SpeedReading

After months of promotion, hype, rumor and speculation, the “Big Dawg Challenge” finally rolled to the line Monday afternoon at the tiny Wiscasset Speedway in Wiscasset, Maine. Tom Mayberry, a former racer at Maine’s Oxford Plains Speedway, has spent the last few summers promoting the Pro All Stars Series (PASS), showcasing the region’s top Pro Stock racers at track’s throughout the northeast. After a solid season in 2002, Mayberry decided his series needed a showcase event, something similar to - if not better than - the legendary “True Value 250” at Maine’s Oxford Plains Speedway.

He called it “The Big Dawg Challenge.”

Mayberry’s “Big Dawg” boasted a mammoth purse of nearly $200,000, with half of that amount going to the winner. Unfortunately, steady rains postponed the event Sunday, just as the feature rolled onto the track. Monday afternoon’s make-good ran before a less-than-capacity crowd, but those in attendance saw an exciting (and sometimes controversial) race. Former PASS champion “Sud’n” Sam Sessions won it, passing Maritime veteran Dave Gorveatt with just 16 laps to go to claim the $100,000 top prize. The controversy came courtesy of New Hampshire veteran Dale Shaw, who led the race in the late going, before crashing with second-place challenger Scott Chubbuck and being sent to the rear. A string of rough-riding incidents ensued, prompting officials to black flag the former NASCAR Busch North Series star. Shaw ignored those flags, and officials pulled his scorecard in response, relegating him to 19^{th place in the final rundown.}

Pre-race predictions of on-track carnage proved unfounded, with 20 of the 39 starters still running at the finish. Only six cars finished on the lead lap - Sessions, Gorveatt, Scott Robbins, Donnie Whitten, Richie Dearborn and Bill Penfold - but those six battled all the way to the checkers, with Sessions taking the checkered flag with a five-carlength advantage.

While Monday’s “Big Dawg” was an on-track success, there are indications that things did not go as well behind the scenes.

With $200,000 up for grabs, promoter Mayberry figured there was no way the nation’s top short track racers could ignore all those dollar signs. Unfortunately, he figured wrong. Despite pre-race predictions of more than 150 cars, barely 50 actually turned out. A flood of pre-race publicity hyping entries from all over the country also proved overly optimistic, as nearly three-quarters of the Big Dawg field -- 28 of the 39 starters -- came from the state of Maine. Of the remaining 11 starters, three drivers hailed from New Hampshire, two were from Massachusetts, and one each came from the Canadian provinces of Quebec, Prince Edward Island, and Nova Scotia. Just two southern drivers attempted to qualify for the race; former All-Pro champion Freddie Query of Mooresville, NC, and Stan Meserve, a Maine native who relocated to North Carolina a few years ago.

Those disappointing numbers cost the “Big Dawg Challenge” much of its prestige. Worse, they almost certainly cost Mayberry a mountain of cash.

The Maine promoter had hoped for 150 cars, at a $300-per car entry fee. With only 50 cars in the pits, Mayberry came up $30,000 short of projections. The light car count also impacted Mayberry’s back gate revenue. Assuming a conservative three crewmembers per car (at $90 each for a three-day ticket) he failed to take-in another $27,000 in back-gate fees. Lap sponsorships were sold for the 400-lap grind, at $250 per circuit. But according to the event’s own website, 175 of the 400 laps remained unsold as of race day, leaving the event another $43,750 short of projections.

Poor weather further compounded the problems. Two-day tickets for the “Big Dawg” were priced at $75 for adults, but sources say the Wiscasset bleachers were only two-thirds full Sunday before the rains came. Mayberry told a reporter for the Kennebec Journal that there were “roughly 700 unsold tickets" for the race, resulting in a shortfall of at least $52,000, assuming that everyone returned for Monday’s make-good, rather than demanding refunds.

Counting front and back gate admissions, entry fees, and lap sponsorships, the “Big Dawg Challenge” appears to have come up at least $152,000 short of projections. Those figures are admittedly estimates, and do not include revenue sources like tire sales, concessions, and the support of the event’s sponsor, DNK Used Cars. However, they also do not include expenditures like payroll, insurance, operating costs, and the purses paid to Friday and Saturday’s support division competitors.

On the face of things, it’s hard to imagine Mayberry making money on the “Big Dawg Challenge.” In fact, it’s hard to imagine him breaking even, which puts the future of the event, not to mention the PASS Series, in some doubt.

Tom Mayberry is a genuinely nice guy who has the best interest of northeast Pro Stock racing at heart. He’s also an intelligent man; intelligent enough to have realized by now that for nearly $200,000 in prize money, he got essentially the same group of drivers he got all summer long at his $30,000 PASS Tour shows.

That’s too bad

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Tracie Bellerose may have driven her final race.

The 2000 Thunder Road Late Model champion suffered a badly broken right arm in the season-ending “New England Dodge Dealers Milk Bowl,” and underwent major surgery last week to repair the damage. Contacted this week, the Gorham, NH, driver said the outlook is not encouraging.

“I went to the doctor yesterday and saw the x-rays for the first time,” she said. “Basically, they opened up my arm from the wrist to the elbow, and put in an eight-inch steel plate with 12 screws to hold everything together. I have a cast that runs from my fingers to my shoulder, and my fingers are totally black.”

Bellerose said the worst of her three fractures runs lengthwise, the entire length of one of the bones in her forearm, an injury doctors say is highly unusual and difficult to heal. “It’s touch-and-go whether this heals correctly or not,” said Bellerose this week. “The plate will stay in for two to three years, and up near my elbow -- where the plate ends and the bone begins - the doctors say there’s a 90-percent chance that I’ll suffer another fracture.”

“I’m trying not to make any decisions right now, but I may be a former race car driver,” she said. “Flipping out into the parking lot (in the final Thunder Road points race) wasn’t enough to get my attention, but getting hurt like this is what was essentially a freak accident…I don’t know. Somebody up there may be trying to tell me something. I’ve got no racecar, and my deal with (sponsor) Merchant’s Bank is up at the end of the year. So right now, I’d say it’s not looking too good.”

Bellerose will see her doctors again at the end of next week, at which time her arm will be re-X-rayed and evaluated.

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It may finally be “put up or shut up” time for self-proclaimed racetrack developer Howard “Tim” Fry.

More than two years ago, the Florida attorney/developer announced plans to purchase the Clinton County (NY) Airport and build a state-of-the-art motorsports facility there, after county officials moved flight operations to the site of the former Plattsburgh Air Force Base. That move is not expected to occur for at least two years, but last week, Fry’s attorneys asked legislators to expedite the sale, requesting that his St. Lawrence Motor Sports group be allowed to buy the County Airport property by April of 2004.

Fry has offered to construct a temporary terminal at the Air Force Base to accommodate county air service until the permanent terminal can be built. Legislators, however, were skeptical whether the Federal Aviation Administration would allow such a move, or even if approval could be granted by next April.

The group originally announced plans to build a 100,000 seat “NASCAR-style superspeedway” on the site, in an effort to attract NASCAR Nextel Cup events. NASCAR immediately slapped Fry with a “cease and desist” order, however, warning him to stop using the Florida-based sanctioning body’s name to promote the project. Since then, Fry has repeatedly amended his plans, first downsizing from 100,000 to 30,000 seats, then eliminating the oval track altogether in favor of road course and drag racing on the existing airport runways. Now, he says he hopes to lure Formula One racing to the Plattsburgh area, filling the void left by the recent loss of the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal.

Last week, County Attorney Dennis Curtin urged legislators to use caution in their dealings with Fry, calling his racetrack plans “like a Trojan Horse.” In his words, “every time it gets wheeled in, something different pops out.”

Asked if there is consensus to move forward with the airport sale, legislator Robert Heins (R-Plattsburgh) said he is skeptical of the St. Lawrence Motor Sports offer. "If they sent a check for $50 million along with this, then I would say fine,” he said. “But I need to see the money first.”

John Gallagher (D-Plattsburgh) urged the legislature to reject Fry’s request to expedite the sale, saying the county’s main priority is “to get full fair-market value for that land, to help us move the airport at no additional cost to the taxpayers.”

In his words, "I think we need to wait and see.’’

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Looking for Ryan Newman’s fuel mileage secret? Our sources in the Winston Cup garage say it’s not nearly as controversial as his competition would have you believe.

The key to running long distances on a single tank of fuel is apparently not a bigger fuel cell, and not some kind of illegal fuel-delivery system. It’s a smaller, more efficient carburetor. NASCAR rules specify that carburetors flow a maximum of 830 cubic feet of air per minute. Newman’s carburetor reportedly flows just 750 cubic feet per minute, giving the Alltel Dodge approximately one-half mile per gallon in additional fuel mileage, with a loss of only two horsepower. Over the course of a 22-gallon fuel run, that gives Newman an 11-mile advantage over the competition, the equivalent of seven laps on a 1.5-mile track.

Mystery solved.

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…PPI Motorsports has extended its contract with Ricky Craven to drive the #32 Tide Pontiac on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series through 2006. The announcement coincides with Tide's renewal of its sponsorship agreement with PPI Motorsports, which has also been extended through the 2006 campaign.

…Ward Burton will not drive the Bill Davis Racing/Caterpillar Dodge in 2004. The parties announced last week that Busch Series driver Scott Wimmer will replace Burton in the CAT car, beginning next weekend at Atlanta Motor Speedway, and continuing through the final four races of 2003.

While widely rumored to be heading for either Richard Childress Racing’s #30 AOL Chevrolet or a Ray Evernham-owned Dodge next season, Burton announced late last week that he will be the new driver of the #0 NetZero HiSpeed Pontiac for Haas CNC Racing.

… Dale Earnhardt Jr. is locked into the Dale Earnhardt Inc., Budweiser Chevrolet for the next five years. After months of negotiation, Junior reached agreement with his stepmother, Teresa Earnhardt (also CEO and
President of DEI) to ensure his future with the team created by his late father.

“This is the first time I have had a contract in four years,” said Junior last week. “We had a handshake, and that was sufficient. But in today’s business world, you need written agreements, and now we have one. What it really came down to was Teresa and myself being in the same place at the same time, and sitting down to talk
about it. Once that happened, it was taken care of in no time at all.”

"Dale and I built this organization with a long term plan in place,” said Teresa Earnhardt. “Dale Jr. has always been an intricate part of that plan, and this agreement represents our commitment to one another."

In other DEI news, Busch North Series star Martin Truex, Jr. is reportedly under consideration to steer the team’s #1 Nextel Cup Chevrolet next season, after recording some solid runs this season in Dale Earnhardt, Jr.’s Chance2 Motorsports Busch Series entry. DEI still needs a sponsor to replace the departing Pennzoil, and Truex’s youth is seen as attractive to potential backers.

…With Jerry Nadeau’s recovery going more slowly than expected, MB2 Motorsports announced this week that Joe Nemechek will drive the # 01 U.S. Army Pontiac on next year’s NASCAR Nextel Cup schedule. Nadeau, who continues to recover from a head injury he suffered in early May at Richmond, will eventually drive in a combination of Nextel Cup, Busch and ARCA races next year, in cars fielded by MB3 and Nemechek’s NEMCO Motorsports team. Nemechek will also drive the U.S. Army Pontiac in the final four races of this season.