Southern Swing Day 1

After a brief hiatus for work and play, it's good to be back here writing for everyone.  

Last week, I was asked to attend a work conference in Asheville, NC.  After announcing both the Knight Before and the Kings Royal at Eldora on Friday and Saturday - and after a few hours of shut-eye - I was south bound and down Sunday morning.

As luck would have it, I found out through Twitter that Portsmouth Raceway Park had been rained out Saturday night and was planning on running their $5000-to-win Modified show on Sunday afternoon.  The only other class on the card were Late Models (paying $2000-to-win), so I figured it would be a quick show.  And, while Portsmouth wasn't exactly on my planned route to Asheville, I knew I could adjust those plans fairly easily.

Bart Hartman leads a group of Modifieds down the backstretch at Portsmouth.

A knock-out field of 44 Modifieds were joined by 30 Late Models and racing got started just a hair after the advertised starting time of 2:00pm with the track crew taking some extra time to work the daytime surface.

This is part where, normally, I'd jump in and talk about how bad daytime racing is. Slick, one-groove, locked-down, unable to pass... you fill in the blank.  I can't say that about this show.  Not even close.  The action was, honestly, as good as it gets with side-by-side racing, door-to-door battles, and drivers rallying from the rear of the field to the front.

After dropping back to sixth early on, Chris Stotts used the high groove to power around Devin Gilpin with about ten laps remaining to win the Modified feature which saw four different leaders over the course of the 30-lap main event.  Aside from Stotts and Gilpin, this stacked field of Mods also included the likes of Bart Hartman, Rick Aukland, Joey Kramer, Chad Kinder, Ricky Arms, Nick Hoffman, Bobby Kitchen, and Doug Adkins just to name a few.

After falling back to sixth early in the race, Chris Stotts rallied to win the $5000 Mod special.

By the time the victory lane ceremonies were finished, it was 8:00pm and I knew I had a five-plus hour drive down to Asheville so I got in my car to leave.  Only thing is, the Late Model feature was coming up next and, really, I knew I just had to stay.  So I did.

Long story made short, the Late Models picked up right where the Mods left off with a good racing and a great high speed game of cat-and-mouse with RJ Conley leading and Josh McGuire in hot pursuit.  In turns one and two on the final lap, Conley blew a left rear tire which allowed McGuire to drive by for a dramatic win.  And, just as I mentioned on Twitter, THAT is why you never leave a race track early.

Josh McGuire won the PRP Late Model feature on the final lap.

And with that, it was finally time to head south on US 23 en route to Asheville, NC.  I arrived somewhere around 1:30am and was ready for my conference bright and early Monday morning.  Monday evening would find me heading northeast to Wytheville, VA for the opening night of the Schaeffer Oil Southern Nationals.  Check back tomorrow for a report on my "Southern Swing Day 2".