While some race fans
are settling into the Christmas mode
almost all are looking foreword to 2012
when racing begins again. As of this
Friday, Dec30, seven weeks remain before
the start of the annual World Series at
New Smyrna and Speedweek at the Daytona
International Speedway. Racing at New
Smyrna begins on Friday night, Feb 17
and the 34th annual season-opening
Sprint Cup Shootout event launches
Speedweeks at Daytona International
Speedway on Saturday, Feb. 18. Speedweek
is actually one week later than usual
this year.
Area Auto Racing News scribe Kevin Rice
recently reported that Whelen Modified
Tour Series car owner Wayne Darling
stated that he expects to be running the
full WMT schedule with his driver Doug
Coby. Darling and Coby appear to have
good chemistry between them and with a
little luck should land at the top of
the heap in 2012. With just 14 events on
the 2012 WMT schedule many teams will
have quite a few opportunities to
participate in Valenti Modified Series
and various open competition events that
have been scheduled.
On a sad note, Bruce Cohen, one of the
originators of the original Spring
Sizzler at the Stafford Motor Speedway
sends word that racing lost one its real
characters with the passing of 'Nasty
Neil' Murray. In Cohens words, "Nasty
was funny, disgusting. outrageous and
loveable, he did not have a politically
correct bone in his ample body". Also
passing last week was former Modified
Tour car owner Charlie Bacon, who
co-owned the x-6 that was driven by Mike
Stefanik and Long Island racing writer
Ricky Miller who provided coverage for
the New York based Gater Racing News.
In TV land Race viewing for the week on
the Speed Channel begins on Thursday,
Dec 29 with the NASCAR Sprint Cup event
that was run this past fall at the Dover
Downs Speedway. That's all there is!
On the Speedway Stock Market scene last
week two of the three speedway stocks
finished up on the positive side.
Speedway Motorsports went up 0.96 to
14.93 and the International Speedway
Corporation went up 0.78 to 25.19 while
Dover Motorsports dropped 0.12 to 1.01.
NASCAR Cup sponsor Sprint went up 0.06
to 2.31, NASCAR fuel supplier Sun Oil
went up 1.61 to 40.73 and NASCAR tire
supplier Goodyear went up 0.74 to 14.32.
The car makers also had a positive week.
Toyota went up 1.25 to 64.95 while Ford
went up 0.70 to 10.95 and General Motors
went up 0.35 to 20.50. In the home
improvement sector, Home Depot went up
1.67 to 42.09 and Lowes went up 0.25 to
25.27. With the exception of Target
Department Stores which dropped 0.50 to
51.70 the team sponsors had a pretty
fair week. Dupont went up 2.19 to 46.17,
Coca-Cola went up 2.74 to 56.85, Aarons
Rentals went up 0.94 to 27.14 and Fedex
went up 0.03 to 84.92.
That’s it for this week from 11 Gardner
Drive, Westerly RI 02891. Ring my chimes
at 401-596-5467. E-Mail is
smithpe_97_97@yahoo.com
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