I get it. Twin State Speedway is right on the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. That’s where we headed off toward early Sunday morning.

Shawn Courchesne said that it took him over four hours to get there on his Blog. Apparently, traveling at off-peak hours has its benefits. We made it from Calverton to Mr. G’s restaurant (about five minutes from the track) in about four and one half hours, just like Eddie said we would. It doesn’t hurt that Ed’s got lead in his right shoe or that he didn’t stop along the way. Did I mention that we found the other Route 9 along the way?

Everything was going perfectly. We ran across Rent at the restaurant and he told us to take the left AFTER the first Twin State Speedway sign. When we made that turn at that first sign there were a couple of local people out on the lawn of the corner house waving frantically for us to stop. Ed listened to Roy who had the Mapquest directions and just like Shawn, we were headed down a road where there was a bridge that was out.

From the entrance, Twin State Speedway looked like something out of a Robert Frost poem. Everything about it said “old school”. From a distance it looked like a go-kart track. Up-close it looked decidedly different.

The track appeared to be carved out of a hollow with grandstands nestled into the hillside. The racing surface was asphalt, most of which that had seen better days. There was a crater in turn one that split the groove into two distinct paths.

Turn four seemed to have regressive banking. In other words there was less banking at the top that at the bottom. I’m sure that played havoc with a number of teams trying to dial in a setup.

Probably the nicest feature of the racetrack was that cars could enter or leave the surface under green. The regular entrance was off of turn four. There is an exit off of turn three where competitors could drive off of the track, kind of the way they do at Wall or the way I remember New Egypt. Cars could re-enter there off of three as well.

Roy is back again. No I won’t throw him under the bus this week either. He wants to throw a couple of teams and a NASCAR WMT official under the bus over a tire issue. He claimed that a couple of teams brought mounted sticker tires into the tire mounting area, dismounted them and then played a shell game with tires in excess of the number allowed for the show.

Roy said, “Those guys are soaking tires and I’ve seen them do it before.” I won’t point out the official in question or pose his comments about said official. I couldn’t use many words that wouldn’t read (expletive deleted) anyway. Let’s just say there will be a few more people watching the tire garden in the coming weeks.

Did I mention that it was warm? It was downright hot until some clouds moved in from the weather that threatened to make us show up for a second visit. Howie left his doo-rag at home. That would have looked cool.

We didn’t get enough speed out of our car for Jimmy to make it into the top-six in time. That meant we would run in the first heat race. Several people said that the heat races were “meaningless”. Jimmy was one of the few who passed cars in his heat but it was all for naught. With the white flag flew, our car seemed to lose power.

When Jimmy brought the #12 to the truck, the rear-end was spewing lubricant. We didn’t have a spare but one seemed to appear out of nowhere. Thanks to George Bierce and the Grasso brothers for lending us their spare. I’m not sure what caused the rear to fail, but one of the spur gears had no teeth left on it.

Subsequently, we were the entertainment for the paddock area as we thrashed to get our car ready for the feature. Although the #66 didn’t show up, John Blewett, III did. He came to help us get Jimmy a good finish. He and Stan led us to get the exchange done in short order.

The race was better than I expected. The outside groove worked pretty well, especially for Mike Stefanik. Steffy put on a clinic on how to pass at this place. We were just fortunate to get out of there with a top-ten finish after everything else we had been through.

For those who were wondering, “Why Claremont?” the answer is simple. Whelen Engineering has a manufacturing plant nearby. It wouldn’t surprise me if more than half of those in attendance were Whelen employees. There were hospitality tents placed in the spectator area for folks from Whelen and the race sponsor, Allstate.

The battle between James Civali and Matt Hirschman was pretty good. Once again, I have to say that Stefanik was the show. James took down his second win of the season and gains the fourth position in the standings.

Leaving Claremont was another story. The Flamingo team truck seemed to have a difficult time exiting the Twin State facility in front of us. What’s the hold up? When we bottomed out, we understood.

Ed drove home like he drove to the track. He did stop twice; once for fuel and once for coffee. He would have stopped just once but apparently the nationally known donut chain that has a store in the Sunoco station where we stopped, doesn’t sell coffee after certain hours; like when one might want to stay awake. Poor Ed, he still had a run to Brooklyn and back when we got home.

Twin State was a nicer track than I had expected. It’s a tough little bullring but the locals sure knew how to race side-by-side. I bet we’ll be back there again.

By the way, George or John, Jr.; whoever he is, from our team wanted a mention. Here it is. Roy says that George smokes too much.

The next place we will all be together is at Riverhead. The Tour show is August 4th. However, it’s a pretty safe bet that there will be quite a few competitors that show up for the Baldwin. Evans, Jarzombek Memorial 77 on July 21st. It will be a time-trial event and it wouldn’t hurt for some of those who aren’t that familiar with Long Island’s last remaining oval to get a little extra practice before the Miller Lite “Flash” event. I’ll see you in turn two.