RASN Reunion - Orange County Speedway
by Cheryl Thompson

As part of the RASN sponsorship, Jeff Oswald (Eldorado) promoted the “Steve Hatley Fan Appreciation Night” held August 16th at Orange County Speedway. Besides Lou and I, quite a few RASNers came from around the country to attend this event.

Kathy and Greg Ward were gracious enough to invite everyone coming from outside the immediate area to stay at there beautiful home in White Cross, NC. Kathy offered to let those who she couldn’t fit in the house stay in their motorhome, so Lou and I decided to go ahead and take Lou’s trailer down to ensure there were accommodations for all. We left Maryland around 1:40 p.m. on Friday and after some brutal rush-hour traffic in Richmond, arrived at the Ward’s house about 8:30 p.m. Already there were RASNers Paul Spegal and son, Jason, who’d driven up from Jacksonville, FL; and Jerry Kyte (Tinadog) and wife, Susan, who’d flown in from Phoenix, AZ. Around 11 p.m., Jeff Oswald arrived from Charlotte, NC, after picking up Karen Jensen, who’d flown in from Boston, MA. We were still expecting Steve McCollum who was driving down from Northern Virginia on Saturday morning.

Greg Ward is the crew chief on Steve Hatley’s car, so he had to leave around 10:00 to go to the shop as their new engine was suppose to arrive around that time (nothing like cutting it close on getting the car ready to race the next night)! Greg persuaded Lou to join him (not that Lou needed too much persuading to go hang around a race shop and help out). So I sat around Kathy’s backporch and had a few beverages and got acquainted with the rest of the RASNers. Kathy had prepared a delicious “snack” of pork barbecue, potato salad, and cole slaw. Karen brought homemade cookies for everyone to snack on too! We speculated on how dead the internet would be that weekend, with all of us away from our computers for three days. Then someone said “Especially with Tinadog here!” He took it with a sense of humor and we all agreed it would be really quiet without us on the Net.

Lou didn’t plan to be out quite as late as he was, but the motor did not arrive as early as expected and Lou was drafted to pitch in and “turn a few screws” to help the crew get the car set up for the Saturday night race. Finally, Lou stumbled back to Kathy’s around 1:15 a.m. :-0 He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been up that late (way past his bedtime!) Sometime around 2:30, Susan stumbled off to bed just before Lou and I made our way to our trailer, but the rest of the group apparently partied on until after 3:30!

Saturday morning, Greg left for the race shop bright and early, while the rest of us hung around Kathy’s back porch discussing the night of racing to come. Kathy received a phone call from Steve McCollom that his car had broken down somewhere about 2 ½ hours away in McKenny, VA. We looked on the map and tried to locate it, after Paul suggested he drive there and pick up Steve. Unfortunately, McKenny was too small to be listed on my road atlas.

Around noon, we all gathered around the TV to watch the Busch race from Michigan, feeling it was a forgone conclusion that Mark Martin would win it in his record breaking attempt to be all-time Busch winner. In email, Kathy had challenged everyone to a contest to bring the most delicious snack in an effort to keep Eldo fed, so we feasted on these during the race. Lou made a tasty shrimp-macaroni salad, I made chili con quesa, Paul brought cheese and crackers, and Karen brought veggies and dip. We were surprised (although for Lou it wasn’t pleasant) that Mark Martin had to pit for gas, so relinquished the lead to some Busch regulars and Steve Park scored his second victory during his rookie year on the circuit.

After the race, we all packed into three vehicles and headed towards Orange County Speedway and arrived there around 4:00 p.m. We were pleasantly surprised that we were personally greeted by the track owner, who had been given a heads-up from Kathy about the invasion of RASN into his beautiful facility. We even got a discount on our admission tickets! Other RASNers from the Durham-Raleigh area were on hand for the event as well. The only one whose name I remember is Scott Lamb, who met us when we got out of our cars, but said he was barbecuing “over by the woods” in the back of the parking lot. BTW, did I tell you it was HOT! Man! We briefly walked out in the stands to check out the track, but decided through unanimous vote that we had to get out of the sun quickly. The consensus was that it must have been 118 degrees! (Or that’s the story we all agreed on and we’re sticking to it!)

Paul brought a full-size weber grill and since we planned to tailgate and grill a few burgers and dogs, we decided to move all of our vehicles “over by the woods” where Scott was parked in the shade. Whew! That was relief! It was a mere 100 degrees in the shade as we all gathered around to sit on tailgates and await our burgers. Paul had certainly come prepared with all the fixins for our party! He’d even made a cutting board that fit neatly on the tailgate of his truck, so he could dice up some vidalia onions for us. We had a great time eating his wonderful burgers and literally “chilling out” from the heat. Around 6:00, we headed back into the track to check out the LMSC qualifying. Just as we were leaving, Steve McCollum showed up from his trials and tribulations of the a broken down Supercoup (they don’t call them “Fix Or Repair Daily” for nothin!). Steve ended up renting a car so he could make the event. What a guy! Not sure I’d go that far to meet a bunch of strangers!

It WAS a full moon Saturday night! Even during qualifying, there were a few wrecks. Steve didn’t qualify that well, but Lou had informed us the night before that Greg said the new engine “was fat,” so we weren’t worried. We sweated. . . I mean waited through some exciting races in the lower divisions, including OCS’ version of Mini Stock, which included some VWs in addition to the usual assortment of Mustangs, Probes, Camaros, Pintos, and even a Chevy Monza (remember them?). Each division seemed to have a lot of wrecks, with many red flags being thrown to clear off the debris. FINALLY, the LMSC division was up! The track announcer even talked about our group coming from so far to watch Steve Hatley race! The race started out with Steve passing people right and left! Lou and I had our scanner on listening to Greg (who was atop the stands spotting for him) guide him through the track. Unfortunately, after only a few laps, we heard Greg yell, “Go low!” The next thing we saw was a lot of carnage and flying sheet metal in turn 4. Kathy’s face told it all! Then we hear Steve on the scanner telling Greg “The car is done; the radiator’s shot!” Greg joined Kathy in the stands and we found out that Steve got sandwiched between wrecking cars and was hit on almost every side. Everyone was really bummed! Here we’d come so far and waited through heat and haze and minions of Legend cars for this??? Quickly, Eldo tells us that we should root for the #91 (Mark Cash) who was also a friend and fellow racer of the Wards. Unfortunately, Mark got lapped by the [until then] unbeatable Barry Beggarly, who had started on the pole and was mowing down the field. Barry has won 7 races this season at OCS and was the 1996 track champion. Amid MANY more wrecks and red flags, another driver closed in on Barry. This rookie in the 04, Ryan Grey passed the legend and went on to win the race in one of the most competitive ends I’ve seen in a race in a LONG time! It was actually a three-way battle, with the third place car (also a former track champion) challenging for the lead as well. The rookie was really excited and so genuine in victory lane (that’s a refreshing thing nowadays, huh?).

After the LMSC race ended, we didn’t realize they were going to run 2 more Legends races; one for 30 laps and one for 25. Unfortunately, these guys really made the full moon thing true. They kept wrecking every 1-2 laps and we thought the night would never end! Now sure if you all know but at the local tracks, they do not count a lap if there is a wreck before the entire field crosses the start finish. In other words, they turn back the laps to the previous lap when this happens. Well, it happened a lot Saturday night! At one point, I saw lap 11 on the scoreboard and then looked and it was back to lap 10. I thought I was stuck in the Twilight Zone or (as I said) in the movie Groundhog’s Day! Finally, the Legends finished and it was around 12:30 a.m.! Whew! That’s what I call a long, HOT night! (Hey, I didn’t even drink beer, it was so hot!) :-0

The whole RASN crew went down to the pits afterward to meet Steve and commiserate about his atrocious luck. Most of the group were wearing newly acquired (via Kathy Ward) Steve Hatley Racing t-shirts which Steve obligingly autographed for them.

We arrived back at Kathy’s house around 2:00 a.m. and Karen and I fought for the last couple of bites of Kathy’s potato salad. Lou walked out on the porch and couldn’t believe we were all stuffing our faces at 2 a.m.! I waited for Greg to get home to commiserate with him and assure him we all still had a great time, especially since the LMSC race had a first-time winner. Kathy had already snuck off to bed and Lou and I gave up and headed for our trailer again around 3 a.m. Again, the rest of the RASNers were still partying hardy when we left (and most of these people don’t even drink!)

After “sleeping in” Sunday morning, we drug ourselves out of bed around 11 a.m. and feasted on a great brunch prepared by the Wards (did you notice we ate well the whole weekend?) We had country sausage, ham, wonderful eggs prepared by Greg, and Kathy’s famous BIG biscuits! We took our plates into the living room to watch the Michigan WC race. At this time, Karen Jensen looks at me and says “I’m really surprised to hear you like Gordon; he’s so icky!” I told her I felt he had more natural talent than any driver out there and would probably surpass Earnhardt’s record. She maintained, “But he’s ICKY!” Lou kept trying to get her to define “icky,” but she couldn’t. (Typical DE fan!) It was a rather boring race. We unanimously agreed we were glad we were where we were instead of AT the race (like Danno) sitting in the rain. Everyone knows MM’s bad luck with the flat tire and his amazing comeback, so I won’t belabor that! ;-)

During the rain delays, Lou and I packed up the trailer and got it hitched back to the truck, so we were able to leave as soon as they threw the checkered flag. Tinadog and Susan left then too, so we all said fond farewells and thanked the Wards for their generous hospitality and there patience with all of us!

What a great weekend! You’ve got to get away from that keyboard sometime guys and try it yourselves!