First of all, it’s good to be back folks. I have to thank one of my customers for helping me make a decision that probably kept me around for a little while longer. I had a bad oral infection last week and had I not addressed it, which is my usual tact for dealing with my personal health issues, I probably wouldn’t be here today. With a little help from the Southampton Hospital ER staff, a couple of oral surgeons and a number of different antibiotics, I am back to about as normal as most of you remember me. Thanks for the well wishes and concerned emails last week. I do appreciate all of them more than anyone knows.

Before we get to the happenings around the events of this weekend past, I’d like to tell everyone about a couple of things that are very near on the horizon. Next weekend, our beloved Tour heads to Martinsville for the first historic clash between the Whelen Modified Tour and the Whelen Southern Modified Tour. Saturday night’s Whelen 300 will be the first race under the lights at the famed Virginia oval.

Spectator gates will open at 4 PM Friday. There will be a ninety-minute practice session that is scheduled to start at 5 PM. Time trials are scheduled to start at 8:30 PM. Time trials will be followed by a scuff session and the festivities are capped off with an autograph session that starts at 10:30 PM.

Tell your favorite teams to polish up their ground rockets, as the Whelen 300 will be televised. SPEED Channel will be there to tape the race for future broadcast. No details have been released of the broadcast dates or times.

Saturday the spectator gates will open at 3 PM. A sixty minute practice session is scheduled to start at 3:30 PM. The ‘last chance’ qualifying race, a 50-lap dash, is scheduled to start at 7:00 PM. The long-awaited feature event should get underway at 8:30 PM.

I was enthused to hear so many folks discussing their various travel plans throughout the day Saturday. Shopgirl and I are both flying into Greensboro and we will probably get to the track around the time they start to park haulers. We look forward to seeing everyone there.

The other event that is in the near future for our competitors is the 2005 Modified Auxiliary Picnic. The Picnic will be at the Thompson Rod & Gun Club, just up the road from the Thompson Speedway on the Saturday night of the Thompson 300 weekend. The event will get underway around 6 PM.

Tickets for the Picnic are based on the menu. Steak dinner tickets are $16 and hot dog & hamburger tickets are $13. Tickets will be available from Jeri Duefrene and Beth Caron at the WMT trailer or from Joan Garbarino at the #4 hauler at Martinsville. Those who are interested in getting tickets for this event who will not be able to get them at Martinsville should email Jeri (jmd220fan@yahoo.com) or Beth (bethc6180@aol.com) as soon as possible to make other arrangements. A final headcount is required by the club and tickets will not be available at Thompson.

The Picnic is held in the club’s spacious outdoor shelter and those in attendance have had the opportunity to get together to watch the Richmond Cup race, trade stories, participate in a raffle and enjoy a meal in a comfortable setting. Many of us have had a great time at this event in the past. I look forward to seeing everyone there.

MendsImage.com is also presenting a Labor Day Modified Tour Mixer at Cheap Seats in Greensboro from 7 PM to 2 AM Sunday September 4th. Cheap Seats is at 3404 Whitehurst Rd. off Westridge Rd. in Greensboro. I believe that Westridge is accessible from Rt. 220 in the area of the Greensboro Coliseum. I am sure that directions will be circulated at Martinsville.

I forgot to book my ferry reservations…I uh…let’s face it, I procrastinated until the last minute. By the time I booked a reservation the first one available was a 1:30 PM departure from Orient. I booked it and went stand by. I watched three boats depart before I finally made the 10 o’clock. It got me to the track around noon.

Saturday was the first time I actually visited the press box at Waterford. I had been told that this location was quite cramped and a difficult place from which to work. Although it was small, everybody got along as long as Pete Zanardi got the last word. We had a blast up there.

We broke Waterford promoter Terry Eames shoes about the lack of food up there. He told us that he used to have a big buffet in the press box but that Pete VanderVeer used to eat it all before anyone got a shot at it. Terry led me down to the concession stand and we came back with two huge trays full of food which was promptly gorged by guess who?

Does anyone want to hear about a scary looking site? Think about Dave Meredith and Val LeSieur sitting in bench seats. Now put yours truly between them. At least we know those seats are sturdy.

Tony Hirschman torched the field in time trials again. This was the final hurdle that the Kehley team was looking to clear as the WMT heads toward the homestretch this season. A turn two incident after a restart on lap 61 led to the first stumble for this team since they started a string of top-4 finishes that includes three victories that began at Jennerstown.

There was a spirited battle between Donny Lia and Eric Beers for several laps. The two battled side-by-side for quite a while until the #3 and #18 made contact. I couldn’t believe that Eric kept his car out of the fence and continued.

Doug Coby swapped the lead with eventual winner, Jerry Marquis and a win is looking closer every week for the Chase team. Marquis took down his second victory of the season on a track very similar to Beech Ridge where he scored his first. Congratulations to the whole Mystic Missile team.

Back in the press box, I was doing the live updates. Shawn Courchesne had some fun ripping on me while the event was in progress. Terry Eames got a load of me with my cell phone under my scanner headset. He must have thought I looked like some kind of spaceman. He then told me that I should tell everyone who was watching the updates that they should get off their ‘butts’ and buy a ticket. To which I had Vicki post said remark. When the post went up on the board, the press box erupted in cheers.

Terry was just breaking my shoes. He was quite thankful that we provided the kind of coverage that we have with the Live Updates at every other track this season. I am glad we got a good laugh out of him. Thanks to Pete and Terry for providing us with a great place from which to do the Live Updates.

When the festivities were over inside the track, I caught the end of the Bristol night race in the campground. Thanks to Rick Fuller and Guy Ronzoni for their hospitality. That was a lot of fun.

One thing of which I should have been better prepared to advantage was the price of gasoline. The price of regular in Connecticut was fifteen to twenty cents less per gallon than it is on the Island. I got some at a better price but I should have brought some jiffy jugs with me.

The top four in the WMT standings are now separated by just eighty-six points with six races remaining. One of the most remarkable feats is that Eric Beers has climbed to sixth in the driver standings just one hundred and seventy-two points back of the leader despite his troubles at the start of the season. With six races remaining, this is going to be interesting.

The WSMT championship chase is even closer than that of the WMT. The top-10 WSMT drivers are separated by just one hundred and three markers. This weekend’s Martinsville race will have a big part of settling both of these battles. A poor finish with a 43-car field could devastate nearly any team’s championship hopes. The Southern Tour has eight races remaining.

Sunday afternoon I got a call out of the blue. It was ThE sHaDoW calling from the RoC race at Tioga. He was up there to work with Matt Hirschman on his #52 car and asked me if he could call Live Updates from Tioga’s final race. I was glad to post them and it sounded like it was a great race.

Subsequent to the Live Updates from that event, I saw some cat calls on the Message Forum complaining about MSS’s coverage of another Modified Series. Please let it be known that arrangements had been made to post Live Updates from that other Series provided that people who attended those races could phone in the action and find someone who was available to post them. The “uppers at MSS” were totally in support of this and even posting stories from that series were they to be well written.

Unfortunately there was degenerative banter that was raised by some who feel very strongly about that series on the Message Forum over the past couple of weeks directed at the MSS staff. This may have destroyed any opportunity for us to provide a home for that series here in the future. We had had discussions about this at length back in July with someone who asked to do it. Way to shoot yourselves in the foot guys.

Monday morning I got a call from Bob Barney. Bob and his wife Tammy operate racerap.com and have posted links to my articles on their site for years. I was invited to be a phone in guest on racetalklive.com Monday night. Things went okay with the show and I hope we can do more with that program in the future. Bob is interested in putting together a weekly webcast next season. We will see how things pan out.

I can’t wait to get to Martinsville. I love that place. Here’s to everyone getting there and back safely. We’ll see you there.