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Hendry County Motorsports Park is billed as the Sothernmost Racetrack in the USA. I seriously do not know if that's a geographical claim or a hillbilly truth, I'm guessing it's the latter.
While switching around from USAC at Bubba Raceway and the WoO at Volusia I came across this pllace and one of my oldest sprint car friends Danny Smith winning the first sprint heat and it was a pretty good one. My interest was piqued!
I also noticed Mark Smithl and his pretty M-! was also there and was pleased because I think he's a helluva racer. Spoiler Alert, he won on Friday night and again tonight, good on ya' Mr. Smith
What I don't know, even now, was how many laps were in the Feature, it could have been any number between 20 and 50 and I am dead serious, I don't know. The announcer mentioned once and once only how many laps were left or had been raced and that was the 2, oops one to go at the end. With a half dozen of the longest cautions I have ever seen, the majority of them for the same driver, ol' lucky 13 there were many chances to inform of us on where we were but that was apparently confidential to all involved.
Buddy Danny never got to the first turn of the first lap, sadly. He was caught up in a 4 or 5 car caution and was towed off ending his night. I don't know what broke but I do know he was there long enough to rebuild the whole dang car before they got him off the track and to make things worse, all the others restarted (once they woke them up)..
Later in the race, I have no idea when, a couple of cars got together (yes the 13 was involved) and the poor bugger, innocent guy, had a flat left rear tire, However the announcer told the crowd a few times that it woudn't fire and that's why they pushed him into the pits, no mention of the flat. I thought, no probs, hell I could change all 4 myself and still get him back out before the caution ended and while we waited he must have left the track and was on his 2nd beer at the bar down the road before the green came back.
Eventually and I mean that word, the checkers flew and Mark Smith won, Yahoo! He led all 20, 30, 35, 40 or 50 laps, not sure but they ran more that 50 with cautions and you can take that to the bank. After the race the top 3 or 4 continued to go around and around the track at a fairly slow speed in what I thought was a contest between them as to who would run out of gas last...
I felt bad for Mark in Victory Lane because there were no photographers, I think the two that were there retired at some point during the feature. The man that set up the Victory Lane signs used his cell and took some pics so al was not lost.
Johnnny G. Tony B and Scott D. you need not worry about your jobs, in fact get a copy of this race and go and askk for a raise.
This was fun I might have to do it again, I hope some of the folks down there have a good sense of humor. One last thing, when I went to Google this place I noticed it was on it's 8th different name, hmmm makes sense to me...
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