Champ Trail - November 3, 2015

  Despite the fact that the racing season in the northeast has come to a close there remains yet one more battle to be fought. The countdown is on for the 13th Annual John Blewett III / Roy Trantham Memorial North South Shootout Presented In Memory Of Charles Kepley which will be returning back home to Concord Speedway next Friday and Saturday November 6 & 7, 2015. Practice day kicks off the 13th Annual North-South Shootout on Thursday, November 5. Additional practice and qualifying will take place on Friday, November 6, with the North-South Shootout main events taking the green flag on Saturday, November 7. The features will consist of a 125-lap race for the Pro All-Stars Series South Super Late Models, a 60-lap event for the Southeast Trucks, 75-laps for the Limited Late Models, the Mr. Rooter 50 for the SK Modifieds and the John Blewett III Memorial 125 for the Tour-Type Modifieds.

  There appears to be a lot of rumblings of unrest in NASCAR's Whelen Modified Tour Series' competitors. Robert Our has shut down his Modified team and Eddie Partridge has indicated that he may shut his team down pending Ryan Preece's future plans. It also looks like the Buzz Chew team is thinking of testing the dirt racing waters. Much has been said how NASCAR handled some of their calls this past season especially the Doug Coby-Ryan Preece incident at Loudon in September. NASCAR has been consistently inconsistent with their calls of rough riding. Couple that with increasing costs of running the tour spells possible short fields for next year. Thanks to the efforts of NBC Sports Net those who live outside of the northeast got to see a great brand of racing with tight competition. It would be a shame to see it go away.

  It appears that Ryan Preece has the opportunity of a life time as he has secured a NASCAR Sprint Cup ride for the final four events of the 2015 season including last week at Martinsville, this coming week at the Texas Motor Speedway, November 15 at Phoenix and the series ending event at the Homestead Speedway in Florida. At Martinsville, an inner axle broke spreading grease all over rear tires. Changed axles and he came back out at the end, finishing 42nd.

  On the local front in New England the Thompson Motorsports Park Thompson Speedway is expected to announce their 2016 oval track schedule which is rumored to be expanding. Thompson's Wednesday night racing programs were extremely popular this past year and had the reputation of getting the fans on the way home at an early hour. The recent World Series drew a total of 342 cars that raced in 15 different divisions which crowned 14 champions.
  Thanks to the efforts of Bruce Bemer and Shawn Monihan the New London-Waterford Speedbowl enjoyed a successful rebirth. Very little negativity emerged from the shoreline oval that was all but run in the ground by the former owner-operator. The Speedbowl enjoyed the best of competition and extremely healthy car counts. Scott Tapley, who had been the Speedbowl's race director has resigned his position to take a similar post at the Riverhead Raceway on Long Island.

  On the speedway stock market scene last week, two of the three speedway stocks were down for the week. The International Speedway Corporation dropped 1.68 to 34.69 and Speedway Motorsports dropped 0.81 to 18.47 while Dover Entertainment ended the week with a no change at 2.25. NASCAR fuel supplier Sunoco (Energy Transfer) went up 0.57 to 44.16 and NASCAR Cup sponsor Sprint went up 0.02 to 4.73 while NASCAR tire supplier Goodyear dropped 0.13 to 32.84. The auto manufacturers had a down week. Ford dropped 0.86 to 14.81 while General Motors dropped 1.04 to 34.91 and Toyota dropped 3.12 to 122.62. In the home improvement sector Lowes went up 0.28 to 78.83 while Home Depot dropped 0.97 to 123.64. In big team sponsors stocks McDonalds dropped 0.34 to 112.25, Coca-Cola dropped 1.35 to 211.21, Fedex dropped 3.47 to 156.05 and Aarons Rentals plunged 12.22 to 24.67. The rental company missed analysts' estimates for the third quarter. Aaron's reported earnings of 39 cents a share for the third quarter, below analysts' estimates of 48 cents a share for the quarter. Revenue grew 9.9% from the year-ago quarter to $767.7 million, falling short of analysts' estimates of $782.18 million. On the positive side was Target which went up 4.23 to 72.18.

  On the tube this coming week:

  Thursday, November 5
6:00 AM, NASCAR America, NBC Sports Net
7:00 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
4:30 PM, NASCAR The List: Texas Motor Speedway, NBCSN
5:00 PM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
6:00 PM, NASCAR Race Hub, FOX Sports 1

  Friday, November 6
6:00 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
7:00 AM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
12:00 PM, NASCAR The List: Texas Motor Speedway, NBCSN
12:30 PM, NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Texas practice, NBCSN
2:00 PM, NASCAR Xfinity Series Texas practice, NBCSN
4:30 PM, NASCAR Camping World Truck Series Texas qualifying, FS1
6:00 PM, NASCAR America, NBCSN
6:30 PM, NSCS Texas qualifying, NBCSN
8:30 PM, NCWTS Texas race, FS1

  Saturday, November 7
4:00 AM, NCWTS Texas race re-air, FS1
11:00 AM, NSCS Texas practice, CNBC
12:30 PM, NXS Texas qualifying, NBCSN
1:30 PM, NASCAR America Live, NBCSN
2:00 PM, NSCS Texas final practice, NBCSN
3:00 PM, NXS Countdown to Green, NBC
3:30 PM, NXS Texas race, NBC

  Sunday, November 8
10:00 AM, NASCAR RaceDay, FS1
1:00 PM, NASCAR America Sunday, NBCSN
1:30 PM, NSCS Countdown to Green, NBC
2:00 PM, NSCS Texas race, NBC
6:00 PM, NSCS Post Race Show, NBCSN
6:30 PM, NASCAR Victory Lap, NBCSN
11:30 PM, NASCAR Victory Lap re-air, NBCSN

   That’s about it for this week from 11 Gardner Drive, Westerly, and R.I.02891. Ring my chimes at 401-596-5467.
E-mail: smithpe_97_97@yahoo.com.

Phil Smith has been a columnist for Speedway Scene and various
other publications for over 3 decades.
 

Source: Phil Smith / Champ Trail
Posted: November 3, 2015