Commentary by: Corey Latham ~ corey@RACE22.com

Now that we have seen the RACE22.com Executive Editor, Langley Austin give his thoughts on a few things(in News, Notes & Commentary), so let's see who I can stir up now.  I just had a few random things on my mind and I do mean random ... just thought I would write about them and see if you enjoyed it.

First off, this past weekend sucked. Anytime you go to a race track and don't see racing it does, but when you go two days in a row? It was awful, but at the same time we got to shoot the breeze quite a bit and that always turns out interesting. As the UARA drivers were on hold for weather, I had quite a few of them bs me for hours.

First off was Paddy Rodenbeck, he's one of the guys that you just can't help, but enjoy being around and I'm glad he chose to race in this region being all the way from Odessa, FL. All year he has been breaking out of the shell that he was in last year, him posing with the new Miss UARA as Matt McCall was priceless(she had no idea what either of them looked like) Then he was getting interviewed before the race at Ace Speedway. The announcer asked him before they fired up for green what his game plan was, and he replied on the PA, "I'm wrecking Matt McCall first thing", great stuff there even though he was joking.

This weekend at Concord he had a few of his frat brothers from Clemson up, and one of them actually dressed up like him, birthmark and all. We give Paddy heck, but it's just because we like him and he's always good for a laugh. If the Myrtle Beach weekend goes the way we talked about this weekend, we'll have another batch of good stories soon, not really sure if any of them will have anything to do with racing though.

Speaking of characters, it was good to see the Newton clan at the track this weekend also, as Roger Lee Newton has only run in a few UARA-STARS races this season. If you ever want to hear some of the craziest things in your life, go to the Newton's pit and strike up a conversation, but if your easily offended.....sorry about your luck. The Newton's are the only team at the track that I walk up to chew them out and tell them how bad they suck, that's how we start our conversations. But, then you have "Big Dawg" Roger Sr. step in and really tell you how it really is.

I'm really just writing this to see if "Big Dawg" reads the internet, if he does I'll either have a two hour phone call or 14-page email waiting on me, the email will be from Langley because they will call him first and he will fill me in on all the details. Really though, I love picking with the Newton's and they far from suck, I just get them riled, they are good everywhere they go especially Concord. Roger Lee did have one of the better quotes from the weekend, when I asked him about his recent altercation after the ASA race a few months back and he said "I'm here for the reason, I ain't here for the season."

Something else that I wonder about is, why is Matt McCall still racing Late Model Stock Cars? He's about the most personable person you could ever meet. I could see him on TV smiling holding a bottle of shampoo or something, he's the most marketable person at the track and he can simply drive the wheels off a race car. If I was a NASCAR Cup or Nationwide owner, he would be in a car for sure and if you doubt it, look at our video from the Hickory UARA race, he has the save of the year after the bump he got in retaliation from Jamey Caudill.

Did you think I was going to say something bad about him? Matt is a 247(exaderation, LOL) degree black belt in karate. I would have to fight him with a gun, even then he would probably catch it in his teeth and throw it through me. We were all standing around talking and Matt had a good quote this weekend also, we were bored trying to figure out what we were going to do and Matt said "We could just fight?", he didn't get many takers on that one.

Garrett Campbell ... Son, son, if your head wasn't attached you would leave it somewhere. His weekend started out with him leaving the teams radios back in Asheboro NC. The team threatened to kill him and made him drive back halfway to meet his mom to get them, losing their entire first practice session in the process. Then it got worse for him, as he missed the drivers meeting talking in the trailer and lost a lap of qualifying and well, Momma let him have it and it was funny!

He's going to be very mad for me telling this, but hey brother, at least we're talking about you? They are a good bunch of people and he's put on some shows this year coming to the front. I'll make it up to you Garrett as my prediction is you will win atleast two races next year and be one of the top three championship contenders ... We'll see.

Now we get to the saddest thing of the weekend or should I say the scariest sight and that is our very own UARA Announcer, Doc Love and his sidekick Tony Stevens. If it wasn't bad enough, it was Halloween and they decided to come in costume. For those of you that don't know Doc, he is "petite-challenged" as he says and thought it was good idea to dress as a new Miss UARA. Folks, let me tell you, this was the ugliest woman in the history of the human race, drag queens across the country are rethinking their lifestyle decisions after seeing pictures of him.

And, Tony Stevens came as what else, but the Pittsburgh Penguin? I was really hoping we would race, I wanted to see Tony working pit road and someone get knocked out of the event and be heated and Tony try to interview a mad race car driver in a penguin suit. I tried to get to the tower to announce before qualifying that any driver that hit him on pit road would have a tenth taken off their qualifying time(not that I could do it, but ...) but didn't make it in time. Newton would have had him rolled up on the windshield for that. It was all in good fun though, they gave everybody a laugh or a cry, they've got way more nerve than me.

I did make it back home Sunday after the UARA-STARS Series race was called in time to watch about half of that wonderful NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race from Talladega. What a bunch of worthless junk, NASCAR has become. In baseball you try to get to the major leagues, it is more exciting than the lower level or football players try to do good in college to play in the pros, that's some real excitement there. But in racing, all our local racers try to get to the Cup level, that's where the money is, but when you get there, the product is worse than anything you were running to achieve that in the first place. I am so glad to have my local racing, anybody who thinks that what you see on TV is better than your local track, well ... either your track is closed or you need medical attention.

Oh, I almost forgot, North Wilkesboro Speedway is finally going to open back up ... or either it's going to be another "Here we go again". For those that don't know, I was the first and pretty much the only one on the story about it opening back up in May under Charles Collins direction. And, that was the oddest thing I have ever been involved with and after talking with the guy up there for 30 seconds I started to look around to make sure I wasn't trespassing, he should of never had keys to it. He actually took a piece of paper and a pencil and drew me a picture of "ice cars" they were going to run there, he was going to put refrigeration tubes under the track and freeze it so cars
 

with studded tires could race on ice, he was far out there folks.

Well, after getting some phone calls from a guy named Bruton and some police investigating, it seems Mr. Collins had broken some laws there ... and in some other states and is now being kept up by you and me in the Wilkes County jail. Now we have the next chapter, as some investors led by the late Benny Parsons wife Terri are opening the track back up. Let's make this clear though, these are very distinguished names in this bunch and they are not going to take anyone for a ride. The USARacing Pro Cup people have announced a date there and I expect others to follow suit quickly to be part of a piece of history. But I am still skeptical, as the plan is for a three-year lease with an option to buy. Why would anyone spend the money for needed improvements just to be operational for three years, if you weren't going to buy it in the first place? I have to do some digging on this .... so, here we go again.

I guess I'm done running my mouth now and for me it's off the the North/South Shootout at Concord Speedway this weekend as the rest of the bunch will be in Kingsport, TN for the UARA-STARS race. I'm really looking forward to this weekend, as the Shootout is always the highlight of my year and the addition of the Super Late Models ran by the CRA people is going to be great. The All-American 400 at Nashville has been cancelled, so this is shaping up to be one of the largest Super Late races in the last 15 years there.

We're hoping to have live coverage from Kingsport and I'll have updates on Friday and Saturday night from Concord. Also I just wanted to say before I go, one driver that was going to be racing with us this weekend at Concord was Jeff Fultz and I don't know if he's still planning on being there, but he lost his son, Johnny in an automobile accident just a few days ago. All of us send our thoughts and prayers out to their friends and family, Jeff is a great competitor and person and we hate to see anybody have to go through things like this.