By "honorary Crew Chief" and relatively decent guy, Lou Lauer. All complaints, ridicule and flames should be sent directly to him at lauer@qis.net.

Hidden somewhere amidst all the moaning and groaning and bashing on rec.autos.sport.nascar, some good is actually happening. That would be the fact that R.A.S.N. is sponsoring the NASCAR Late Model Stock car of Steve Hatley. I had the chance to go to Orange County Speedway this past weekend to visit some good friends and watch Steve race on Saturday night. Drop your keyboard and try it out for yourself sometime - you'll have a blast.

It all happened because of a friendship that started and developed thru r.a.s.n. We got the chance to meet Greg and Kathy Ward. Greg is the crew chief for Steve's team and Kathy is the team publicist, tee-shirt seller, mama, cheerleader, spokesperson, and more. We'd met several times at Martinsville, exchanged e-mail, sold tickets, and just had fun. They'd been prompting Cheryl Thompson and myself to come on down to spend the weekend with them and go watch Steve race. We finally got off our butts and made the 5 1/2 hour trip to White Cross, N.C. this past Friday night.

The next day, preparations started for the days racing activities. Greg had to get to the shop and get the team on the road by noon. They were going to practice. The car had been damaged the last couple of races and they needed to check things out. I had been to the team shop during the Coke 499.5 week activity at Charlotte and had seen firsthand the amount of damage to the car from a previous wreck.

You can see my pictures of the car in various stages of repair and pictures from the race at http://www.qis.net/~lauer/shr/shr.html.

Greg headed off with the team while Kathy, Cheryl, and myself lounged around on the Kathy's back porch. Hey, we're on vacation! There's something special about a cold beverage, a rocking chair, a couple of big dogs (Chevy and Levi), a beautiful North Carolina day, and the anticipation of racing action that can't be beat. Kathy did have to make a side-trip out to the road to hand the team it's lucky horseshoe as they drove by on the way to OCS. Hey, every little thing helps when your luck has been lousy. After the ARCA race, we loaded our coolers and stuff and headed out to the track. 45 minutes later - we were there!

We go to Old Dominion Speedway in Virginia from time to time to watch the Late Models, but OCS has it beat - hands down. (Nothing personal ODS folks, we still plan on coming). After getting "bumped" by the Speed Bumps (a bevy of beauties that check your cooler) I did what I had to do - head to the souvenier stand to get on OCS hat! Hey - a man can never have too many hats! We followed the lead of Kathy into the stands and took a seat about 5 rows from the bottom, across from where Steve and team were pitting. Pretty neat track. We sat low, but you could still see everything. It's always fun to go to a new track. The RASN logo on the rear on the car was pointing directly at the grandstands and looked good. So do the 1997 SHR tee-shirts! Naturally I had to buy a couple. A man can never have too may tee-shirts either.

First thing we see in the pits is Steve's team hauling welding equipment to work on the right front suspension. The same right front with the new A-Arm. Not a good sign. Whatever it was, they appeared to fix it and did go out for a few practice laps before quailfying. Greg relayed to us thru the scanner that they were welding some stops on the A-Arm assembly. Sure - whatever you say Greg. Never had a crew chief carry on a personal conversation with me before! I kept holding up my cold beer to offer him, but darn if he couldn't reach it. I guess when I mocked him with the great corn-on-the-cob I was eating that he got mad. He had the nerve to tell me over the airways that I looked ridiculous in my new OCS hat!! Man, I wish I had a microphone on my headset. Greg knew it and said "I'll be you wish you could talk back don't ya?", to which I gave him a universally understood hand signal. I won. He was hot, dirty, and working - I was comfortable, full of good track food (even tried a bologna burger - one's enough), and had a cooler of cold Coors at my beck and call.

The only bad part of the night was the fact that also on tap for the night at OCS was Legend car racing and Allison legend car racing. I like 'em, but there's only so much lawnmower noise you can take before you want a REAL racecar out on the track.

We watched the Hatley Racing team get the car ready for qualifying. Track officials did a couple of weird things prior to going out for qualifying. All the teams tires that they were going to qualify and race on, were placed out along the wall separating the pits from the tracetrack. The teams then had to do a synchronized dance where they pushed the cars back out by the tires and mounted the new tires on the cars. Greg later said this was to prevent any teams from switching tires - a lot harder to do when everybody had to change them out in the open and in front of the track officials.

Steve lined up on pit road for his qualifying run that would send him out second. That's when the second weird thing happened. Officials made all the teams take the tape off the front of the cars and then the pace car came out and took the entire field of cars around the track, two-wide, for five laps. Had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. I don't think some of the drivers did either. Come to find out later, that they had suspected teams of using some sort of fuel-cooling system prior to qualifying (cooler fuel = more horsepower) and they wanted to try and eliminate that advantage by getting all the cars up to temp.

Steve looked good in qualifying and ran a 15.52. Unfortunatley, this was only good enough for a 13th starting spot in the 26 car field. Barry Beggerly ran an unbelievable time (14.32?) and took the pole. It's my understanding that he practically owns this track! It must be them darned black cars! Steve wasn't happy with his car - it was pushing bad in the corners. The problem ended up being what can only be called (by me at least), a badly made a-arm. Apparently the a-arm was bending under the side pressure of the turns and was causing the right front to toe-out badly. Words from other teams is that this same thing happened to them when they got the part from the same supplier. Would it last thruout both of the 75 lap races tonight???

In between qualifying at OCS and the racing action, there was a break. By this time a group of Steve Hatley supporters had gathered in the stands near us. Not a large group, but there were more than would fit in the back of my truck! Easy to spot 'em wearing their <<shameless promo for Kathy begins here>>1997 SHR t-shirts <<promo ends - contact Kathy Ward for yours - kward01@ibm.net>> It was also during this time that Greg gave his Dad his Father's day present. Looks like Mr. Ward is gonna be having some fun tonight as he sat down and started playing with his new toy.

Shortly before the LMSC race, Greg left the infield to assume his position in the stands near turn 4 to do the spotting for Steve. Gee Greg, you sound like Ray Evernham ! You da man, you da man! It was about this time that the sky started to darken, and it wasn't just because it was nightfall. Some ominous looking clouds were approaching and the track officials (there must have been 20 of them all dressed in orange shirts) got the cars out on the track quickly to get some racing in before things got wet.

An amusing thing during the driver intros by the track announcer. When he got to Steve and his sponsors, he had a heck of a time with rec.autos.sport.nascar. He ended up just kinda mumbling it and moved on. I guess it ain't as easy to say as the Interstate Batteries Pontiac. Steve's car is a Pontiac by the way. Most of the field was either a Pontiac or a Chevy.

Finally - what I came to see. Green flag action with Hatley racing on the track and RASN flying around! The tension was eased a bit when there was no early lap wreck in front of Steve, his undoing the few previous races. When one does happen at OCS, you don't have much time to avoid it. Steve was having the same pushing problems thruout the race that they encountered in practice. That a-arm has got to go! If that wasn't bad enough, the car started to overheat again. I say again, because earlier in the year, they had a constant problem with the engine overheating. The engine builder fixed whatever was wrong and they thought things were going to be fine, but now it's back.

Post race discussions would lead to 2 possible problems. One, the radiator hose might be collapsing when the engine starts sucking water thru it thereby reducing cooling flow. They are going to use a different type hose next week. The second problem (correct me if I'm wrong here Greg) might be a restrictor plate they had been using on the manifold. This plate helps the engine get up to temperature when the outside air temperature is cool. This was the first race this year where the temperature at racetime was above 70 degrees. Maybe the problem would have shown up earlier in the season, but with the early wrecks, they didn't have enough laps to tell. You can bet your money that the problem WILL be fixed by next race. Steve was none too happy about the water temperature rising to 245 degrees during the first 75 lap race.

Somewhere around lap 20 (?) the first rain shower hit the track. I thought "great, that's all we'll get to see tonight". Sorry folks - no jet dryer at these types of tracks. They red flagged the race and stopped the cars in the banking or turns 3 and 4. The shower was very minor, just enough to put a few drops on the track. They barely had the whole field stopped when they decided to resume racing! Yahooo. Cheryl did come up with a theory on why rain seems to find racetracks. Seems that the circular motion of high-speed cars creates a vacuum, thereby sucking the rainclouds over the track. Beats blaming it on me! Racing resumed until another shower drifted over the track 15-20 laps later. More red flag, this time they had to bring out the track vehicles to circle the track and dry it. Took about 20-30 minutes. Not bad fellas.

I took this time to walk around the track to turn 3 where Steve was parked. He was definatley NOT a happy camper. If he'd a had a gun, the car would be dead! Pete, chief mechanic, and Steve were trying to figure out what to do about the overheating. The push problem didn't matter anymore. Steve varied back and forth about whether to continue or just park it before the engine blew. This is where Greg had the level head (drivers rarely do when things go wrong). They talked on the scanner and decided to keep going and try and add more vents during the 15 minute break between races. Maybe the rain delays were a godsend, because it allowed the engine to cool down enough to finish the first race.

Orange County Speedway is a pretty neat place to watch a race. You can bring your lawn chair and sit right up by the fence in turns1/2 and 3/4. As I walked around the track, I was thinking - "this sure seems like a fun way to watch a race. NASCAR is getting too big for its britches - ticket costs, politics, the works". OCS is more of the smalltown fair atmosphere that is a welcome change.

When the race resumed, Steve did manage to work his way back up a few positions. He finished 12th in the first race, but at least he finished all 75 laps and didn't dent anything. Barry Beggerly won of course. He seemd like a nice guy in the winner circle interview, so I'll overlook the black car thing. There was some confusion among drivers and officials about when work could commence on the cars during the break period. Steve and crew did what they could to the car and it musta helped because the next race, the temps stayed at 220 degrees or below.

The second 75 lap race also began without incident. Steve was driving conservatively, keeping an eye on the temperature gauge and manhandling the car due to the pushing problem. Once going into turn 1 another car had a good run on Steve and tagged him in the rear. Steve sideways it thru the corner but never tok his foot off the throttle and kept the position. It musta made Steve mad, cause he started pulling away. Greg said that Steve drives his best when someone ticks him off. A major wreck coming out of turn 4 happened right in front of Steve. I heard Greg telling Steve to "go high go high" then thru the smoke I see the #41 SHR RASN Pontiac come flying past unharmed. Maybe that horseshoe is helping after all. Another red flag for track cleanup. Oh, yeah - I almost forgot the other problem. During the rain delays, Steve couldn't get the car refired and needed a push start. Luck is funny, because this time it fired right up. Not much more excitement for the night as Steve finished the second race in 10th position. Not bad for the problems they had. I'd love to see Steve run with a car that would turn and an engine that wouldn't burn! Mr. Beggerly won the second 75-lapper as well.

All in all, Steve ended up happier at the end of 150 laps then at the beginning. The next week wouldn't be spent repairing damage from a wreck. The RASN logo had once again escaped unscathed. A new a-arm from some other supplier, a new radiator hose and watch out Barry Beggerly. Me - I almost always end up happy at a race track. We planned on going down to the pits after the race, but they started to have more Legend and Allison car racing. I guess the rain rescheduled things. An hour of this and we'd had enough. We opted to head home and wait for Greg and the inside scoop later on that night. About 1:30 a.m., with Greg still not around, we headed for la-la land - visions of bologna burgers dancing thru our heads.....

The next morning, we opted to stick around longer to watch the Miller 500 race with Greg and Kathy. Lots of good natured ribbing between them evil black #3 fans (Greg and Kathy), the #24 cheater-team fan (Cheryl), and the whining crybaby #6 fan (me). What a great way to spend a weekend!

Short-track racing - you ought to try it sometime!

Lou Lauer