November7, Concord, NC--- We noted this weekend that Concord Motorsports Park is nowcalled Concord Speedway (www.ConcordSpeedway.net).If Wall can go from Wall Stadium to Wall Township Speedway then back to WallStadium, then why not?

Whatis surprising for a weekly short track is that the track has their ownambulance.

Onceagain, there is a full contingent of Tour-Type Modifieds that showed up. Thereare about 42 of the 43 Modifieds that took to the track for qualifying. Therewere more cars that showed earlier; however, about 3 or 4 left to go home withblown engines.

Asevery year, the pits are overflowing with race cars for the annual event. Thecar counts for the SK-Type Modifieds are somewhat disappointing with only about23 cars.

Theweather is cooperating once again with beautiful sunny skies, although with somewhatcold temperatures at 46 degrees this morning.

Wewere looking at the TBARA Sprint Cars that are parked on the outside of thetrack, and as they took to the track for practice and heats. Unfortunatelythere is no information available on these cars and their series, as there isno PR person that has shown their face in the press box. It’s hard to do PR ifthey don’t make themselves available to the media.

Webecame very curious about these open-wheel cars as their times going aroundConcord are about 2 seconds quicker than the Modifieds. That’s almost as surprisingas finding the SK’s are running comparable times as the Tour Modifieds.

Anothercurious note about the John Blewett III Memorial North-South Shootout® is that NOBODY from the Blewett family,including Jimmy Blewett, has shown up for John’s race. That has been thesubject of much speculation in the press box, none of which we’ll go into, aswe have no information as to why.

Thiswill be an interesting day, as Matthew Dillner and the Speed 51 group aresitting next to us in the press box, doing their regular reporting on their website (www.Speed51.com), as well asbroadcasting the race live on the internet. The broadcast will feature tworaces; the Tour-Type Modifieds, as well as the CRA Super Series Super LateModels.

Thetime that they go “On-Air” is tentatively scheduled for about 3:00pm. If youcan’t make the race, you can listen on the Internet live at www.RaceTalkRadio.com. We’ll, orcourse, be doing our regular job of heckling them from the sidelines!

OurPhoto Editor Mike Mercurio isn’t available this weekend for the Shootout, as heis taking photos at the dirt track Lowe’s Motor Speedway for SpeedwayIllustrated. The CRA Super Series photographer, Ron Harnor from www.SuperChargedPhotos.com wasgood enough to give us a ton of photos, which will be placed on the www.LongIslandMotorsports.com websitewhen we get back to New York on Monday night. We thank Ron for lending us histalents.

Somethingthat we have been remiss in noting is that our Editor-In-Chief Walter ‘WJ’Johnston now has his own blog site at www.MyRaceNews.com.WJ has and will be submitting his stories and thoughts to both his blog and hisregular column on www.LongIslandMotorsports.com.

Commentsto his blog are always welcome. My suggestion is not to look to comment on thestories; instead, look for any spelling or grammatical mistakes and give ‘emhell! His regular long-time readers will understand…

Lateron when the SK Modifieds take to the track for their feature, the startinglineup will be:

RyanPreece                                        Matt Hirschman
Ronnie Silk                                          Eric Beers
Rowan Pennink                                   Steven Reed
Ted Christopher                                 Shawn Carrig
Doug Coby                                           Jimmy Zacharias
Ron Yuhas Jr.                                     Anthony Sesely
Kerry Malone                                     Patrick Emerling
Keith Rocco                                         Dan Kurzejewski
Mike Speeny                                        Craig Dolphin
Mike Nichols                                       Gerry Gradl Jr.
Gary Young Jr.                                  Rick Kluth
Woody Pitkat

Thestarting lineup for the CRA Super Series Super Late Models are:

CassiusClark                                      Jeff Choquette
Jeff Fultz                                              Max Gresham
Johanna Long                                     Ryan Blaney
John VanDorn                                    Dylan Presnell
Johnathan Hicken                              Mark Ready
Mason Mingus                                    Brian Ickler
Clay Jones                                           Chase Elliott
James Edwards                                  John Long
David Latour Jr.                                Preston Peltier
Logan Demoshek                               Cooper Fassin
David Russell                                      Tony Black
Terry Horak                                       Bobby Measmer Jr.
Dean Slappey                                      LannyGraham

Wehave a provisional Tour-Type Modified starting lineup. It is provisional asthere are still  several cars that willjoin the field after two consi’s. The lineup so far is:

ChuckHossfeld                                   Matt Hirschman
Ryan Preece                                        Burt Myers
Josh Nichols                                        James Civali
Eric Beers                                            LesHinckley
Frank Fleming                                    Bobby Grigas III
George Brunnhoelzl III                    Rick Kluth
Ted Christopher                                 AnthonySesely
Rowan Pennink                                   Andy Seuss
Daren Scherer