Boswell got into a scuffle with Stacy Puryear at Orange County Speedway in a UARA-STARS event and then Roger Lee Newton at Hickory Motor Speedway and there's still seven races remaining on the UARA-STARS tour this season. I'm sure we will be able to add more to the list.

Owen Kelly has pretty much made everyone in the pits at a UARA-STARS race his enemy from on track altercations with John King, Dylan Presnell, Paddy Rodenbeck and nearly every driver in the Hickory tour race. I'm sure this isn't the last we will see of Kelly getting into scrapes with other teams as this has become an every race deal as he even ran over top of Kyle Grissom backing out of his pit stall at Lonesome Pine Raceway. Maybe we will get to see Matt McCall display some of his Karate skills on them before season is out or the way these two have been going they might just take each other out?

Crash of the Year so far would have go to Rob Fuller, Coleman Pressley, Andy Loden, Scott Turlington, Kyle Moon, John Stancill, Brad Sams and Michael Rouse who all wiped out in the huge pile up at Bristol Motor Speedway on March 21st. This wreck was very wild and at one point it looked as if Pressley's entire body was hanging off his race car. This wreck took out many great cars and happened so quickly it could have collected even more. Of course our resident photographer, Langley Austin was there to snap shots of this crash from start to finish.

I don't think anyone will argue this pick for Most Improved Driver ... Paddy Rodenbeck. After a rough first season where Paddy was very lucky to have finished a race to now where he is on every one's stop watch once the team unloads. I really think some people even time them unloading the car because they know going into the race he will be in contention.

A lot of credit in Paddy's success this year can be attributed to his crew chief, Jeff Caudill, the brother of Late Model Stock Car veteran, Jamey. Caudill seems to have this kid on the right track and will continue to be dominant no matter what happens in the remainder of the 2009 season.

No one in 2009 has been as dominant as Andy Mercer has been at Hickory Motor Speedway. Mercer has qualified on the pole for 11 races and won an equal amount. He's only lost twice this year, once in the season opening race to Jesse LeFevers in which he finished 2nd and another most recently in the Dwight Huffman Memorial race where he lost to Matt McCall a flat tire and a late race crash kept him from finishing.

Some compare him the the recent domination at Hickory by Andy Loden, but Mercer has opened up a can of whoop $%& this season unlike any driver in recent memory. Phillip Morris was this guy last year but has just been off his game as of late despite having won seven races in the first two months of competition. Speedy Faucette started out dominant at Ace Speedway, but after several run-ins with Rodney Cook and Jason York, Speedy's season hasn't been near as good as anticipated. Nick Smith is starting to pick up his game at South Boston and lucky for him this season, he's actually been able to pass tech.

The next award is one that I had to think a lot about because the Rookie class this year is pretty good but yet nobody has really set the world on fire ... there's just not been one guy to stand way above the rest as their usually is. Brennan Poole won a race at Tri-County in a 14 car field, turned around several weeks later and set on the outside pole at Dillon in a UARA-STARS Series race and qualified on the outside pole at Hickory against Mercer. With no top 10s in 9 UARA races it makes him hard to pick for top Rookie, but he's been getting better all the time.

There is another Rookie to Late Model stocks that is racing two tracks a week and that's, David Wilson. Some wouldn't say Wilson is a rookie because he had Super Late Model experience in his native Florida, but the NASCAR Whelen All American Series has him down as a rookie and that's good enough in my book. Wilson has raced 25 races this year between Hickory and Tri-County and has three wins, 17 top 5's and only finished out of the top ten 3 times ... its hard to not pick him. I'm taking David Wilson as the top rookie as of right now, but there's other competition out there.

Dylan Presnell has also been impressive in his rookie tenure winning in only his second ever Late Model Stock Car event at Lonesome Pine Raceway. Since then he's garnered one more win in four starts on the 3/8 mile track. Presnell however has struggled running in selected UARA-STARS Series races, but the 14-year old can hang his head high after such a successful start to his career.

The Best Appearing Car award would definitely go to the FatHead Racing team with their number 8 and 5 cars. The #8 of Jamie Yelton has had a pretty sporty look to it when it's shown up to Hickory this year and Brennan Poole's flame design catches alot of eyes while he is racing around the region. Poole's orange flames this past weekend in the Tri-County Motor Speedway UARA event would definitely give him top honors among his team.

The Underdog Performance of the Year will go to ... Chris Lawson. My definition of a underdog is someone that continues to show up and everyone says who is that? ... Just another field filler? Then they go out and put everyones foot in their mouth with a stunning performance time and time again. Beating all odds with no backing, running a team basically off his own wallet and making the best of all their opportunities.

Lawson has three top fives in four UARA-STARS Series starts and has finished second in three different races, two at Tri-County and one behind Mercer at Hickory. His most recent second place came at Tri-County where he dueled with Matt McCall to the finish of the UARA-STARS Series race last Friday night. Second to McCall or Mercer is just about as good as a win. We'll no doubt be seeing a lot of this guy in the future and you'll have to look at the front of the field for him, he won't just be riding around.

Another candidate for the Underdog Performance of the Year and the Most Improved Driver would be Brandon Dean ... this youngster has had a career full of peaks and valley's where he's run good only to end up not finishing the race or crashing out, but this season has been a whole new deal. Dean has qualified and finished in the top ten in nearly every race this season at Motor Mile Speedway and after inking a sponsorship deal a little over a week ago with Kiker Tree Service, he's destined to break through with that first win soon. I didn't want to leave him out as his performances this season haven't garnered him the kind of attention he deserves and once he breaks through with a win I know everyone will be talking about him.

OK, so what do you think of my Mid-Season version of the "22 Awards"??? Let's see how the second half plays out, but I think you'll see many of these guys taking home the hardware at the end of the year in the official "22 Awards"!