualifier, but would come through in the races. He would roll off ninth behind Beggarly.

As the green fell things instantly got dicey up front. Jason Payne would go from the pole with Thomas Scott to his outside after the redraw, and Rumley was coming from sixth. Payne would quickly jump to the lead with cars scampering behind him as the field would negotiate Thomas Scott on the outside putting the youngster back to sixth before the first two laps were complete. Payne would lose his top spot on lap four with Kurth, Turner and a hard charging Rumley all getting by.

A lap later as all the cars were diving into turn one, contact was made and half the field would stack up, not wreck, but get all out of shape jumbling up the running order. Now Kurth was leading with his earlier rival this season Bobby Griffin in second, Payne third, and Cook had snaked his way through the mess to the fourth spot in just five laps. Ace Speedway uses the cone restart, and Cook was the first taker as the field went back to green. Turner and Rumley would also use the outside to their advantage as they were caught up in the melee and were in the back.

Kurth and Cook battled side-by-side for nearly three laps until Kurth slides up the track in turn four taking Cook with him, and Turner sneaks to the inside to make it a 3-wide battle for the lead. Kurth was able to hold on as Turner falls into second while Cook who lost all his momentum being pushed high up the track goes back to fourth behind Payne.

After a quick caution for a Mike Chambers spin, Kurth is able to squeeze down in front of Turner to hold on to the top spot, as Rumley gets by Cook and Payne for the third spot. It looks as if the contact with Kurth earlier had the Cook machine back-tracking just a bit, but it definitely came back around.

We get to lap 15 and Kurth has a mirror full of Robert Turner, he wants the lead and he wants it now. He gets a good run in turn three and gets under Kurth, but the cars make contact opening the door for Rumley on the bottom as they go three-wide for the lead once more off of turn four. Kurth hangs on once more, but Turner falls in line behind Rumley who looked to be flexing his muscle. Cook gets around Payne for fourth and starts to gain on Turner for third.

We all saw it coming, and at lap 20 Rumley gets around Kurth with ease to take the lead. But he did not pull away just yet, as Kurth looks back to the inside with Cook doing a slide job on Turner for third off turn four. Now the top four were all together, and the racing was great, they went after it lap after lap like it was the last one. On lap 27 after some dangerous moves by all, Cook gets around Kurth for second, as Turner falls out after suspension damage from getting into the wall off turn two. That shows you just how hard these guys were getting it, as Turner is the all-time winner at Ace Speedway and one of the smoothest drivers around, not often does he ever make a mistake and get into the wall just going for it, but that's exactly what they were doing.

Now it was starting to play out once more, looking like the race from a week ago, with Rumley out front and Cook giving chase. The longer they ran, the more they distanced themselves from the rest of the field, but not from each other as the gap stayed at a steady ten car lengths. Rumley would catch some traffic and Cook would close in, but when Cook managed the same traffic the lead went to back out, it was looking more and more like another win for Rumley. But, it's never that easy.

A caution with 25 to go would be the difference maker this night, with Rumley's lead now erased it was anybody's race. Kurth was the only taker for the outside lane and while Rumley got away quickly, Kurth held Cook up just a bit before getting by and giving chase to Rumley. This time he was there, and wasn't going to let him get away again.

As the leaders stay nose to tail and distance themselves from the field once more, Kurth is doing all he can to hold off the charging Jason Payne. Kurth held him off for nearly the entire second half of the race before Payne finally got by. Payne said he thought the had something for the leaders, but with the cautions spaced out his car just needed longer green flag runs.

Back up front the laps were winding down and the tension was mounting. Ten to go, and Cook closes to within a car length, seven to go and he is right on his bumper. We get the five to go signal and Cook makes his move, getting into the back of Rumley sending him slightly up the track and rubbing fenders as he passes by for the lead. On the very next lap Rumley repays the favor off turn four, turning Cook completely sideways but letting off the gas so Cook could save it, a very veteran move considering he just got moved for the lead. But, he didn't get wrecked in doing it so he wasn't going to do him any different.

Somehow Cook was able to hang on and after a mad dash by Rumley the last two laps he picks up the win. As the cars went around the track on the cool down lap, Rumley shows his displeasure with Cook and spins him on the backstretch. As Rumley and Payne park on the frontstretch, here comes Cook at break neck speed in the wrong direction, and looks to be hitting Rumley head on, but locks the brakes down and slides to a stop into the #88 as the two sit nose to nose.

Cook was mad, and as he took off the steering wheel and threw it into the windshield, you could tell some fireworks were about to go off. As Cook climbed from his car he went after Rumley as his crew members held him back, with some of them having to be restrained themselves by track officials. Cook punched the hood of Rumleys car as they drug him away, all the while some people were scuffling on the other side of the wall in the pits, and we are pretty sure those people weren't with either team, it was wild to say the least.

Cook gave a shout to the crowd and pumped his fist in the air, picking up his sixth win out of eight races at the speedway. To be somebody who just won, he wasn't a happy camper and told just what he thought. "I saw what Dustin was doing, the same thing as last week, he was just getting tight" said an angry Cook. "He said he had a good car riding last week, well I don't know what happened to his car this week, cause he sort of got off the pace there I think. When you get tight in the center like he was, I was going to be able to get to him, and I did, and we made some contact. But you know what? That's just racin man, I got to him and he tried to pinch me off like he should and I got into his left corner, just hard racing, I really didn't think much about it. Then he did all he could just to wreck me those last few laps and I basically just manhandled it and got away from him."

"Then after the race he comes down the back straightaway and just turns me. That looks like a move I might have done back in the day, but the reason he did it was because he got beat by some hard racing, nothing else. I got four race cars, they had to sit out a few weeks because their car got tore up, I know they got money but my stuff is ready to go. They want to play that game with me? I'll show them dirty, I can promise you that. I have been driving for 25 years between dirt and asphalt, the kid has got a lot to learn, his daddy
 

should know better telling him on the radio to wreck me. The next race, I won't run him clean, I'll drive down there and I'll lay it on his ass in the left quarter panel and spin his ass out, we'll see how he likes that. Points mean nothing to me over here, I got a point to prove to him, if he wants to drive me that way, I PROMISE you, I'll make it dirty. We know where the problem comes from, Dustin has a dad (Mark) that is pretty much an asshole in my book, well if he wants to follow in his footsteps we'll just go ahead and call him an asshole too."

Dustin Rumley was not quite as vocal, but still was holding his ground after the race. "The car was a little free from the beginning and I was just trying my best to get out away from them", said a rather cool and calm Rumley. "It was loose in, loose off, we actually tried to snug it up just a bit from last week, but you know how these things go, the track changes and your chasing it. Then at the end I have no idea what Rodney was doing, I guess he was trying to make a hole because there sure wasn't one there. He drove all down my side, knocked the door in, hopped on my car, I don't know what he was doing."

"That's OK, that just proves what we all know, he can't race nobody clean because he simply Isn't good enough, the only way he knows how to win is to knock somebody out of the way. If that's how he's going to drive me, I'm going to race him like that. Yeah, I had him jacked sideways, but I let him gather it back up, I don't race like that. And the track loves him so much they probably would have black flagged me anyway. I don't wan to race like that, beating and bangin, that sounds great, but driving though somebody? I ain't going to take it, that's just the way it is.

About the incident on the backstretch: "I was just expressing my feelings on how I didn't appreciate that. He can try it again, but guess what, it's going to be the same results or worse. We can go out here and run rough and I'll run him the same way right back, but if he wants to go out here and run clean and beat and bang then we'll have a good time and laugh about it after the race. I did it, can't take that back which is fine, he just is not going to run over me."

Results:
1. Rodney Cook #14
2. Dustin Rumley #88
3. Jason Payne #9
4. Brad Kurth #9
5. Bobby Griffin #85
6. Thomas Scott #8
7. Kevin Parker #10
8. Mike Chambers #27
9. Barry Beggarly #82
10. Dean Fogleman #71
11. Coy Hedrick #44
12. Michael Lia #47
13. Scotty Warren #29
14. Robert Turner #13