Drama.

That's the only word I can use to describe the Advance Auto Parts 199 this past weekend at Bowman Gray Stadium. It's a known fact that the 17,000+ fans who pack the stadium on Saturday nights aren't there for the racing. Bowman Gray is a one groove, flat quarter mile race track that encircles a football field which hosts Winston Salem State's college football games in the fall. Burt Myers once told me, "These people come every year and sit in the same seats and their kids sit in the same seats when they grow up. It's a lot like going to church."

So, to say the layout offers great side-by-side racing would be as big of a lie as telling you Mark Martin won the Daytona 500 this year. It's a known fact that the driver who gets to turn one first, usually wins the race. Unless the driver following the leader finds a way to nudge, move or just flat out dump the guy in front him.

This is not just the most prestigious but also the important race in the Stadium's summer time schedule. Many drivers I spoke with in my pre-race interviews last week looked at this race as one that they just had to get through and survive. Whelen Southern Modified Tour driver and point leader L.W. Miller called it a "hurdle." Riggs Racing's Jeff Riggs and Reggie Newman compare it to their version of Bristol Motor Speedway for the NEXTEL Cup Series. Not surprisingly, both cars survived the carnage Saturday night.

It all started on Friday night when the WSMT competitors took part in Bud Pole Qualifying, sharing the bill with the Stadium's GMAC Personal Pit Crew Modifieds (their weekly feature division), as well as the three divisions from the INEX (600 Racing) Series consisting of Bandoleros, Legends Cars and Thunder Roadsters.

Tim Brown would remind everyone why they call him "The Rocket" because his metallic blue Hayes Jewelers Chevrolet was on a rail, Friday night. Brown shattered the Whelen Southern Modified Tour's one lap qualifying record formerly held by Burt Myers by almost three quarters of a second. Brown would also win the pole for the Friday night event, but did not break his all time fastest lap at the stadium.

When I caught up with Tim after qualifying and asked him how it felt to be the fastest man at the stadium, whether it was on the 10 inch stadium tires, or the 15 inch tour tires, his smile reminded me of the Cheshire cat who'd just swallowed a bird.

"Yeah man, that thing's hooked up tonight. The car is awesome and the guys worked really hard. I tell ya, you'll think I'm crazy but, the second lap of practice I knew we were good. I didn't know we were good enough to sweep it all but I knew we were good, you know what I mean? I'm stoked man, this is awesome. We put a lot in it, the sponsors put a lot in it and it shows. It's nights like tonight that make it worth it."

When I asked him if the Stadium's track record is in jeopardy next year if the tour comes back, Brown responded with "I don't know. I got it all. I got everything there was to get out of that car. I can't say the difference is the tires. If you're on a really good set of tires, that's fresh and green and gummy, we possibly could. I thought the pole would be a forty. I didn't know we'd go that fast. It shocked me, you know what I mean? But yeah, it's possible. I mean, if you'd have asked me before tonight what the pole would have been, I'd have said a forty or a fifty. I wouldn't have said a teen, by no means."

Brown would go on to win the Friday night fifty lap event, leading every lap from the pole. Bobby Hutchens on the other hand, didn't fare so well. The first lap of the Friday night event would set the tone for the rest of the weekend as Junior Miller would spin Jeremy Stoltz out of fifth position heading into turn one with Stoltz throwing up a cloud of smoke and the caution lights quickly came on. Outside pole starter Chris Fleming would find himself facing the wrong way on the outside of turn four after a tap from a driver not getting the message of the caution being out. Hutchens would end his night against the front stretch guard rail just past the start finish line with heavy right front damage to his Chick-Fil-A sponsored modified. The officials came on the radio and told the competitors they'd start over by putting Fleming back to outside pole, but relegating Stolz to the rear of the field. It was yet another questionable call by the Stadium officials and they never really gave me a cut and dry believable answer.

Meanwhile, Junior Miller's night wouldn't go much better after getting spun out the fourth position after racing with Johnny Johnson. Johnson and Miller put on a side by said battle for several laps before contact ended Miller's run in the top five. Miller would right his S&R Motor Company machine and head back to the position he was spun out of, only to retire his car when the officials tried to send him to the rear. Karma seems to work in strange ways sometimes, I guess.

The rest of the event was incident free and Brown would win over Chris Fleming, Burt Myers, Robert Jeffreys and Lee Jeffreys. Alfred Hill was sixth, John Smith seventh, Randy Butner eighth; Jeremy Stoltz would recover from the first lap incident to come home ninth with Lee Stimpson finishing out the top ten. I felt it was important to cover and keep track of what happened on Friday night, as many of the tour drivers were using their same cars to compete in their weekly stadium event as well as the tour event.

Brandon Ward made an appearance in the pit area on Friday night, qualifying Randy Butner's car for the tour event while Butner competed at Ace Speedway. Butner would make it back in time to run the fifty lap event later in the evening. It's also interesting to note that Randy Butner was the only driver to bring two cars to run in both events. Bobby Hutchens on the other hand, had to go back to his Lexington shop to pick up his normal TrimUSA, Motorsports Designs tour machine to run the 199 on Saturday. This would put him at the rear of the field when the race started, as Hutchens had only planned to change the tires and the decals on his white #14 modified he normally competes at the stadium with for the tour event.

Another last minute change was Rich Kuiken, Jr. hopping into Johnny Johnson's 94.5 La Preciosa Chevrolet after engine trouble parked his normal Flow Masters Testing and Balancing Chevrolet. It's not known whether or not Johnny made him wear his famous sombrero around the pit area during pre-race but the stadium brought out the entire driver line up in front of the crowd for brief interviews with stadium announcer Tim McGuire. Tim did a great job of getting all the statistics and facts about each driver right while introducing them and even got a little help pronouncing "Brunnhoelzl" before George III was introduced to the crowd that was still filing in for the night.

NASCAR and Whelen Motorsports Vice President Phil Kurze unveiled the 2007 Whelen Southern Modified Tour Championship trophy in front of the front stretch crowd which was a nice added touch to the pre-race activities. Many of the top drivers in the point standings also posed for photographs with the trophy while hoping they would add their name to the one driver whose name is already on it twice.

The teams pushed their cars out onto the front stretch while each driver walked with them and parked them in formation for the starting lineup. Frank Fleming would inherit the pole position due to the redraw with Brian Loftin starting alongside in Clarence "Clev" Rierson's blue #23. Last year's winner Jason Myers would start third with John Smith to his outside making up row two. Junior Miller would share the third row with his arch nemesis, Burt Myers alongside with Tim Brown and L.W. Miller rounding out the remaining top eight who redrew for their starting positions.

In the driver's meeting earlier in the afternoon, Jason Myers preached patience and getting through turn one cleanly after last year's event took out his brother Burt Myers in the first corner of the first lap. Unfortunately, this year would be no different as Frank Fleming and Brian Loftin raced to turn one as the green flag was unfurled. But much like the first corner of the feature the night before, chaos ensued as 24 cars tried to negotiate the first turn. Loftin would jump sideways after banging nerf bars with Fleming, Jason Myers would squeak by, as John Smith and Burt Myers checked up for the sideways Loftin. While all this was going on, Tim Brown followed Junior Miller past the log jam of cars and snuck by the two time champion on the backstretch. L.W. Miller would also leap inside of Junior, but after dropping his left side tires off into the grass, ended up spinning his silver Baker Plumbing and Utilities #36 off of turn two as the caution finally came out. Alfred Hill and Bobby Hutchens were also involved with Hutchens suffering from a right rear nerf bar rub in his TrimUSA, Motorsports Designs Chevrolet.

As NASCAR tried to sort out the running order, they placed Tim Brown back to his original eighth starting spot, while moving the similarly colored blue #23 of Brian Loftin back to his second spot. Brown was furious on the radio and made it a point to tell tour director Mark Suddreth he expected to see him in the NASCAR trailer after the race was over. Brown explained to me later, "All that happened was, is that they'd seen the blue 23 and the blue 83 look a lot alike. The blue 23 started on the outside pole so they just assumed he was the car that was third across the line. It's not, it was the blue 83 and the 23 was in the wreck." I'll go more into detail about this later.

The field was realigned and took the green flag for its first restart of the night on lap eight with Frank Fleming showing the way over Jason Myers, Brian Loftin, John Smith, Junior Miller, Burt Myers, Tim Brown, Brian Pack, George Brunnhoelzl, III and Earl Baker.

At this point, I knew it was going to be an uneventful first half unless someone really put a foot wrong and the next yellow didn't fly until lap 26 for Alex Hoag spinning by himself in turn two. Bowman Gray's track crew guys rival the guys I'd seen at Stafford Springs growing up and quickly had the track race ready for a restart on lap 31.

But just as I thought it was going to be boring, Rich Kuiken, Jr. spun in Johnny Johnson's #94 in turn four on lap 33 collecting Thomas Stinson, Brandon Hire, and a hard charging L.W. Miller who has just dove to the inside of J. Wesley Swartout as they raced into turn three. Miller would hit pit road under this caution to survey the damage and returned before the race went back green at lap 40.

J. Wesley Swartout and L.W. Miller exchanged pleasantries again in turn three on lap 43 as Swartout would spin his HIK Motorsports Ford leaving L.W. nowhere to go but into the side of Swartout's car. Miller backed up and rejoined the field at the tail as Wesley made a quick stop to check over his car before returning to the tail of the line as the field took the green on lap 47.

This would start the first long run of the evening as Frank Fleming continued to show the way over Jason Myers with the rest of the field following a single file procession clicking the laps off.

The next caution would fly on lap 72 as Alex Hoag would find the limit at the opposite end of the track and spin his Black Rock Speedway Chevrolet in turn four. Due to the narrowness of the racing surface, NASCAR decided during the driver's meeting that they would line the lapped cars single file amongst the leaders instead of the usual double file restarts. This would put Randy Butner in between John Smith and Junior Miller for the next restart at lap 81, with Butner yielding the high lane to the leaders as the field set off for turn one.

After coming off his best WSMT finish at the last tour stop at Caraway, Brandon Hire would spin his Clemmons Speed Shop # 44 in turn four on lap 86. Under this caution, Kevin Powell and Randy Butner would hit pit road and Hire would rejoin at the tail of the line with Butner just squeaking in before the green came back out on lap 89.

At the halfway point, Frank Fleming continued to show the way over Jason Myers, Brian Loftin. John Smith and Junior Miller. Fifth through tenth were Burt Myers, Tim Brown, Brian Pack, George Brunnhoelzl, III, Earl Baker and Alfred Hill.

Again the fans could be seen from the press box nodding off as Fleming started to open up a half straightaway lead over Jason Myers as they clicked off lap 125, but it wouldn't be long before they had something to stand up and take notice of.

The first moments of drama came on lap 133 as Burt Myers and Junior Miller rekindled their little spat that had been brewing over the past couple weeks. Burt laid a hit to the two time champion's Dodge as the two raced off turn two. The fans started to stand and take notice, hoping for some fireworks between the two bitter rivals as they raced for fifth and sixth. Myers would beat Miller to turn three and as they raced back off turn two the following lap, Miller would remind him he wasn't through racing with him yet.

Randy Butner's night would come to an end on lap 145 as he pulled his RAM Fabrications Chevrolet off into the turn four grass bringing out the caution on lap 147.

Three laps later the green was back out and the race pace and intensity started to pick up some momentum. Junior Miller continued to lay hits to the back of Myers' black #1 machine. "After about a hundred laps I started losing my side bite. The first hundred, I told them "Mine and Junior's car looks identical" we both had that little shove right in the center. His kept the shove and mine went away. I got by Junior early enough and I caught enough cautions to where my car didn't have to run a bunch of green flag laps." explained Burt Myers. Junior explained, "Burt's handling was gone. He was about as loose as you could get. He was all over the race track. I waited ten times for him to spin it out but next time I'm going to return the favor and we'll see where that goes." It's nice to see these two are on the same page and see things so similar. It should make an exciting run to the championship in October.

Meanwhile, back at the "Madhouse," Fleming still held command as the field clicked off lap 160 but four laps later, one of the favorites lost a ton of positions. Jason Myers had been following Fleming through the course of the event and as he entered turn three, lost control of his black and gold #4 machine as he was trying to stop for a wreck that had already happened and had blocked the track. "Yeah, I spun by myself. The caution was already out. I spun to avoid the caution. I was pointed the wrong direction. I got it going and went through the grass and come back out and when I come out behind the 83, in front of the 81 I don't know 6th or 7th where ever they were running, 5th maybe? And they put me at the tail of the field. And they told me that if you cut through the grass, you'll go to the rear of the field. Not one time have they ever said that over here and they've never said it on our tour and on a flat race track that you can't even pass on where are you supposed to go when the wreck comes out? I mean, it's ridiculous." Myers would fall in line behind Zach Brewer, who was running 12th before Myers' spin. Jason rejoined at the tail end of the line behind Brewer in 12th position.

As the field took the green at lap 172, this put Brian Loftin back on the back bumper of the Patterson Automotive Group #07. Talmadge Thomas and Frank Fleming had been putting together a great run of top five finishes and strong runs lately and were my pre-race pick to win. Many in the WSMT garage area also supported my thoughts of enjoying the recent success Frank had been having. "This team has really worked, hard you know? Working on these cars, not only this car that run good but our other cars are running good. We come here with the car we've been running the stadium with, this is not our tour car and we changed some things around and made it tour legal and the car run fantastic. This car loves these wide tires. I got a little lucky on the draw and drew the pole. That put me up front and that car sitting there run 13.80's all night long and that's a strong enough race pace for anybody." explained Fleming.

But for all the recent success Frank has been having, there's one competitor that's been seeing the opposite end of the spectrum. Gene Pack brought his Lowe's Home Improvement Chevrolet to a rest in the middle of the backstretch after spinning off turn two on lap 182, bringing out another caution and bunching the field up one more time. Again the Bowman Gray track crew did a great job of getting the sod and dirt off the low side of the backstretch in time for a restart on lap 188. Pack would rejoin at the tail of the line as the field set off for the final twelve lap sprint to the finish.

Brian Loftin was beginning to apply heavier pressure to the back of Fleming's #07 as the two raced towards the finish. But as Fleming tried to save the loose rear end of his machine as he and Loftin exited turn four to complete lap 195, Gene Pack was as far left as could be. Loftin made his move for the lead under Fleming as the two raced side by side down the frontstretch. The three cars tried to navigate the narrow frontstretch three wide as Fleming and Loftin raced for the lead, while also trying to lap the slower car of Gene Pack.

As the two raced for the lead, they banged and rubbed nerf bars, fighting for as much space as possible while still trying to lap Pack's car on the bottom. Loftin moved high, and Fleming turned left to try and correct his out of shape car. The two cars gravitated back together and hooked, sending both of the leaders towards the first turn guard rail. Fleming explained his side."I hate Brian chose to do what he done. He had a good car and he wasn't much faster than I was, I don't think. But, you know you can't go three deep at Bowman Gray Stadium and he chose to do that and he put me in the wall and my car slammed off the wall. I was still trying to go and we all got together down the straightaway. But, that's the game he chose, so we played it but, I was glad our car run for 196 laps. It was getting tight and I knew I might not win the race but I wasn't expecting to be wrecked."

Loftin wasn't nearly as vocal, but did his best to try and explain the obvious. "Everybody saw what happened. I had the lead......He won't win in another eight years if I'm behind him."

John Smith, who had been running third behind the duo, explained what he saw. "I knew that was going to get ugly. They was side by side going into one and bouncing off each other so I just laid back a little bit and let them get a little bit of room so they could go ahead and finish wrecking or whatever they was going to do."

Burt Myers also gave his opinion of the incident. "Well, I know the 23 (Brian Loftin) saw a hole and tried to take advantage of it but I don't know that I would have made that move. To get there is one thing but when you run up to the lapped car, you're the man that has to yield and he didn't. It looked like he crowded Frank pretty hard and then they kinda started banging from there but it looked like the 23 (Loftin) could have been a little more patient. I think he had a better car than Frank."

This handed the lead to John Smith. NASCAR threw the red flag to fix the antiquated guard railing and tow Fleming's car back to the pit area. This also turned out to be John Smith's demise as the long red flag period cost him precious heat he needed to hold off Burt Myers. "Yeah. It kept heat out of my tires. I couldn't keep no heat in the tires. If I'd had heat in my tires, I believe I could have gotten away from him. But, that's the way it goes."

With the guard railing pulled back into place and the pace car leading the field off the back stretch, Brian Loftin would rejoin at the tail of the line in eleventh position. NASCAR called for a Green, White, Checkered finish as the race neared its closing distance.

John Smith held the lead with Burt Myers second, Junior Miller third, Tim Brown fourth and Brian Pack fifth. But the beating and banging wasn't over. Smith led the field to the green on lap 200 with Burt Myers smelling blood. Myers had called to his crew during the red flag "I was ready to be second. We communicated with Junior and they were ready to be third. I told them if the door opened we were going to take it and John was just trying to play too much defense and I was getting so much from behind and I mean I shoved him but I was getting shoved, too."

The final "shove" came in turn three as the cars raced the final lap. Smith all but stopped trying to hold off Myers, but Myers got one last heavy hit from the rear courtesy of Junior Miller. As the cars were all bumper to bumper, Smith's car was forced out of the low lane and Myers cut hard left to get off the leader. The fans leaped to their feet as Myers and Smith raced side by side to the line.

"My car was best with the green, white, checkered." explained a jubilant Myers after the race. "So it all worked out and John, if he hadn't have played so much defense, I probably wouldn't have been able to get around him. But he stopped so bad, when I got against him and Junior got against me it was just a freight train going down in there and I was about an inch away from knocking my right front off so...I hope there's no hard feelings with John. I mean it's like I said out there, I was getting as much from behind as I was giving to him."

John Smith was happy to just make it back to the start finish line. "You can't blame Burt you know? I was driving, trying to hold it on the bottom and he got up against me and pushed me out. I'm just glad he didn't wreck me. Last year he wrecked me on the last lap. I was just glad to make it back. I tried to make it interesting and tried to hold him back but he was too far up on me. I was just glad he didn't wreck me, most of the time he wrecks."

When I asked him if the red flag hurt him, Smith explained "Mine wouldn't take off for about three laps and the tires got junk on them or whatever and I'd go into the turn and scoot the nose out. I had to ride the brakes and tried to keep him behind me and he got against me on that last lap. He pushed me wide and I couldn't get it back to the bottom enough to save it. He was too far up on me. That's the way it goes, we'll just have to keep digging and I thought I had me one but that's the way it goes. We'll come back and try again next year."

Junior Miller came home third for his sponsor Advance Auto Parts and the numerous guests they were entertaining this weekend. "It's better to be lucky than good, you know? I believe we had the best race car we just couldn't go nowheres there and the last lap I had something for them there but when he (Myers) got against John there and I got a bumper against him I guess all the luck went his way. I was just sitting there riding around and I was waiting until the last lap to see what was going to happen there. But I didn't make it there. He got a bumper up on John and it was all over."

As for fourth place, I said I'd come back to Tim Brown. Brown was visibly upset with NASCAR when the race was over and shot me a one liner as he headed to the NASCAR trailer. "Yeah the Stadium, but not the Stadium but the Tour screwed me from my damn third place spot on the first lap." Brown felt he was blatantly moved back to his original eighth place starting spot after driving through the middle of the first turn, first lap melee.

When I caught up to him later on in the evening, he added this explanation. "Yeah I mean, I guess that's a good night but the very first lap down there a bunch of them piled up and I never touched a car and come out third and NASCAR puts me back to eighth and tells me they're going to black flag me and all this and that's why I'm frustrated because if I had come out third I'd have had a lot better shot at winning the race than being moved back to eighth. So maybe, I mean it's too late now. I mean, what are they going to do re-run the race? So, I'm fighting a losing battle. I'm just trying to prove a point."

Brown was looking for a videotape from the local television station that covers the stadium every week on their 11 o'clock news. ""Well, we're trying to find a video now because the scorecard shows that I'm right, the scoreboard shows that I'm right and NASCAR's wrong. So now they want to see a videotape for even a third proof that I come out third in the race. All that happened was that they'd seen the blue 23 (Brian Loftin) and the blue 83 looks a lot alike. The blue 23 (Loftin) started on the outside pole so they just assumed he was the car that was third across the line. It's not, it was the blue 83 and the 23 was in the wreck. So, maybe this videotape will show it and....I mean, I don't know what they can do other than say I was right. You know what I mean? That's all I care about. I mean, it's too late to...I mean what are they going to do? Pay me for third? I mean, I don't know....It's just aggravating. You work hard and it's another thing for the draw deal. You know the tour's not as bad as the stadium standard deal because you're only drawing 6, 8 or 10 or whatever but its stuff like this that makes racing not.....It's just not cool. I mean, you sit on the pole with a blistering time, have a good race car you know, draw 7th and come to third on the first lap and then have to be put back to eighth and I mean, it's just crazy."

When I told Tim there have been rumors of the tour not returning to the stadium in 2008, he expressed his opinions on why it's probably a good idea. "I'll be glad if we don't come back here for two reasons. For one is, you shouldn't have to draw over here as tight as it is with these tires because you can't pass. The second reason is, if it's just a stadium 199 it pays $3,500. When the tour comes here it pays $2,000. So that right there is cutting the purse in half and that's the tour doing that so the stadium makes even more money. So yeah, I'd just assume run this race as a stadium race and the tour do something else."

But Tim also told me he wasn't giving up on his chase for the 2007 title. "Definitely, Yeah I mean this is just a glitch. I mean I'm not going to stop running the tour or whatever. I mean things happen, you know what I'm saying? So, we’re just uh....you just got to suck it up and go on. I love racing modifieds, I like racing the tour. It just really sucks when something like this happens to you, you know what I mean?"

A much more subdued Brain Pack sat in a picnic chair in tech after the race was over, satisfied to come home fifth with a car in one piece. "I tell ya what, after the way we've been running with DNF's and running into first lap wrecks, a top five is great. Just sitting back there actually watching Junior and Burt to see what they were going to do and which way to go but I'm happy with fifth. I'll take it any day. I think the fans finally got a good race over here at the stadium."

L.W. Miller lost the WSMT point lead to Burt Myers after the race was over with Junior Miller continuing to hold onto second. L.W. slipped to third with Tim Brown fourth and Jason Myers fifth. Zach Brewer came home with his second consecutive PowerAde "Power Move of the Race" Award for his drive to 8th position from his 21st starting position, while Brain Pack picks up another Featherlite Most Improved Driver Award after coming home 5th at Bowman Gray improving from his 20th finishing position at Caraway back in July. Rich Kuiken, Jr. took home the Sunoco "Rookie of the Race" Award.

The next event for the Whelen Southern Modified Tour is the Whelen "Made in America" 300 at Martinsville Speedway on September 1st, 2007. NASCAR informed the teams at the drivers meeting Saturday that there would be no "Last Chance" race this year and the event would run 300 laps. This obviously changes the format to a one day qualifying and race day format, while the fans will still get a chance to get up close and personal with the cars and drivers during a downtown festival on Friday night.

Mod Series Scene will be on hand to bring you live updates and a complete post race report after the event in Martinsville.