I made the drive to Winston-Salem last Saturday to watch the weekly races at Bowman Gray Stadium. They were running a 100 lap race for the Modifieds and two features for the Sportsman cars. They always run two features for the 4 cylinder cars due to the sheer numbers of them, and the Street Stocks had their regular feature.
This car won the 100 lapper. Driver is Jonathan Brown, he led most of the way, got passed on a restart with about 20 laps to go then re-passed for the lead on another restart with about 12 to go.
This car ran second. John Smith (I bet the crew doesn't book motel reservations in his name...) is a Whelen Southern Modified Tour regular, he’s not a regular at this track but he’s tough there, he won this 100 lap race last season and came very close to winning it this year too:
This Street Stock didn’t look quite as good after the race:
(Photo courtesy of the track photographer)
This one (the day-glo orange Mustang 4-cylinder in the foreground) didn’t either.
The next photo is also courtesy of the track photographer. The person taking the track photo must have been standing behind the wall right behind me, I was on the top row of bleachers and his view was almost identical to mine. The black car facing backwards had spun coming off the turn and was sitting sideways with the nose touching the guardrail. The second black car t-boned him and the day-glo car and the black/silver car came off the turn and piled into the back of the black/yellow car. The black/silver car ran over the left rear of the day-glo car and did a Joie Chitwood 2-wheel balancing act to the spot where it landed in the photo.
Just to give you an idea how flat The Stadium is, the Speedy-Dry the safety crew put down where the radiator of the Mustang was broken was about 4 feet long and 1 foot wide. Fluids don't run down the track at all because there's no banking.
The crowd was a little off, probably 12,000 or so instead of the full capacity. I think the Darlington race cut into the gate just a bit. Everyone there sure had a good time, though. They had a full field of cars in every division and the racing is competitive.
I got stuck in a traffic jam due to road construction at midnight on I-85 at Concord. They had all but one lane closed down and it was a mess, I didn’t get home until 2am. It was worth it though.
In other less interesting news, today is my birthday. |
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