If you’ve always wanted to take the family out to the races but couldn’t afford it, I would suggest that you check out Rockingham on the first weekend in November.  On November 1st, the Hooters Pro Cup, American 200 will be run at the Rock.  This is the series season finale so the champion and the rookie of the year will all be determined after the race.  Festivities start Friday the 31st with practice, qualifying and a Pit Crew competition.  All this for $10.00 and children under 12 get in free with a paid adult.

Saturday the 1st starts out with tours of the pit areas for $10.00 per person.  Drivers will be signing autographs at 11:30am and all the pre-race festivities kick-off at 12:30pm with the race starting at 1:00pm.  Now, here’s the absolute best part, reserved tickets are only $25.00 and $28.00 depending on where you sit and kids under 12, again, get in free with a paid adult.

Need somewhere to stay while you’re at the race?  Check out this.  Camping in all the outside lots at the Speedway is, you guessed it, free.  Thunder Alley RV slots are $100.00 for a view overlooking the backstretch.

Let’s do the math real quick.  If you’re the average family of four, you would spend $20.00 on Friday.  On Saturday, you’d spend $40.00 for the pit tours if all four of you went plus $56.00 for event tickets for a total of $126.00 plus food, fuel and souvenirs for a race weekend for the entire family.  Wow, that’s not bad even in this economy.

I would urge everyone to schedule some time off in November and take advantage of this chance to check out one of the best tracks around.  If you’re a NASCAR fan, this is one of the original tracks that was all but lost until Andy Hillenburg snapped it from the jaws of death. 

Great racing, family outing and easy on the purse to boot.  All this makes the Hooters Pro Cup, American 200 at Rockingham my top pick for the 2008 season.  Check out the details at www.rockinghamracewaypark.com/.

Well, I haven’t decided if this one’s good or bad yet.  This is especially close to my heart as I live in Kentucky so, this is my home track in essence.  Man, oh man….  Humpy retired yesterday and this was announced today, coincidence?  I can’t help but to think of North Wilkesboro and Rockingham when SMI purchased both of them.  We all know how well that one worked out for the pair of NC tracks.  North Wilkesboro sits in ruin and Rockingham was saved only last year from the dozers.  In the interest of being fair, I’ll reserve judgement until more info is known.  I’ll post the full press release below for your review. 

jc

Courtesy: Kentucky Speedway Media

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (May 22, 2008) – Speedway Motorsports, Inc. (NYSE:TRK) has agreed to purchase Kentucky Speedway from Kentucky Speedway, LLC. The agreement was announced today by O. Bruton Smith, founder, chairman and chief executive officer of Speedway Motorsports, Inc.  The acquisition is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2008.

Kentucky Speedway, which opened in 2000, hosts one NASCAR Nationwide Series event, one NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series event, one IndyCar Series event and other racing events each year.  The speedway is located in Sparta, Ky., approximately one-half hour south of Cincinnati, Ohio. The speedway is easily accessible via modern highways.

Located on approximately 820 acres, Kentucky Speedway features a 1.5-mile tri-oval speedway, with chair-back grandstand seating for 66,089 spectators, 50 luxury suites with seats for approximately 2,000, 100 private RV spaces, 200 reserved camping spaces and 1,000 unreserved camping spaces. Kentucky Speedway regularly hosts near capacity crowds for its Nationwide Series events.

“This is a wonderful opportunity for our company to grow into a new market in a modern speedway facility. We continue to be committed to investing in the motorsports industry,” said Smith.

Smith added that he has offered Jerry Carroll, who was instrumental in the development of Kentucky Speedway, the opportunity to remain involved in its future operations.

Kentucky Speedway will join an outstanding lineup of SMI facilities. The company also owns and operates Atlanta Motor Speedway; Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tenn.; Infineon Raceway in Sonoma, Calif.; Las Vegas Motor Speedway; Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C.; New Hampshire Motor Speedway, in Loudon, N.H.; and Texas Motor Speedway in Ft. Worth, Texas.

With this acquisition, the company will own race tracks in the West, Northeast, Midwest, Southeast and Southwest, including four of the nation’s top-10 metropolitan markets.

The breakdown includes: the sixth-largest market (Infineon/San Francisco); the fifth-largest market (Texas/Dallas-Ft. Worth); the seventh-largest market (New Hampshire/Boston); the ninth-largest market (Atlanta); the 24^th-largest market (Cincinnati); the 25^th-largest market (Lowe’s/Charlotte); the 41^st-largest market (Las Vegas); and the 92^nd-largest market (Bristol/Tri-Cities).

The title says it all I think.  Everyone’s probably going to get tired of hearing about the Rock because I can easily see it being one of my big blog topics this week.  Today’s return of racing at the Rock was everything anyone could have wanted.  Lots of action, racing with heart and a young man’s victory at an almost forgotten track.

Everyone on hand did an excellent job at presenting a first class show today.  Since NASCAR Sprint Cup had raced last night in Richmond, the NASCAR audience was able to tune in.  Even the newbie NASCAR fans had to be curious about what this “Rock” was that everyone kept referring to with such a nostalgic heart.  Today’s presentation will hopefully show some of the NASCAR gang that there is more to racing than just what the France family wants them to see.  I’d even bet that ARCA gained a few new fans.

And man, what a show.  Joey Logano dominated today.  He started out on the pole and had one point had lapped all but I think three cars.  A couple of cars managed to get laps back due to the Aaron’s Lucky Dog on cautions just like they do in NASCAR.  I loved the ending laps with Joey Logano going in to take on tires, surrendering the lead only to race back to the front with only five laps to go.  I have to admit, when he went in, I all but counted him out.  Plus, Kenny Schrader coming in second.  He’s truly a classy racer.  It really doesn’t get much better than that.

The track looked beautiful.  Andy’s team looks to have been hard at work bringing the old girl back to life.  Keep in mind, I believe Andy just bought this back in November of last year.  That’s only about six months.  Now, some of you might say, “It’s only been four years.”  You’d be amazed at how fast facilities, especially one the size of the Rock, can deteriorate without maintenance.  The newly sealed track surface looked as neat as a prom night tux.  Quite fitting for it’s day in the spotlight if you ask me.

My only disappointment about today was the fact that I couldn’t be on hand to watch the festivities in person.  Even with that, SpeedTV did a great job of covering the race.  I do have to wonder, with everyone who talked about Rockingham speaking so highly of it, why did we almost lose this one to the bulldozers again?

Hopefully, this is the beginning of showing that the Southern tracks which were the cradle of NASCAR still have a place in today’s world of the beautiful racing people.  Even with the highly coveted Winston/Nextel/Sprint Cup events stripped, they still can provide a source of entertainment at an awesome value with the expensive seats at only 35 dollars.  Shoot, when was the last time the high dollar seats at a NASCAR event were that cheap?  Probably back before Richard Petty retired.  And for all that, I think everyone owes Andy Hillenburg a bit of thanks.

My only real concern is that the grandstands didn’t seem to be as full as I would have liked to see them but it wasn’t bad for a first race.  Keep in mind everyone, there’s a Hooter’s Pro Cup race, the American 200 in October 31/November 1st.  I’ll be there for this one along with a surprise if I can work it out.  Stay tuned for more details.

Thanks again Andy!!!

Today’s ARCA Carolina 500 didn’t disappoint.  I almost felt goosebumps as I tuned into Speed to watch today.  Sadly, I have a big day at work tomorrow so I wasn’t able to head down to watch the race at the track but, I do plan on going to the Hooters Pro Cup race in late October.  The race was caution filled but still fun to watch.  No real surprise that Joey Logano took home the trophy.  One of my absolute favorites, Ken Schrader came in second.  Here’s the results from ARCARACING.com

Courtesy: Rockingham Raceway Park

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (May 3. 2008) – Joey Logano, who paced Friday’s  ARCA RE/MAX Series practice at Rockingham Speedway, edged Ricky Stenhouse Jr. by a mere 0.080 second Saturday to earn the pole position for this weekend’s Carolina 500.
 
Logano, who will make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut for Joe Gibbs Racing in June, posted a lap of 146.645 mph, 24.549 seconds, in a Chevrolet. Stenhouse, driving a Roush Fenway Racing Ford, turned a lap on the 1-mile track of 146.169 mph, 24.629 seconds.
 
“I feel pretty confident for tomorrow,” Logano said. “I think we got a really good car for the long run. We were able to move around a lot in practice yesterday and try different things. Traffic is gonna be a bear out there, so it’s gonna be staying out of trouble most of the night.”
 
Stenhouse said he didn’t expect for be second quickest.
 
“To come out here and pick up a second, I was pretty surprised,” Stenhouse admitted. “I figured we’d be top five or 10. I didn’t really know we’d be on the front row. The guys changed a little bit on the car from out last qualifying run yesterday [Saturday]. I just got into the gas and it stuck.”
 
Rounding out the top 10, respectively, were: Justin Lofton, Dodge; Michael Annett and Jack Bailey in Toyotas; Matt Carter, Ford; Justin Marks, Toyota; Justin Allgaier, Chevrolet; Ken Butler, Toyota; and Austin Dillon, Chevrolet.
Dillon, the grandson of NASCAR championship car owner Richard Childress, said the 312-lap event was “grassroots racing again.”
 
“I watched the last race here (in February 2004),” Dillon said. “This is really cool to go back I history and watch these guys, and now we get to come here and race 50 cars on the track. That’s just really cool.”

Courtesy: Rockingham Speedway

ROCKINGHAM, N.C. (May 2, 2008) – Joey Logano led ARCA RE/MAX Series practice Friday at Rockingham Speedway, but only in the final minutes of the three-hour session as festivities began for Sunday’s Carolina 500 – the reopening of “The Rock”.

Throughout Friday’s practice at the 1-mile track, Matt Carter, the series point leader and son of former NASCAR crew chief and team owner Travis Carter, sat atop the speed chart. But in the session’s final minutes, Logano’s team placed a new set of tires on his Joe Gibbs Racing Oil-Gresham & Associates Chevrolet, allowing him to leap over Carter and into the No. 1 position with a 25.111-second, 143.363-mph lap. Carter, in his Stine Seed-NuSouth Lemonade Ford, wasn’t far behind at 25.121 seconds, 143.306 mph.

“We came off the trailer nothing like the test,” said Logano, who will make his NASCAR Nationwide Series debut next month for Joe Gibbs Racing. “I wasn’t happy at all. We had to work at lot harder in practice and got it closer to where I wanted it. (We) made some mock runs, made it a little better with the mock run. But, I don’t know if that Happy Hour deal is gonna help us out a whole lot.”

Rounding out the top five, respectively, were Michael Annett and Justin Marks, both in Toyotas, and Dexter Bean in a Chevrolet.

Austin Dillon, grandson of NASCAR championship car owner Richard Childress, posted the 13th quickest lap. Driving his Garage Equipment Supply Chevrolet, Dillon recorded a lap of 25.852-second, 139.254-mph lap.

Defending series champion Frank Kimmel was 17th quickest, while Chad McCumbee was 18th fastest.

NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series regular Johnny Benson, a former Cup winner at Rockingham, practiced Ken Schrader’s Four Winds Motorhomes Dodge. Schrader was in Richmond for NASCAR Sprint Cup qualifying. He will be at Rockingham Saturday for qualifying.

Veteran James Hylton, who finished second to Richard Petty in the NASCAR Grand National [now Sprint Cup] standings in 1967, hit the wall during practice and had to settle for 48th quickest.
Qualifying for Sunday’s race begins at 10 a.m. Saturday, with the second round of time trials set for 2:30 p.m. NASCAR two-time Cup champion Tony Stewart is scheduled to wave the green flag on the Carolina 500, signaling the reopening of The Rock, at noon on Sunday.

For more information or to order tickets for the May 4 ARCA RE/MAX Series Carolina 500 and the Nov. 1 Hooters Pro Cup American 200, please contact the speedway at (910) 205-8800 or visit our Web site at www.rockinghamspeedway.com.

Several ARCA drivers spent the day at the Rock testing in preparation for the May 4th ARCA RE/MAX Series Carolina 500.  Joe Gibbs Racing development driver Joey Logano was among the fastest during the comprehensive test session.

“I am looking forward to racing here,” said Logano. “It is going to be a sweet race. There is going to be so much stuff going on with this race and the strategies that it is going to be really cool to be racing in it. I feel like we definitely have a fast car that will be capable of winning this thing.”

Tony Stewart will be on hand to drop the green flag.  For an incredible value in racing entertainment, head over to the Rockingham website and pick up some tickets.  Rockingham used to be on the Sprint Cup schedule until 2004 when it’s last remaining Sprint Cup event was transferred to Texas Motor Speedway.  This year marks the tracks return to active competition.  It’s not often that we see one of these tracks saved from the bulldozers so we need to support them when they are.