WET WEEK: The inaugural World of Outlaws Late Model Series ‘National Interstate Speedweek’ through Ohio and Indiana was plagued by rain from start (the opener, on July 25 at Attica Raceway Park, was washed out) to finish (the finale, on July 28 at Sharon Speedway, had its commencement delayed over two hours by a single, pesky storm cell).
 
“We’re just storm chasers this week,” cracked Clint Smith’s mechanic Jeff Strope, noting that the weather even hampered the events at Lawrenceburg Speedway (dark clouds came within miles of the track) and Eldora Speedway (heavy rain at 5 p.m. delayed the program’s start).
 
But despite the frustrating summer weather, the Speedweek produced some truly memorable events. From young Patrick Sheltra’s upset victory at Lawrenceburg to the breathtaking first-ever WoO LMS event at Eldora to Chub Frank’s late-race surge to take the checkered flag at Sharon, there was plenty of action.
 
“It’s been an awesome week of racing,” said Frank, who earned a bonus of $1,125 for emerging as the Speedweek points champion. “All week long we’ve had rain every night, but we only got rained out once. The fans came out and sat through all the rain to support the racers, and they got rewarded with great races every night.”
 
Frank also hailed the Richfield, Ohio-based National Interstate Company, which made a grand entrance to dirt-track racing with a strong presence at all the Speedweek events.
 
“I definitely want to thank Interstate for coming on board with this Speedweek,” said Frank, who details his travels with the WoO LMS in the ‘Chub Across America’ blog that is featured on the www.nationalinterstateracing.com website. “It’s great to get companies involved with this sport. I met Jason (Sinkovitz) and the guys from National Interstate, and they’re real interested in the racing.”
 
DOWN TO EARTH: Josh Richards entered Speedweek riding the first two-race WoO LMS win streak of his young career, but he couldn’t maintain the momentum.
 
The 19-year-old star from Shinnston, W.Va., had to deal with three tough nights in succession. He finished 11th in Thursday’s 40-lap A-Main at Lawrenceburg after being involved in an early tangle; placed 19th in Friday’s ‘Subway 50’ after a broken jackshaft on his car’s rearend forced him to retire while running a strong second; and salvaged a seventh-place finish in Saturday’s ‘Buckeye 50’ at Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio, after surviving a hard heat-race accident.
 
Richards was also left a bit sore from the Sharon incident, which saw Richards spin between turns one and two due to a flat left-rear tire and then get t-boned in the driver’s side door by fellow Rocket Chassis driver Robbie Blair of Titusville, Pa.
 
“That was a pretty hard hit,” said Richards. “My left side is gonna hurt tomorrow.”
 
Blair actually got the worst of the crash. He had the wind knocked out of him and was slow to climb out of his cockpit; when he did (with a little help), he was seen rubbing his neck as he gingerly walked to the ambulance for a ride back to the pit area.
 
It was an inglorious end to Speedweek for Blair, who entered all three events but qualified only at Lawrenceburg – and in that A-Main his car ended up on the hood of Duane Chamberlain’s machine after a lap-one tangle.
 
TOO CLOSE FOR COMFORT: The top-two drivers in the WoO LMS points standings – Steve Francis and Clint Smith – got up-close-and-personal on the first lap of Lawrenceburg’s feature.
 
After Shannon Babb’s car bicycled into turn one on a restart, the ensuing jam-up behind him saw the points leaders slam together. Both drivers pitted and returned, but their cars were handicapped the rest of the way.
 
Smith, who started fifth, was hampered by significant left-rear suspension damage. A broken left-rear brake rotor three laps later further slowed his machine, which he thought had been good enough to contend for victory rather than the 12th-place finish he settled for.
 
Francis’s 13th-place finish marked just the fourth time in 30 WoO LMS starts that he had failed to crack the top 10. He had trouble turning his steering wheel to the right because his car’s rack plate was bent back into its lower control-arm bolts.
 
Francis and Smith weren’t out of each others’ sights for the rest of the weekend. Francis and Smith finished ninth and 10th, respectively, at Eldora, and Francis beat Smith by only two spots at Sharon (fourth to sixth).
 
Both drivers had to survive potentially race-ending situations at Eldora. Francis smashed into Shawn Toczek’s errant wheel on lap four but soldiered on with only some nosepiece damage, while Smith’s crew got him back on the track after a broken left-rear wheel sent him into the turn-one wall while running fifth on lap 27.
 
WEEK TO FORGET: Shane Clanton managed to score top-10 finishes at Lawrenceburg (10th place) and Sharon (ninth), but that was the only good news he could take from the Speedweek activities.
 
Yes, Clanton experienced a stretch of racing from hell.
 
At Lawrenceburg, Clanton bicycled and nearly flipped during his heat race and had to use a provisional to get in the A-Main. At Eldora, he was slowed by three flat tires (including one during the B-Main that forced him to use another provisional) and limped to the pit area on lap four of the feature due to a broken left-rear axle tube.
 
And at Sharon, it was one problem after another. Engine problems during hot laps forced Clanton’s crew to hastily pull out their backup car. Then the backup sustained a broken brake line during time trials, a broken drive flange in the heat race, and a second broken brake line during Clanton’s march to victory in the first B-Main.
 
Everything stayed together for Clanton in the A-Main, but he was a worn-out, ragged-looking race car driver after the event.
 
“I’m ready to go home,” said Clanton, who planned to head for a relaxing week-long vacation in Panama City, Fla., with his wife and young son as soon as he pulled his hauler into his shop.
 
STRUGGLING: One of the most frustrating seasons of Rick Eckert’s career continued during National Interstate Speedweek.
 
The York, Pa., star had three more forgettable outings, finishing 14th at Lawrenceburg (after using a provisional), 11th at Eldora and 12th at Sharon. Last year’s winningest WoO LMS driver (eight victories), Eckert is amazingly still winless on the 2007 tour through 32 events and hasn’t finished among the top 10 since July 3 at Lebanon, Mo. – a span of six straight races.
 
Eckert appeared primed to bust out of his slump at Eldora, where he drove from the 12th starting spot to fifth place in just five laps. But then he got together with Clint Smith between turns one and two, and the resulting bent wheel and bodywork damage caused him to immediately fade from contention.
 
“That’s just the way things are going for us,” said Eckert. “The car felt real good at the start.”
 
IN HIS BACKYARD: Lawrenceburg Speedway is a mere half-hour drive from Darrell Lanigan’s home in Union, Ky., so he was understandably happy to have a WoO LMS event there even though the quarter-mile oval doesn’t fit his proclivity toward big tracks.
 
Lanigan certainly didn’t call on a hometrack advantage to score his second-place finish in the 40-lapper, however.
 
“I was here two times about 12 years ago,” remarked Lanigan. “It’s been awhile since I raced at this place.”
 
ROOKIE BATTLE: The 2007 WoO LMS Rookie of the Year race figures to soon heat up between leader Tim Fuller and Brian Shirley.
 
With this year’s top rookie determined by a contender’s best 30 finishes, Fuller reached the 30-event mark at Sharon and Shirley is just three starts away from the 30 plateau. They will have the chance to begin replacing their worst points nights after hitting 30 starts.
 
Shirley, 26, of Chatham, Ill., had the better start to Speedweek, finishing sixth at Lawrenceburg while Fuller, who pitted on the pace laps to try fixing a brake problem, was an early retiree. But Fuller came back strong the next two nights, placing an impressive fourth in his first-ever dirt Late Model start at Eldora and taking eighth at Sharon. Shirley, meanwhile, settled for 12th at Eldora (his second career dirt Late Model appearance there) and was 20th at Sharon (after getting banged around in an early tangle and developing a flat tire later).
 
NEARLY A STORYBOOK ENDING: Shannon Babb packed up his hauler and was ready to head home to Moweaqua, Ill., after a blown tire in his heat at Eldora ripped up the right-rear suspension of his newest Rayburn car.
 
But after realizing that he was eligible for a WoO LMS provisional after watching the B-Mains, Babb and crew chief Jay Hunt hastily pulled out their backup car – a machine he last ran on June 12 at River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, N.Dak. – and put it on the track for the A-Main. He started 24th, shotgun on the field, and didn’t expect much.
 
Alas, Babb, 33, ended up authoring a stirring drive to the front. If his slide-job bid to overtake Earl Pearson Jr. for the lead in the race’s final corner would’ve stuck, he would have been only the second driver since 2004 to win a WoO LMS feature from the last starting spot, joining Tim McCreadie, who did it on June 5, 2005, at Dakota State Fair Speedway in Huron, S.Dak.
 
Babb, who settled for second, also would have won his long-awaited first career feature at Eldora. He’s been close – in 2005 he was even disqualified from an apparent World 100 triumph for being light – but hasn’t been able to break through at the Big E.
 
“I’m sure Shannon’s tired of running second here,” said Pearson, who captured last year’s World 100 over Babb. “But he’s gonna win one of these things pretty soon.”
 
Babb’s memorable Eldora run came 24 hours after he nearly took the ride of his life at Lawrenceburg. On a lap-one restart he slid into turn one hard and had his car bicycle high onto its right-side wheels, literally showing his undercarriage to the infield.
 
“I’ve never gotten so high on two wheels without flipping,” Babb said afterward. “When I got off the ground, I just turned the steering wheel to the right, gassed ‘er up and hoped nobody was there when I came down.”
 
Babb raced only a few more laps before pulling off – not because his car was damaged after it slammed to the ground, but because it was set up “way too tight” and he was having trouble maintaining control of it.
 
SURPRISE WINNER: Patrick Sheltra has barely more than a dozen wins in his five-year dirt Late Model career, but he looked ready to add plenty more to his resume after capturing his first-ever WoO LMS event at Lawrenceburg.
 
The 21-year-old credited his asphalt racing on the ARCA stock-car tour for making him a better dirt Late Model driver this season. After running one ARCA show in 2005 and three in 2006, he’s following the entire series this season.
 
“I think running the asphalt stuff has helped me a lot with my dirt racing,” said Sheltra, who races his dirt Late Model whenever he doesn’t have an ARCA show scheduled. “As far as charging into the corners, you go so much faster on asphalt on those big superspeedways. Now I can charge these corners on dirt and don’t worry about it, because I’ve been going 190 mph in the ARCA car.”
 
Sheltra lives in Indiantown, Fla., but he doesn’t spend much time there. He shuttles between the two headquarters of his family-owned racing teams – Richmond, Ind., where crew chief Mark Saul maintains his dirt Late Models, and Owensboro, Ky., where his ARCA equipment is based.
 
DIRT-TRACK PALACE: Many dirt Late Model teams visited Lawrenceburg Speedway for the first time on Thursday night, so they stood with their mouths open when they eyeballed what is arguably one of the finest short-track facilities in the country.
 
Lawrenceburg was an aging, run-down fairgrounds track when the Argosy Casino opened just across the street a decade ago, pumping new life into the area. Shortly thereafter, in 2002, the City of Lawrenceburg began an extensive reconstruction project of the quarter-mile oval, investing an estimated $3.5 million to make the facility a showplace. It now sports, among other amenities, a gorgeous aluminum grandstand with chairback seats plus additional bleachers that push the track’s capacity to 5,000; Musco lights; a superspeedway-quality catch fence and crystal-clear P.A. system; and a comfortable spectator area that has a concrete surface and new concession stands and restrooms.
 
The City is not done with its improvements to the track. According to first-year speedway promoter Dave Rudisill, on Oct. 15 construction crews will come in and begin expanding the longtime quarter-mile oval to a banked three-eighths-mile layout complete with an outside wall. The larger layout will be ready for the 2008 season.
 
Rudisill, a 36-year-old who has operated the nearby Perfect North Ski Slopes for nearly two decades, is in the midst of a successful first season at the helm of the speedway and is pumped for the future.
 
“I’ve got a great team working with me here,” said Rudisill, who has a five-year lease to run the track. “This year we’ve easily doubled the average attendance that the track had been getting the last few years.”
 
WILD RIDE: The most spectacular wreck of National Interstate Speedweek came during the fourth heat at Lawrenceburg, when Chad Ruhlman of Bemus Point, N.Y., got over the cushion in turn one and barrel-rolled his car a couple times before coming to rest upside down off the racing surface.
 
“That was the first flip of my career,” said Ruhlman, who drives for a team based in St. Henry, Ohio, near Eldora Speedway. “It was a weird feeling. There was an eerie quiet when the car started flipping, like before a tornado. Then there was a crunch, then quiet, then a crunch.”
 
Ruhlman escaped the accident without injury, but his car was a virtual write-off. He ran the Eldora and Sharon shows with his team’s No. 22 car – the same machine NASCAR regular Dave Blaney drove in last month’s Nextel Prelude to the Dream event at Eldora. Ruhlman was unable to qualify for either race, however.
 
NEW MACHINE: The pretty new car that Billy Moyer unloaded for the first time on Thursday night at Lawrenceburg was something different – a Moyer Victory Circle M1 Chassis.
 
Moyer ran a Mike Johnson-owned car from the Bakersfield, Calif.-based Victory Circle Chassis earlier this year at Bakersfield Speedway, and since then he’s collaborated with the Victory Circle team to build a car that incorporates many of his ideas. The ‘M1’ chassis was the first Moyer-influenced mount off the Victory Lane jigs – and more might be on the way.
 
Moyer didn’t run the new car at Lawrenceburg – even after his other machine was sidelined by a dropped valve in heat action, which left him a DNQ when he didn’t receive a provisional. He debuted the Victory Circle at Eldora, where he won a B-Main and then basically used the 50-lap feature as a test session for the Late Model.
 
NOTABLE…
 
* The originally-announced $6,000 points fund for National Interstate Speedweek was pro-rated by 25 percent because the Attica event was lost.
 
* One of the most unique t-shirts currently being marketed by WoO LMS travelers belongs to Brian Shirley, whose new shirt plays off his nickname ‘Squirrel.’ The back of the ‘Squirrel Style: Loud & Proud’ shirt is dominated by a cartoonish, muscled squirrel, complete with Shirley’s blue eyes, spiked hair and ear and eyebrow piercings.
 
* Eddie Carrier Jr., the 2006 WoO LMS Rookie of the Year, entered the Lawrenceburg event – his first tour start since June 17 at the Belleville (Kan.) High Banks. Still in the midst of regrouping his team’s engine program – one of the reasons he dropped off the series in mid-June – Carrier had to qualify through the B-Main after busting a driveshaft in his heat but finished ninth in the feature.
 
* Jeremy Miller knocked on the door to Victory Lane with the WoO LMS for the second time in eight days on Saturday night at Sharon, leading most of the distance before being overtaken by Chub Frank with five laps remaining.
 
Miller, who settled for third place, credited the new motor in his Buckler Motorsports car for putting him in the mix for an Outlaws checkered flag.
 
“We got a Bullock Race Engine and it definitely gives us something that stands out,” said Miller, whose popular car owner, Charles Buckler, was not in attendance at Sharon. “Bullock did an awesome job. I think I could end my racing career with him.”
 
* There was a youth movement among the top finishers in Lawrenceburg’s 40-lap feature. Three of the top five drivers were under 30 years old – winner Patrick Sheltra (21), third-place Justin Rattliff (20) and fourth-place Steve Casebolt (29) – while fifth-place Jeep VanWormer is 32 and sixth-place Brian Shirley is 26.
 
For more information on the WoO LMS, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com.