I’ve written several times that the event of this weekend past is one not to miss. The fifth annual John Blewett, III Memorial, North–South Shootout is worth the trip. For those who didn’t make it there and even those who did, hopefully there is some enjoyment to glean from the words that follow.

I’ll start this week’s travels at JFK. For those who have never been there it is a crazy international airport that has seen many improvements over the past several years. Long term parking and travel to and from that area used to be a real drag. The Airtrain makes leaving your car in the reconstructed parking area a whole lot easier.

Upon reaching the gate I found Todd Szegedy, Alexis and Wayne O’Kula. It’s always nice to have some other Modified people on a flight. I figured the plane was going to be packed, but we could have had our own rows.

Although the blue bird has television at each seat, I tuned into satellite radio and listened to their comedy channel. Bob and Ray, Bill Cosby from the 60’s, Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner really classic comedy that kept me in stitches for the entire flight. My laughter probably kept some people from sleeping.

I rented a full-sized car from the people who will pick you up. Upon my arrival at the pickup point, I was presented with a retro-crossover-SUV. I tried it, but I wasn’t going to fit in it. The representative trotted me over to what she said was a full-sized car, which was so small that I couldn’t close the door on it while seated.

I actually asked for a car that I bemoaned when it was offered to me in Greensboro a couple of months earlier. They had one. I don’t think anyone else wanted it. It fit like a pair of old shoes.

As I had arrived early, I decided to take a trip up to Mooresville. I drove around up there and checked out a few things around Lake Norman. I took the “Dale Trail” down route 3 to Kannapolis where I was staying and checked in.

It was my understanding that our team was going to practice their two SK-Type cars late in the day. I was kind of surprised to find them on the track when I got there. Jimmy was driving the white #12 and Joey Payne was driving the black #12 which had been renumbered #72 for the event.

I had met Joey a couple of times before but never got a chance to know him. It was a blast hanging out with him, even if I kept forgetting his name on Thursday. My guess is that a number of folks thought that practice would run later on Thursday.

During practice I was introduced to Mike Slattery. Mike is a veteran of the Modified wars who is a North Carolina transplant. He works for Brown and Miller who provide services for many of the major national teams.

After practice we headed over to a barbeque that was complimentary. I don’t know who put it on but the food there was pretty good. I called ThE sHaDoW who looked at his phone and yelled out Walt! I’m here! I think that sHaDoW thought that this barbeque was some sort of contest. I had a few sandwiches and headed back to the hotel.

It was early to rise on Friday. Good things come to those who wait but only that left behind by those who hustle. The tire garden beckoned and I was going to be at the track on time.

Crap that bed is soft. Way too soft. I thought I was going to need a ladder to climb out of bed.

I found the home of a certain NASCAR celebrity by satellite photography before I left my room. Celebs shouldn’t park trailers with sponsor’s names on the roof at their homes. At least if they don’t want to get found.

What do you mean eight? All afternoon long on Thursday I had heard the gates would open at seven-thirty. Well that just meant that I would be able to listen to John Boy & Billy for a little longer.

As the line at the tire truck grew, our representative and Matt Hirschman waited to get turned loose into the Hoosier trailers. As always, there are amusing anecdotes and jokes exchanged at times like these. One of the tire guys tried to inject one.

Apparently it was a humorous musing relevant to the old television show Gunsmoke. Few people in that line are young enough to remember that there was a show called Gunsmoke much less what it was about or idiosyncrasies about the program’s dialog or plot. In other words…no one got it. Gunsmoke? He might as well as told these guys about the great potato famine or campaigning for Herbert Hoover.

One person said gun smoke? The last time I saw gun smoke was the last time that someone shot at me. To which I replied, “One more disgruntled husband and one more…” well you get the idea. The comment might have been out of line but at least everyone present understood why it was funny.

Dale Quarterley was driving the Brady Bunch #00 this weekend. In all of the years that Dale has raced in the northeast, he’d never driven a Modified before. The guy who signs his hero cards “¼ley” looked pretty good out there and I bet he had a great time.

Kickin’ it at the Shootout one never knows who will stroll by. I got to chat with Bill McCaffery & Brad Vollmoeller and Don Howe & Keith “Flash” Gordon. Don doesn’t seem to have aged five years since I first met him twenty-five years ago.

We really felt like we had the field covered with our SK-type car. It was brutal fast, just like it was in New Smyrna. All good things come to an end and near the end of practice; the engine in the #12 expired.

I don’t know whether we would have had a backup car had Eddie not been told that there might be a shortage of SK-type Modifieds. We peeled the vinyl off of the #72 to reveal the #12 and got it ready for time trials. It was a bad day for Joey.

I can almost hear Bobcat Goldthwait say, “I lost my ride…well I didn’t actually lose it. It’s still there but someone else is driving it.” Joey was having problems with his primary ride too. He was driving the #46 Super Modified.

Joey said, “The engine is tightening up.” The team put more gear into the car and the RPMs dropped. “It’s only a matter of time.” Later in the evening, the engine in his Super blew.

I think the first guy to go out in Super Modified qualifying hit a ton in turn one. His time would have been fast enough to get into the top-five to avoid the heat races. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough racecar left to race.

Now they put out foam blocks? Apparently the throttle had stuck wide open. Ouch! I wonder how upset the driver and the car owner were when they moved the foam blocks out against the wall after time trials.

Several people said that he had broken his leg. The next morning one of the Super Modified guys told me that he had broken a rib, lacerated a lung and cut his leg. Judging by what was remaining of the racecar, he was lucky.

Friday night I saw Dave and Susan Latour. They’re former classmates of mine who showed up with their younger son Dillon. Dillon was excited about racing his Bandolero at Lowe’s the next day. Their eldest son, David, had quite a successful rookie season driving Late Models at Hickory.

Jimmy put the #76 commemorative car on the pole for the Tour type Modified feature. It’s the same car he drove to victory at New Smyrna. Jimmy Blewett, Ed Partridge, George Bierce and the Grasso brothers make a potent combination.

Blewett qualified the backup car by finishing second to Ted Christopher in the first SK-type heat race. We loaded up our stuff and got out of there. I’m sure the Modified heats were going to be interesting but it had been a long day with a longer one to come.

Some people just need to have their (expletive deleted) kicked. Apparently that is what happened during the heat races. I’m glad I wasn’t there.

I zoned in on a wing place down the street from my hotel. This place has awesome grub. I was able to get some sweet tea there too.

This bed is too soft. I fell asleep. When I woke up, I was ready to go. This bed is too soft.

At breakfast someone told me of the thousands of motor homes and tales from over at the dirt track. I went back upstairs to take a shower and Roy called. He wanted to tell me about Dr. Jerry Punch and the sale of New Hampshire International Speedway. He kept me on the phone for almost an hour.

By the time I got Roy off of the phone, I knew I was going to be late for unhappy hour. I decided to drive by the Dirt Track at Charlotte to see what I had been told about. In addition to a good number of folks camping, there was a motor home and travel trailer company that had rented out a good part of the parking area in the vicinity to sell their campers. That’s right, more than half of those campers were unoccupied and for sale.

I got back to Concord right near the end of unhappy hour. I call it unhappy hour because that’s when many of the teams dial themselves right out of competitiveness. It was about then when Howie Hodge made a comment that is the Walt’s cup quote of the week, “Can we go yet?” Yeah, it felt like it had been a long day already and we had about twelve hours to go.

Duuude! Guess who? Yes Joey Caraccia was back. He was picking up his Nu Skool engine. He provided additional tales from the dirt track.

Dude, those guys are turning twelve-twos (12.2 second laps) on a half mile! That’s like turning Riverhead times at Stafford dude. Dude its sick.

Probably one of the most enjoyable times I had this weekend was meeting Barry Cantor. Barry used to work with Tom Baldwin. He left the team and traveled south just prior to when I joined up with the 7ny effort.

I know a lot of people who used to work with the Old Man but this was probably the first one that really understood what I went through with him and in kind I understood his experiences as well. Thanks for stopping by Barry. I needed that.

Someone else who was a surprise attendee was Ed Cox. Ed got to sit back and enjoy a Modified race as a fan. He blends so uniformly into the Modified racing background that I’m sure that hundreds of people walked right by him without even realizing he was there.

Ace Lane took a picture of all of our guys out by the #12sk and the #76 tour car before the pit party began. Ace looked like a million bucks this weekend. I’m glad they got his plumbing under control.

I got to meet with Rich Kuty as the racing began to get underway. Rich works as the PR Director for MRD Motorsports. They campaign the #8 truck in the Craftsman Truck Series. Look for my interview with Rich in a future feature. I think everyone will really enjoy it.

John Blewett, Jr. got to share a special moment with the Captain. Carl Pasteryak ran away with the non-qualifiers race. Captain Carl donated his winnings to the John Blewett, IV scholarship fund.

Some people just want to have their (expletive deleted) kicked. Fortunately there was no fight. Woody Pitkat and Keith Rocco dashed away and battled each other quite hard. There was some roughhousing between those two and apparently Rocco came out on the short end of the stick. Rocco later rode the backstretch wall to end his day.

Pitkat was put to the rear for his involvement. Jimmy Blewett restarted with the lead. Ted Christopher passed Blewett a lap or so later but Jimmy fought to get to the bottom. The two made contact on the back stretch and Christopher spun. Ted was put to the rear for bringing out the caution.

The strongest car on the track was arguably Tommy Farrell’s #8. Farrell’s car however did need a few laps to come in and had a difficult time keeping pace on restarts. TC made his way through the field and made an earnest effort to get the win.

In the end, Jimmy’s ability to pull away on the restarts helped him drive the backup car home to victory. It would have been nice to see how the right rear tire looked after the race but Jimmy decided to burn it down. Seventy-three caution laps probably had more than a few teams wondering whether they might have enough fuel to complete the event.

Christopher wound up second. He was followed to the line by Farrell who pocketed $500 for being the highest finishing driver in the field who only raced in the SK-type event. Jeff Malave completed a great run finishing fourth followed by Rob Janovic.

It was a special moment to have Jimmy, JB, IV, John, Jr. and Grandpa John all celebrate in victory lane together. I took one of Roy’s jobs over; stealing the first hat. After that it was on to carry all of the spoils over to the trailer. What does the average person do with five gallons of tire dressing? It won’t go to waste at T.S. Haulers.

There are all sorts of congratulations on a win. Racin’ Bobby Mason stopped me to shake my hand four separate times. He doesn’t drink anymore so I figure it’s probably some form of prescription medication or Alzheimer's disease. Thanks anyway Bobby.

When the Supers raced, that’s when it began to snow. The snow was generated by pieces of the Styrofoam floating out onto the track. The racecars would go by and hit them. POOF!! Snow!! Fan’s thought the Super race was better than expected despite too many cautions.

Some of the track cleanups took forever. My guess is that there didn’t appear to be radio communication between the officials and the track personnel. At least the Supers had some of their officials on quads to direct the track crews personally.

Some people thought it was cold out there. It got down to forty degrees by the time the Modified feature was over but it was still about fifteen degrees warmer than last year. Most people donned jackets or coats. Sweatshirts were the order of the day on pit road.

They had the drivers attempt to throw flying discs into the stands this year. I’d revert to the tennis balls again next year. Most of the discs that did make it over the catch fence slid back through the air against it.

John Blewett, IV introduced the pole sitter, his Uncle Jimmy. He also gave the command to start engines. Charles Kepley & Dale Wolbrink, from C&C Promotions, presented a check to the Blewett’s for the John Blewett, IV scholarship fund in the amount of $10,000.

The cars were allowed to run a couple of hot laps. They ran them single file and the cars never seemed to get up to speed as they encircled the entire track. One last message was passed on from Ed Cox to Dick Brooks over the official’s frequency by one of the NSS officials. “Ed says, “Shake your booty Dick.””

Matt Hirschman got the jump on the initial start of the race. I really felt that everyone was going to be looking at Matt’s taillight decals for most of the race. He looked really strong out there.

Everyone waited for the mandatory pit stops. When the caution flew on lap 32 it was time. Hirschman pitted for a left rear. Beers took a right rear. We took two right side tires.

Jimmy had been a little tight early on. We probably over-adjusted for it on our stop. Well, had what we had. We wouldn’t pit to fix it.

Ryan Preece assumed the lead as he elected not to pit. He was followed by Hirschman, Beers and Pete Britain. Preece pitted on lap 58 after a multi-car incident brought out the yellow.

Rick Kluth oiled the track down with a bunch of synthetic stuff; probably gear oil, late in the event. The race went red to try to clean it up. One of the announcers looked like he was snowboarding on the frontstretch to demonstrate how slippery it was out there. It was like an ice skating rink.

The concessionaires were out of burgers, fries, buns and pretty much everything else except chicken nuggets and soda. The track workers may have depleted their entire inventory of speedy-dry. The track was still a mess but we had to get on with the show.

Chuck Hossfeld and Blewett got together about ten laps after the race had been restarted. We were running fourth and really thought at that point that we had a top-five finish in the bag. I won’t be hard on Chuck. I really feel it was just one of those racing deals.

Hirschman sailed on for the win. Matt was followed to the line by Eric Beers, Bobby Santos, Burt Myers, Donny Lia, Eric Rudolph, Les Hinckley, Dale 1/4ley, Woody Pitkat and Ryan Preece. In particular I’d like to congratulate Rudolph and Quarterley on their great runs.

Matt appeared as though he was going to attempt some victory donuts. At the same time, Eric Beers was pulling along side to congratulate him. The two neighbors from Mud Lane in Northampton, PA, collided in one of a couple uneasy events that happened within seconds. Ryan Preece was driving back to his trailer and in the process struck a pedestrian directly behind our hauler. These two flukes occurred nearly simultaneously and one might have wondered whether this was some sort of daylight savings time anomaly.

After the race I ran into Joey Payne. I asked him, “Joey, did you see your car out there?” His response was unprintable but it was in good spirits. I think he was in good spirits because he ran into some folks who make their own adult beverages and I don’t mean brewed.

We got things loaded up. I had forgotten to bring my small cooler back to the track on Saturday morning. Because I felt it might be destroyed were I to check it at the airport, I chose to drive back to the hotel, retrieve it and place it back in the hauler to send it back the way it came. Consequently, I was in for a little wait.

I drove to the end of the longest line and was cut off by dozens of vehicles on exit from the track. It took half an hour to move ten feet and about eight minutes to drive the rest of the way out. When I returned about forty minutes later, the place was a ghost town.

Stanley was cooking up burgers when I got there. I commented, “Stanley, you’re grilling up a storm!” He replied, “I do everything around here.” That he does and he does it well.

Earlier in the weekend someone had tried to flatter me because I had pushed Joey’s car, the back-up car that eventually wound up in victory lane, back to the trailer myself. It was only a distance of about a hundred feet. Most people don’t realize how important it is for a racecar to be properly prepared. That car rolled easier than some team’s tire carts. It’s a tribute to Stan’s commitment to prepare all of the T.S. Haulers racecars the way he does. There’s a hint there from your Uncle Walt.

I ate at America’s Drive-in. Vicki and I became familiar with those places when we were at Martinsville. It was quite good, quite quick and allowed me to get back to the hotel and try to figure out what the heck I was going to tell everyone about this weekend.

Why was that so important? First off, I had run into Charli B. several times this weekend and Saturday, during the pit party, he told me that he wasn’t going to write anything about the weekend. Secondly, Denise DuPont’s laptop took a (expletive deleted) this weekend and although she made efforts to phone in the Live Updates, our backup plans didn’t workout.

At breakfast in the hotel lobby, I was entertained with tales of folks who had ventured to the Dirt Track at Charlotte after the JBIII NSS. Several people had dashed through the gates, down 601 to 29 and parked outside of the track. They told me that what they couldn’t see on the track they could watch on the track’s massive television screen.

Thoughts of getting forty winks when I got back to my room were dashed when I got there. There was a member of the hotel staff cleaning my room. They left, along with the bedding. Gee thanks.

Radio varies in different parts of the country. If I could get WRFX 99.7 FM on the radio in my car, I’d probably rip the tuning knob off of it. The commercials are different too. There aren’t too many ads for firearms safes on Long Island radio.

On the bus ride back to the airport from the rental car place, I saw a SUV that had been destroyed in a parking lot. I commented to others who were riding with me. “That’s the way you’re supposed to bring back a rental car when you get the extra insurance.”

The flight home was pretty nice. I don’t mind turbulence but there didn’t seem to be any on this flight. That was until I was locked in the restroom. Just as I started to take care of business, the plane bounced around like it was a back marker in the SCORE off road series. I thought I was going to get a concussion.

Once back at my seat, the ride smoothed out again. Did the pilots do that intentionally? I wanted to go back and check that restroom for cameras. It was a Far Side moment that I won’t soon forget.

At baggage claim I ran into an older couple who were traveling to Cairo. Not Cairo, New York or Ohio, Cairo Egypt. I saved them from getting ripped off by a cabbie. I got them to the Airtrain. Just get off at the next stop. A taxi would have circled through that place for half an hour. They could have walked to that terminal faster than that.

The next racing deal I have on my agenda is the Whelen Modified Tour banquet. I’m sure we’ll have someone at the Turkey Derby but I will be out of town. I might have the Rich Kuty article out before then.

In the mean time I would appreciate it if folks would submit their nominations for the “Walt’s Cup Quote of the Year Award”. Send your nominations to wnewcomb@optonline.net. This award will be included as part of the 2007 Newcomb Awards which will be announced in January 2008.