Mostly Racin' Stuff

By Tom Avenengo

Volume # 197

10/13/2014

Special notice:

Early on Monday, 10/13/14, I got the word that I was to go to the ER first thing on Tuesday so I can be admitted to the hospital in order to get rid of this retention of water I’ve had for some time now. Medications (water pills) just were not cutting it. Therefore, this week’s column is coming out early. Next week, around Tues/Wed, as long as I’m up to it, we’ll be heading north to get some more stuff out of my house, and again, if I feel up to it a trip or two to Eastern States. We will be heading back to Florida the Monday after ESW. So, sad to say, don’t expect a column for the next couple of weeks.

Some personal/family stuff:

My wife, who left us on July 3, 2014.

Remember, photos can only be seen on the New England Tractor/Race Report website, which is linked to at the end of my columns.

I’m not sure just how much will get done on this weeks column. I’m still having water retention problems, and I have no more info as to what might happen until tomorrow (Monday), since I’m starting this on Sunday afternoon. I might have to be hospitalized to get rid of the water. I’m due to go back north next week to get some things from our house, and possibly hit ESW. If I’m as I am now, that would be difficult.

In my daughter Sandy’s, house, here in Cape Coral, where I sit at the dinner table, I’m facing a wall at the other end of the table. On that wall Sandy has photos of my wife with me, her brothers, others, and also a photo from our wedding. There’s a certain photo that hits me whenever I look at it – one where both her and I are sitting on a picnic table bench. She has her head resting on my left shoulder. Every time I see that – I realize just how much she loved me, and I often wonder – did I show her, over the almost 54 years of marriage, just how much I loved her? Sandy says I did.

Another photo – the one from our wedding. As I was having my coffee on Sunday AM, I realized that my mother was approximately the same age in that photo, as Sandy is today - 51.

More memories:

I enjoyed working for Dugan Brothers Bakery and doing the house to house selling. I did get to meet a lot of fine people doing that. Eventually, Dugan’s closed down, and I was forced to seek other employment. Another Dugan employee, who lived in the same bungalow colony as we did, managed to get a job in the Arrow Shirt Company warehouse in nearby Chester, NY. He told me to check it out, which I did, and, yes I was hired – for the night shift. The job consisted of picking orders, packing and shipping them. In time, they went to a system of paying us by how many pieces we were able to get done over a specific period of time. If you were able to – and I was, some nice money could be made. Eventually, I worked myself up to being the “Key Man” on the night shift.

Racin’ stuff:

On Dirt Track Digest, my column can usually be seen in “Recent Columns”. However, what with DTD being at Syracuse, the link to those columns seems to have gone bye-bye. No where can one access (that I could find) the website to check them out. Oh well, maybe it will be fixed this week?

Mostly just stuff from SDW, 5 Mile and I-88 this week.

Former OVRP Dirt Oval runners:

At Syracuse, in the 200, Tim Hindley was 15^th and Billy V 18^th. In the Small Block 150, Brett Wright was 29^th. In the Sportsman, Matt Janiak was 9^th and Brian Krummel 27^th. Krummel was 2^nd when he met up with the wall with a lap or two to go. In the Last chance race, Winter Mead was 16^th.

At Rolling Wheels, Kolby Schroder was 4^th.

Brad Szulewski was 15^th at 5 Mile.

Danny Creeden was 20^th, while Tyler Dipple and Anthony Perrego were DNQ’s at Brewerton

Tyler Dippel was 4^th at I-88 and Danny Creeden 9^th. In the NY GRIT Sportsman race, Rich Coons was a DNQ. In the Open/Crate feature, Hunter Bates was 12^th.

I am one of those that believes that if you win a race, and your car is not legal, then you get DQ’d. Period! You should lose 1^st place money, points and that trophy. Somehow, with NAPCAR and now even DIRTCar, that is no longer the case. You get to keep the “win”. 2^nd place gets screwed out of the winning purse and points – along with every other driver being moved up, purse and point wise.

A little on this, on the DTD Forum, can be seen here: http://www.dirttrackdigest.com/DTD/index.php?/topic/52356-sportsman-race/

Coming up:

At OCFS: OPEN PRACTICE for ALL DIVISIONS on SATURDAY OCT 18 FROM 1pm - 5pm....Pit Gates will Open at 10:30am

Eastern States is the following weekend.

At Accord:

SATURDAY, November 1st

$1750 in GUARANTEED PAYOUT FOR PRO CLASSES*

$500 to Win : $250 for 2nd : $125 for 3rd

*Must Run an Additional Class to be Eligible for Pro Classes

Found on the Dirt Track Digest Forum:

More added from last week on this thread: http://www.dirttrackdigest.com/DTD/index.php?/topic/52299-who-pissed-in-dirts-cheerios/

From Jayski:

http://www.jayski.com/

Toyota unveils 2015 race car:

Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc. and Toyota Racing Development introduced the new 2015 Toyota Camry race car that will compete in NASCAR Sprint Cup Series competition beginning next season. With the announcement of the 2015 Camry race car, Toyota becomes the first manufacturer in the series to update the NASCAR 'Gen-6' model -- which was initially introduced in 2012 for competition beginning during the 2013 season. In addition, a redesigned Camry will also be used in next year's NASCAR Xfinity Series, currently the Nationwide Series. The 2015 Camry race car marks the culmination of a redesign to provide the vehicle with a more unique identity -- and a look similar to the 2015 production Camry that was introduced earlier this year. TRD worked together with Calty Design, part of Toyota's global network design team, to update the on-track Camry and incorporate design elements from the new 2015 production Camry into the race car. The boldest change to the new 2015 NSCS Camry is the aggressive front end and grill area, which looks exactly like its production counterpart. In addition, the new Camry boasts an all new, sleek hood and nose, along with a new tail of the car. A distinct change in the quarter windows also adds to the sleeker look. For 12 straight years, and 16 of the past 17 years, the Camry has been the best-selling car in America. In an effort to create more distinct and stock vehicles for the race track, NASCAR worked together with the three series manufacturers prior to the 2013 season to determine what areas were either 'locked in' or 'open' for unique design. NASCAR along with the manufacturers have also worked together to allow for updates to each manufacturer's design -- with Toyota being the first manufacturer to work through that update process.(Toyota Racing), see images of the car on the Toyota news page.(10-11-2014)

Toytota teams have limited time to test new Camry:

Toyota unveiled its 2015 Sprint Cup Camry on Saturday with five weeks left in the 2014 season. That means the teams have five weeks to test. With a testing ban going into effect after Nov. 16's 2014 season finale at Homestead-Miami Speedway, Joe Gibbs Racing and Michael Waltrip Racing will experiment with the car. The 2015 car conforms with NASCAR's new lower horsepower, less downforce rules package. "We'll be at Nashville and things like that," MWR driver Clint Bowyer said. "We have (Goodyear test at) Auto Club Speedway, we have a Phoenix test coming up. We've got opportunities to get in this race car. I really see the new rule package that NASCAR has implemented being a bigger change feel-wise for a driver than this new car. If you're going to unveil a new car, this is a perfect time to do that because it's basically start over from scratch across the board for everybody."

The 2015 car includes changes to the hood, nose, tail and quarter windows. Both Ford and Chevy racing engineers were present at wind tunnel tests conducted by NASCAR to approve the Toyota design. "We hope it races better," said Dave Wilson, president of Toyota Racing Development. "But realistically, practically speaking, it's not outside the box. It's still working with the same set of rules that we've had. We've got until the Sunday of Homestead. We'll test our guts out. We'll have this car on the race track a couple of times." While his drivers will want to test, JGR owner Joe Gibbs said the team must focus on 2014. All three of his drivers remain in the hunt for the title. "It'll be hard" to test, Gibbs said. "Our whole focus is on right now with where we are with the Chase and everything. I can't see us being able to do much."(Sporting News)(10-12-2014)

Tempers flare after race:

After the race, #2-Brad Keselowski and ninth-place finisher #11-Denny Hamlin traded insults on pit road, as NASCAR officials and their crews kept them apart in the wake of a late race incident between their two cars. Keselowski clipped Hamlin's rear bumper on the cool-down lap, then hit Kenseth's Toyota with his Ford on pit road after the race. After sustaining collateral damage on pit road during the melee, #14-Tony Stewart backed into Keselowski's Ford, crumpling the nose of the car. Keselowski insisted it was Kenseth's car and not his #2 Ford that bumped Stewart's Chevy. "I rubbed into the #20 (Kenseth), and I think he gassed up and ran into Tony, and I don't think Tony knew what was going on," Keselowski said. "He's upset, and he has every right to be. His car was tore up. There was a whole lot of other stuff going on. I'm sure when he sees the whole situation, he'll understand."

Kenseth, whose #20 Toyota had been damaged by contact from Keselowski's car on a restart with 63 laps left, jumped Keselowski as he was walking between haulers in the garage, and the drivers scuffled before being separated. "I had my HANS (head and neck restraint) off and my seat belts off and everything," Kenseth said of the hit from Keselowski on pit road. "He clobbered me at 50 (mph). And the access we have around here... the race is over, trying to come back to pit road... If you want to talk about it as a man, do that, but to try and wreck someone on the race track, come down pit road with other cars and people standing around with seat belts off and drive in the side of me-it's inexcusable. There is no excuse for that. He's a champion. He's supposed to know better than that."

Hamlin also had some harsh words for the 2012 champion. "There's a corner there, so you have to back off, and he just plowed into us," Hamlin said. "He's just out of control. He's desperate, obviously, and it's either four or five of us are wrong or he's wrong, because he's pissed off everyone. Just disappointing -- but we're trying to get in this deal. We're sitting in a decent spot, but we've lost six spots or so with the last restart when he ran into us and knocked us up the track. That was unfortunate. Matt (Kenseth) was nearly out of his car and he just plowed into Matt and then ran into Tony (Stewart) and then went in through the garage and cleared out transmissions and did burnouts in the garage."(NASCAR Wire Service)(10-12-2014)

From Track Forum:

http://www.trackforum.com/forums/forum.php

Skipping this week

From the AARN:

http://www.aarn.com/

Skipping this week

Racin’ stuff on the Internet:

ABC/ESPN gives NASCAR fans the snub at Charlotte

One little part: "The football game ended (Baylor did score an exciting comeback to win 61-58), after the race had started. Instead of cutting directly to the race, ABC stayed and completed post game interviews . The race was joined in progress on lap 26 just as the field came to a competition caution. The snub left many NASCAR fans with a bad taste. NASCAR also didn’t seem too happy about what had happened."

http://www.examiner.com/article/abc-espn-gives-nascar-fans-the-snub-at-charlotte

Press releases:

This week’s photos:

Skipping this week

Some non racin’ stuff:

Skipping this week

This weeks joke:

Skipping this week

Until my next column – more than likely in 3 weeks now.

Columns are available on the Dirt Track Digest at: http://www.dirttrackdigest.com/ (Click on “Recent Columns – and I hope it works!)

And:

http://newenglandtractor.com/racereport/

Where I also have some neat photo articles

I can be reached, via e-mail, at: ygordad@yahoo.com