I rode out to this week’s race with our car owner, Ed Partridge on Wednesday afternoon. Our trek took a little detour as we were dropping off a bullet at Performance Engines. Billy met us with some green tea.

Eddie figured there had to be a shortcut to get up to Loudon from Torrington, CT and asked for directions. Lesson number one; if you take a shortcut, it will probably take twice as long. Billy told us to cut across on route nine.

Apparently we took the wrong route nine and probably paralleled I-90 through some of the slowest and most desolate areas in the state of Massachusetts. About halfway across the distance between I-91 and I-290 we realized that this route nine would take us to Worcester. All of those who are native to south central Mass can chuckle now.

It’s not like we were in a desert. However, neither of us had any cell phone service for over an hour and at times the satellite radio was even cutting out. I told Ed that people out here still mail letters to each other and that email will find them in about ten years.

Ed was a little frustrated by our slow progress and said that he was going to stop at the next steakhouse we saw along the way. What we found was that folks in Massachusetts love their ice cream. We had to have passed fifty ice cream shops without a sign of a steakhouse over an hour and a half of travel time.

Finally, just outside of Worcester, we turned in to a nearly deserted restaurant parking lot. The Castle Restaurant was awesome. The food was excellent and their prices are arguably a decade low. Find it on route 9 in Leicester, just west of Worcester.

The place has a fairly authentic castle motif. We asked where the dungeon was and were told that it is on the second floor. Lots of restaurants say they have great food. This place has the hardware to back it up. Trust me; this is a can’t-miss for you locals and worth the trip the next time you’re near Thompson.

We exited the Castle, where we had arrived around closing time, to a more-full parking lot than we had entered. People can’t get enough of Ed’s new pickup. Everywhere he drives it turns heads and most people can’t even figure out what it is. It fit in at the Castle though; it’s probably the kind of steed a modern-day knight would drive.

The track opened early on Thursday for our beloved Tour. Then began the balancing act that is getting the tires together, that’s figurative and literally. The obstacle that some of us didn’t avoid was that some of the tires had been lettered on both sides and some had been painted on the wrong side. Consequently that meant that tires could quite easily be mounted backwards.

Then there is the process of balancing tires. I remember how cool it was to go through this process when I was younger. It’s an important step, especially at Loudon, but it can seem like an endless task when you’re doing several sets.

Practice seemed pretty uneventful. When your driver doesn’t seem to want to come in to check things out or make an adjustment, you know that your car is pretty good. Then it was time to qualify.

As well as our car had performed in practice, we figured that we had a shot at the pole. Shortly after Jimmy had left pit road, he called on the radio, “It broke.” The “it” fortunately turned out to be the driveshaft and not the fresh Hutter engine.

It seemed to take forever to get the #12 car back to the paddock area. Once it was returned, Stan made quick work of installing a new driveshaft under the supervision of WMT official Rick McGaughey. Jimmy returned to post the third fastest time of the session on his first lap.

We scrambled to get our car loaded and hoped that we could get parked quickly. Our team had plans on traveling to Thompson where they regularly campaign two Sunoco Modifieds. It looked like it was going to be a mad dash to Connecticut. Then we learned that the races at Thompson had been rained out and that put the kibosh on that deal.

Our rooms for Thursday night were reserved at a hotel near Thompson. Arrangements were made so that we could stay at the same hotel where we had reservations for Friday night and we were off to Nashua, NH. As we exited the track, people kept waving at us. I guess they think you’re “somebody” if you’ve got a ride like Ed’s.

Wouldn’t you know it; this hotel was a castle too. The place was HUGE. Roy, who some might remember from my Stafford article, called the walk from the elevator to our room “the Bataan death march”. A golf cart would have come in handy at this place.

Ed finally found a steak house. The food was great but we had an absent minded waiter. Roy actually marched his way into the kitchen to get us bread. When dinner was over we were ready for sleep after a long day at the track.

I awoke with a sore throat at about 4AM. I took a walk to a convenience store to get some cough drops. It was only about a mile away. Roy didn’t think I could walk that far.

We had contemplated playing golf or doing some other activity on Friday as that was a day off for the Tour. We went to the track and kind of hung out. During Cup qualifying, I picked a spot on the wall on pit road to sit. It turned out when he finished his pole-winning lap, Dave Blaney wound up right there.

Tommy Baldwin had taken Dave and the Caterpillar team to Thompson on Wednesday to test. Whatever they learned there they put to good use on Friday. It was great to see Neil Farrell, Steve Aspinwall and Jason Kivette to congratulate them. It was also neat to watch how Bones Bourcier interacted with Blaney. Dave is one of the most down-to-earth people at any level in racing.

When qualifying was over, I snuck up to the press box to watch the Busch East race. The place was less than halfway full. Thanks to Jolene for treating me so well.

Joey Logano took down the win. Ken Squire repeatedly called him “Lonagan” over the public address system. To which Dave Meredith dubbed him “Moonshine Lonagan”. Did I mention that Shawn Courchesne found Joey Logano?

The Busch East race was a wreckfest. There easily could have been twice as many cautions. The Busch East officials didn’t learn their lesson from last year. Many cars pulled out to pass before the start/finish line on restarts and I didn’t see any of them being penalized for it.

During the day on Friday, Roy became quite the celebrity in the Cup garage. He returned to Ed’s truck with all kinds of autographed trinkets including a can of Jeff Gordon’s private label energy drink that the Nextel Cup point leader had signed for him. I determined that Roy had now reached “Super Hero” status. Roy’s special powers include the ability to annoy celebrities enough to give him free swag with a single sentence.

Saturday we prepared our car for practice and headed out to pit road. Right at the same location where the #12 broke the driveshaft on Thursday, it lost power on Saturday. Jimmy thought that area was like the “Bermuda Triangle”. This is why hereto forth we shall refer to the turn two entrance to NHIS as the Bermuda Tunnel.

It was an electrical short. We were disappointed that we didn’t get any practice time in. But we were glad that the gremlins had hit us at practice. It would have been terrible would that have happened going out for the pace lap.

The race was to come. We waited and waited. Then the race finally started. We were subsequently told that the race would be shortened due to time constraints. Why couldn’t we have started this race a half an hour earlier?

That notification didn’t occur until we made our bed by pitting. We had been on the borderline as far as making it the full distance on fuel before the stop. The victor never pitted.

We pitted again to make an adjustment later and regained the positions we lost from pitting. Contact during an accident on a late race restart relegated us to pit road for the remainder of the event as it resulted in a broken spindle. We got it repaired just as the checkers flew.

Donny Lia wins again? The Mystic Missile team is on a record roll. They were fast all weekend and I think that Donny even had a little left in reserve.

We headed home. The team managed to get onto a ferry that departed New London about an hour earlier than planned. Ed wondered aloud at one point, “Who is that hollering on the other side of the boat?” He took a walk and realized that it was one of our guys.

Roy was ranting and raving about all kinds of stuff. He still hasn’t learned his lesson yet. I could throw him under the bus, but I think that can wait another story.

As far as pleads from my colleague, Shawn Courchesne, of the Hartford Courant, who wishes for me to make Blog posts regularly, I have a few responses. I have admitted that I have been an honorary member of the Connecticut Motorsports Press Association. Apparently Shawn referred to this as the C3M or Connecticut Motorsports Media Mafia.

First off, I’m not going to discuss racing business from the inside of a team environment. Just like when I worked with the Old Man, what’s said in this house, stays in this house. Unless it’s really funny or incredibly embarrassing or possibly incriminating; then I’ll do it and maybe change the names to protect the guilty.

Secondly, whenever I come up with a great idea, it just seems to pop up somewhere else. Another site, another Tour, another writer takes an idea I’ve mentioned and runs with it. It’s not like I want to take issue with it. Why make more money for others.

Finally, I will state for the record, as my former neighbor, who was “connected” used to say, phonetically, dat dare ain’t no friggin ting called duh Mafia. Anybody that’s got a problem with that can have a sit-down at Puglia’s. By the way that’s pronounced “Pool-yahs” and it’s in Little Italy.

Then again, I might be wrong. Shawn might know better. He’s covered people in the carting industry.

Thursday, Greg Narducci suffered injuries as a result of falling from a golf cart at NHIS. Gregsy and his wife Vanetta have been integral parts of the Modified community for a long time. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and we wish for Greg to have a swift and complete recovery.

We head for Twin State Speedway in Claremont, New Hampshire for a Sunday show. If we thought there was bellyaching after Wall, this might even wind up worse. The negative Nellies were beating this race down already last Thursday.

On behalf of the Whelen Modified Tour community I pass on our sincere thanks to the Bahres for providing us with such a splendid venue at which to compete. I want to thank Fred Neergaard and Kristen Costa and their staff for providing MSS with complete access at the Magic Mile. We need to thank the shuttle bus drivers for making our days a little easier each time we needed to take a trip to I-Lot. I’d also like to thank Ed Partridge who accommodates our team so well.

I hope to see everyone back up in the Granite State. Have a happy, healthy and safe Independence Day.