Memories of Sam Ard battling Jack Ingram in Busch series competition and Barry Beggarly battling Maurice Hill in weekly series action looms in the back of all die-hard race fans minds. Once again the UARA series was back at the 3/8's mile bullring and the drivers put on a show once again like races past and reminded everyone why OCS is so deeply embedded in the history of Southern racing. Twist and turns, mechanical failures, fights, side-by-side battles, the night had it all. Everything but a battle for the lead.

24 cars were on hand for the nights 150 lapper, but only 23 would take time for the event. Ross Furr, the 2007 UARA champion, has been bitten by bad luck and has raced sparingly since his championship season in 07'. He was on hand at OCS, but after the second practice of the day, the team decided to load up after not getting the car anywhere near where they needed it to be competitive. Even with the dismal day they were having, the former champ was still able to joke about it.

"I'm gonna set this car in the pond behind the house and make a crappie bed out of it, we can cast in both sides of the windows", said a very disappointed, but optimistic Ross Furr. The group will go test, something they have not done a lot of late and vowed to be back to contend for wins and there is no doubt that will happen sometime soon.

Matt McCall was the fastest car throughout the day, topping the chart in the second practice as if it was for kicks. He would top the list and park, another car would top it a few minutes later and McCall would go out and run 5 laps and top it once more. It was a sign of things to come as qualifying finished up it was McCall on the Sunoco pole with a new track record, to no ones surprise. He was followed by the two other hottest drivers of the season, Paddy Rodenbeck and Brandon McReynolds. Richard Boswell in 4th and Ryan Glenski making his first UARA start rounded out the top 5.

On the initial green, McCall seemed to jump the start, but after many restarts throughout the night, we all realized it was "just that good" off the line, Ron Hornaday style if you will. We didn't get far, not even half a lap, as Brennan Poole spins off turn two collecting Andy Loden and putting Loden into the inside wall ending his night. Loden was understandably upset after driving 3 hours to the track, practicing all day long and only making it 600ft from the flag stand before his night was done.

Everyone knew McCall would be strong, but Paddy Rodenbeck wanted to show he wasn't there to play either. Rodenbeck hounded McCall throughout the first portion of the event, taking the low line to pull alongside, but McCall would have his "Pig Rig" wound up off the corners, surging back in front down each straightaway. McReynolds was hanging right with them and the front 3 had broken away from the pack. One car was coming for them in a hurry, the feel-good story of the year, Garrett Campbell was charging.

Campbell is in his sophomore season of the UARA and has turned into one of the most consistent finishers of the year. The just turned 18 year-old isn't with a flashy team with big sponsors, they don't have a big toter-home and the car has only one minor sponsor on it, it is truly a backyard operation. But don't let that fool you, his car is meticulously maintained and his crew has over 100 years of combined experience. Garrett came into the race sitting in 3rd in the points and for the first 75 laps he was the only car that could catch the top 3, they looked to be the class of the field. Then enter lapped traffic.

As the top 4 were closely racing hard, they approached lapped traffic which really bunched them up and let Boswell into the mix also. Lap 73 comes and McReynolds makes a power move to the outside to overtake Rodenbeck for 2nd. Campbell is now on the Rodenbeck machine and as they enter turn 1 Boswell touches the rear of Campbell sending him around. Under the caution Kyle Grissom has rear-end failure and falls out from his top 10 running position. He wasn't the only car with trouble brewing though.

Halfway(lap75); 1.McCall 2.McReynolds 3.Rodenbeck 4.Boswell 5.Coleman Pressley 6.Jamey Caudill 7.Darrell Wallace Jr. 8.Jake Crum 9.Stacy Puryear 10.Garrett Campbell

We go back to green and McCall is shot out of a cannon, going into turn 1 with a 4 car-length lead. Two laps pass and we see why McReynolds had made such a power move around Rodenbeck for 2nd, Paddy pulls into the pits and the hood goes up, steam shooting into the air, his night was done. After riding such a wave of momentum the first part of the season, Rodenbeck has been bitten hard the last two races.

At Dillon, the car never would perform, starting in the back and ending in a wreck then at OCS he was fast all day only to have it come to an end with engine problems. The worst part for everyone watching was, he seemed to be the only one that had anything for McCall.

We already talked about the misfortunes of the 2007 UARA champion, but the 2008 UARA champion was making an appearance and was rolling towards the front. Jake Crum has raced in a few events this year, not running the entire season to focus on his upcoming ARCA starts. He was at Orange County and from the drop of the green he was "up on the wheel" in true Crum fashion. Jamey Caudill found out how bad he wanted it on lap 91, as Crum slams Caudill in turn 4 to go by and take the 5th spot. Jake's car was good, but he had no idea he was getting ready to be up among the leaders very shortly.

We get to lap 105 and that's when Brandon McReynolds night turns sour. After blowing an astonishing 4 engines already this season, McReynolds changed engine builders to keep his Dodge power rolling strong. It has worked out so far, as recent as last week winning at the Dillon Motor Speedway. But once again his car went up in smoke, engine number five for the year, but McReynolds was upbeat about it, he knew this was just bad luck and that's how racing goes sometimes.

The field was put under the red flag and it got interesting. Boswell had a fuel pickup problem throughout the day and got his teammate Owen Kelly to push him around the track to the rest of the cars and to his second place spot. When the field started to roll again, the UARA officials ordered Boswell to the rear of the field and needless to say he was furious. Maybe not as furious as his father on the spotters stand. The legendary, Dickie Boswell was letting the officials have it and for good reason, one of the oddest calls we've ever seen. If Boswell was riled then, he was REALLY going to get riled in a few laps.

Now we have Pressley and Crum behind McCall, the track veteran Stacy Puryear in the top 5, Garret Campbell still charging from his earlier spin and Boswell was mad as a hornet and on a mission. Here we go. McCall has the lead covered and Pressley has his hands full with Crum on the low side. Boswell is passing cars in wholesale fashion, until he gets to Puryear for the 5th spot.He had passed Wallace Jr, Ryan Gray and Campbell in just 12 laps, it didn't look as if Puryear would be a problem either.

But Stacy is a veteran of this track and he's a hard racer anyway, so when Boswell got to him it wasn't easy at all. They make contact a few times and Boswell slides in front of Puryear going into turn 3, Puryear makes contact with Boswell sending him into the wall. Puryear then gets into him and as Campbell passes he gets a piece sending him into the wall nearly head-on.

Campbell was the main concern, as he took one nasty lick. He emerged OK, then the attention focused back on Boswell who had stopped on the front stretch to tell Puryear how big a fan he was. Puryear drove back to his pit stall, Boswell exited his car on the track and made a b-line towards Puryear's pits. when he got there he lunged into the window, then all heck broke loose, Both of their teams, about 4 other teams, it was a mob scene for a few minutes.

After the fiasco calmed down, the two drivers had great things to say about each other. Boswell first declined an interview, but would talk directly and pretty much said; "Stacy is a $%^&" and so on ... you get the picture as there was nothing really printable that came out of that conversation.

Stacy was rather calm, but did have a memorable quote; "If I had known he was gonna act like that, I would have wrecked him on purpose for sure."

Back to racing and we have a 4 lap shootout to decide it all. Pressley couldn't do anything with McCall, and Crum couldn't do anything with Pressley. McCall would pick up the win and deservingly so. When you go to a track and top the list in practice, set a new track record in qualifying and lead the most laps (in this case every lap), you usually take home a trophy. It has become the way it is in 2009, it doesn't matter if it's the Pistone house car, or the "Pig Rig" Ford, if McCall doesn't have mechanical failure, he will be the car to beat on race day.

Behind McCall, Pressley picked up his best finish of the season in second with Crum doing the same in third and Caudill rallying from a tough day to finish fourth. Fifth was Ryan Gray, who picked u phis career best UARA-STARS series finish on his home track and speaking of home tracks, Scott Turlington has more experience at Orange County Speedway than just about anyone in the field and he used that advantage to carry him to a sixth place finish, his career best in the UARA.

Unofficial Finish:
Pos. Car # Driver Laps Completed
1 51 Matt McCall 150
2 59 Coleman Pressley 150
3 1 Jake Crum 150
4 50 Jamey Caudill 150
5 4 Ryan Gray 150
6 48 Scott Turlington 150
7 61 Chris Lawson 150
8 15 Michael Rouse 150
9 73 Owen Kelly 150
10 11 Joey Bryant 150
11 20 Ryan Glenski 150
12 92 Matthew Godley 150
13 76 Darrell Wallace Jr. 150
14 75 Paul Bryant 148
15 83 Dylan Presnell 147
16 17 Stacy Puryear 143
17 88 Richard Boswell II 142
18 12 Garrett Campbell 142
19 28 Brandon McReynolds 105
20 81 Paddy Rodenbeck 83
21 32 Kyle Grissom 70
22 5 Brennan Poole 66
23 29 Andy Loden 0
24 25 Ross Furr DNS