Commentary by: Langley Austin ~ langley@RACE22.com

Wytheville, VA(November 3, 2009) -- With the wet, wet weekend in the rear view mirror we're reflecting a little and looking forward a little to the weekend upcoming with two BIG races, one in Kingsport, TN and the other back down Concord, NC.

There's not a ton we can say about the UARA-STARS Series event at Concord Speedway this past weekend, but those who know me, know that I can pretty much find anything to talk about until your ears start bleeding. Let's start with number one or in reality #28, as Brandon McReynolds put up another incredible performance despite not being 100% up to par.

NOT GIVING UP ...
McReynolds had a hernia surgery a little over a week ago now and was really sore this weekend, but you wouldn't have known it by looking at the time charts over the weekend including winning the pole for the race before it was called due to the rain. The event at Concord will now take place on November 14th and will now be the season finale event for the UARA-STARS Series, but McReynolds will now find himself having to requalify if he wants to take home the $100 pole award and status as the pole winner for this race after a driver vote determined that the weekend was a complete scratch.

McReynolds, who on Saturday had Joe Gibbs Racing development driver, Matt DiBenedetto standing by for him as sort of a super-sub, but despite the soreness he pressed on and didn't need to use him. DiBenedetto has won twice before in only four starts at Concord in the UARA-STARS Series and would have been the ideal backup driver, but McReynolds certainly did a great job.

TWO AGAINST TWENTY-TWO
Matt McCall posted the second fastest time in qualifying and was very upset when the series(or actually the drivers) decided to scratch qualifying and start from the beginning in two weeks. McCall said once the drivers were told that they would be given a vote that it was two(him and McReynolds) against 22, but it ended up being about the top eight or nine drivers who wanted to keep their position.

GREEDY
Paddy Rodenbeck voted to keep his position although he really didn't want to ... Rodenbeck said in a conversation with myself and several others that he was really disappointed in his qualifying effort. After his performance here in the spring when he won his first career Late Model Stock Car race, he wanted to do this one right and lead all 150-laps.

ENGINE ISSUES, BUT STILL FAST
Kyle Grissom was another driver who really would have rather kept his qualifying position after the young driver posted the sixth fastest time. That only begins to tell the story though as he had engine issues in practice and swapped out engines before the cars qualified and then nearly wiped his car out as he was the last car to hit the track and rain had begun to fall. Grissom then got a chance to qualify after the rain stopped for a moment and posted the sixth place effort, but now that all goes down the drain, but atleast he'll have a chance to have a fresh powerplant when the series returns to Concord.

WE'LL TAKE IT
Brennan Poole would have ordinarily been frustrated with an eighth place qualifying effort, but after the day he had practiced off the pace, eighth was impressive especially considering the rain was falling pretty steady when he qualified as he was the next to last car. Poole however is expecting to be better when the series comes back for this race and might just qualify better than eighth. Poole however is disappointed that he won't be able to attend the Phoenix NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race on November 14th, but his racing comes first.

DEBUT PUSHED BACK
Clint King is probably pretty happy that the cars will requalify as the young driver was making his debut and despite being strong in practice impressing everyone, he was mad after qualifying. King hit the rev-limiter chip on his qualifying lap and probably cost himself atleast two-tenths of a second which would have moved him from his 18th place qualifying effort up to being close to breaking into the top ten. Certainly he would have learned a lot coming from the rear of the field, but now he'll get a chance at redemption when the series returns and he finally gets to make his debut.

READY FOR A REDO
Brandon Dean is likely another driver who would like to have that qualifying effort back. He was fastest in the first practice session and then was only able to muster a ninth place effort in qualifying. After getting David Mercer from Mercer Race Car Engineering to setup the car, he knew he had a car capable of not only qualifying better, but possibly winning the race.

CAN'T MAKE IT BACK
Shane Huffman will be one of the drivers not able to make it back for this event as he will be in Phoenix, AZ for the NASCAR Nationwide Series race and won't be able to make it back in time. Deborah Renshaw-Parker had pulled out of the event after a dismal 23rd place qualifying effort and we're not 100% sure whether she will attempt to come back.

FAST LOCAL RETURNS HOME
One more guy I'd like to give a shout-out to on their performance before I get any further is Kenny Brooks, who was a regular at Motor Mile Speedway in Radford, VA, but is a Concord, NC local driver. Brooks is known to be a pretty good qualifier and he backed that up with a fourth place effort and with his well underfunded team against the giants of the UARA-STARS Series, that's a pretty good feat.

BREAK IN THE WAR
The 'Veteran Warfare' as we called it in the Concord UARA-STARS Preview last week between Jamey Caudill and Matt McCall didn't get a chance to hit the track, but everyone was talking about it for sure. I had many people ask me if I thought either would do anything against the other and I felt sure we'd see a little something, but I didn't know what. However with McCall starting second, the same position he started and finished in during the spring race and Caudill starting seventh, we may have never got a chance to see this play out. But, then again you know McCall has felt that Rodenbeck was playing 'teammate' for Caudill and he was in a great position to help his teammate if McCall's thoughts were correct.

RACE22.com vs JAMEY CAUDILL???
As long as I'm talking about the Caudill-McCall situation I want to take this opportunity to tackle something that was brought to my attention on Monday evening. I was told by a reliable source that Caudill and his team felt like we(RACE22.com) or me in specific was against them with their evidence being that we didn't show the wreck when Caudill was turned at Hickory, but showed when Caudill retaliated.

Guys, I'm speechless ... would I have kept the video of the first incident from the readers of this website? Are you crazy??? I would love to be able to show you that piece of video, if only there was one ... most of you know that Kimberly Smith, my fiance shoots and edits the video of the races and while she does an awesome job, she can't have the camera in every place in the field. When I got to my van after the race the first thing I asked was did you get the wreck and much to my disappointment(and a few words I shared with her that I won't with you), we didn't have it.

She had it on them and after the lap or two they were side by side she pulled off of them because there was other battles on the track. Of course, you guys know me I'm all about controversy and I told her at Concord or Kingsport that if they ran 150-laps side-by-side, then that better be all that's in the video, because I WANT proof of whatever happens. As I've wrote several other times I don't know what happened in that incident in turns one and two when Caudill was turned, but if you want my opinion I would say that McCall dumped him ... but I DIDN'T see it, so I can't say.

Jamey and crew ... come on guys, BE REALISTIC ... I don't have a dog in this fight except for the fact that I want to see two of the best drivers ever in Late Model Stock Car racing have a chance to settle this in whatever way they choose and then have the opportunity to write about it.

Anyone can take what they want from anything we do here or write about on this website, but the one thing you can NEVER seriously accuse us of is being biased. I don't care what happens as long as something happens for us to talk about ... Will we call it like we see it? Absolutely! Will you always like the way we see it? Absolutely not! But, you will know where we're coming from ... straight down the middle, no left, no right, just right down the middle.

SOUTH BOSTON
Anyways, enough of that ignorance ... Away from Concord a little racing saw some daylight at South Boston Speedway where in the headliner race Clay Rogers took home the title in the USARacing Pro Cup Series, but in the much overshadowed Limited Late Model race, Danny Willis, Jr. took home the victory. Joey Throckmorton and pole winner, Justin Snow finished second and third.

STILL GOING IN CIRCLE'S
On another front away from the race track ... Apparently there has been a rumor circulating that Circle Racing Wheels was shutting down, but after talking to company represenative, Randy Rabinowich we know there's no truth to the rumor. Rabinowich said that while the company has struggled having to downsize like nearly every other company in this economy, that they are still open and expect to remain that way going forward.

KINGSPORT UP NEXT
The reopening of Kingsport Speedway by UARA-STARS Series officials on Saturday, November 7th looks promising as many of the East Tennessee area drivers are looking to get a chance to either get back on this track or get on this track for the first time. Then mix in the regulars of the UARA-STARS Series tour and we might just have one of the best fields of the season. We'll give you some juicy details on some of the names you might just see at Kingsport in our UARA-STARS Series preview later in the week.

BACK TO CONCORD WITH MORE
When the UARA-STARS Series racing action was canceled
 

this past Sunday after being originally scheduled for Saturday, many people were frustrated with the weather, but the UARA-STARS officials did a fantastic job as did the track staff to try and get the track ready to go. However, frustrations for some maybe just the break others were looking for like, newly crowned USARacing Pro Cup Series champion, Clay Rogers, who loves any chance to drive pretty much anything at Concord Speedway, his home track.

With the USARacing season now over, Rogers will likely be making the start in the rescheduled race. Another driver, who might get the chance to make the trip over is Clint Mills, who experienced engine troubles this past weekend before getting the car loaded up. Mills has had some success on the 1/2 mile track which he also calls his home track and would love to get his car ready for this race. Former track champion in the Late Model Stock Car division, Chuck Crump will also hopefully get the chance to make this race which if all three of these guys get to come it may generate some additional fan interest from the locals.

SPEAKING OF CONCORD
Also along with the UARA coming back to Concord in two weeks, the North South Shootout race will be held there this week with the NASCAR style Modifieds and the Super Late Models taking center stage. Our own, Corey Latham will be there this weekend and he'll have a preview of this race including a little Late Model Stock Car twist on the Super Late Model race later in the week.