OK, Thompson’s World Series is Rained Out… Now What?

October 17, Long Beach, NY--- Once again the weather is playing havoc with the racing schedule in the northeast. Thompson’s management, along with NASCAR, pulled the plug on their XtraMart World Series about an hour after speaking to Russ Dowd at around noon on Thursday. The rescheduled show will now run next week (Mother Nature willing).

That will leave race teams, as well as track management scrambling to figure out if they want to stay with their published schedules or run their shows against Thompson’s World Series.

The biggy on this one is Thompson, as it’s the only NASCAR-sanctioned track with a monster show to run, with fifteen (that’s right, 15!) divisions of racing. If the weather is decent, they will draw the cars, stars, and fans.

Wall Stadium had an impressive list of over 30 entries for the Tommy Comerford Memorial that will also be run this coming Saturday, with a purse of over $34,000. However, some of the stars that said they will show up at Wall, will now have to rethink that position. For Donny Lia, it’s a no-brainer, as he is in the hunt for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour title. He’ll be going to Thompson instead, as will several other drivers, including home-town hero Jamie ‘The Jet’ Tomaino.

Still, Wall Promoter Jim Morton informs me that other entries have come in, including the most recent one yesterday from J.R. Bertuccio.

For Morton, as soon as he heard on Thursday that Thompson pulled the plug, he immediately sat down with a pad and paper looking at the pros and cons of moving his race date. Morton feels that he will now lose a ton of money either way. The deciding factor to keep the Saturday, October 24^th date is that former racer Donny Ling put up a ton of money to run the race, and Morton wants to respect Ling’s wishes.

Morton also revealed that come Sunday morning after his race, he’ll climb into his car, and drive like hell up to Thompson for the Sunday portion of the World Series weekend.

Many Late Model drivers from Long Island historically look forward to coming to Thompson each year to compete as well. However, that may be a moot point, as many have committed to running the NELMA race on the 24^th at the former Mountain Speedway, with at least 10 Long Island drivers on the entry list. Along with the Late Models, Mountain will have Legends, Pro Trucks, and Street Stocks.

Come to think of it, there is even confusion here at www.LongIslandMotorsports.com, as we have two columnists to cover three tracks. Walter ‘WJ’ Johnston will be covering the NEMLA race in Pennsylvania, as I go up to Thompson. For our race coverage, that’s obviously going to leave us one track short.

Then again, it’s kind of like the same problem some race teams will struggle through next week.