Southern Swing Day 3

With another full day of conferencing on the schedule, including lunch at the Mellow Mushroom, I was out the door shortly after 4:00pm and on my way to Smoky Mountain Speedway in Maryville, TN for the second night of the Schaeffer Oil Southern Nationals, and my fifth straight day of racing.

This would mark my first ever trip to the 4/10-mile speedplant, making it track #162 on my list.  I arrived at Smoky Mountain in plenty of time despite a small traffic jam on I-40 on the drive over.

Smoky Mountain has long straightaways and two very different corners.  Turns one and two are slightly tighter than turns three and four and, in speaking with of the drivers, that adds a whole new element into the set-up of one's race car at the track. The pits are located back off turn one allowing cars to both enter and exit the speedway at the end of the frontstretch.  The track itself is completely surrounded by a concrete wall on the outside and the majority of the inside is lined with either concrete or a guardrail.  A scoreboard sits right outside turns one and two displaying laps, times, and the top car car numbers.  

A look at the 4/10-mile Smoky Mountain Speedway, located just south of Maryville, TN.

The general admission section at The Mountain has both wooden grandstands as well as terraced concrete seating, giving folks the option to bring a lawn chair or, as I did, just planting your fanny on some splinters.  The food is averaged priced, the lighting is decent, and the speaking system is fair.

It was dubbed "Late Model Mania" at Smoky Mountain with 27 drivers signed in for the Southern Nationals race as well as 15 Crates and 15 Limited Lates.  With "Racing" advertised to start at 8:00pm, things were a tad behind schedule but, once the program got started, it kept moving fairly quickly.  That's good considering it was a Tuesday night and nearly everyone had somewhere to be the next morning.

A car rolls through turns one and two at Smoky Mountain.

On a very heavy racing surface, Chris "Smoky" Madden (and two others) blistered the tacky surface to lower the track record during Time Trials which locked the top eight qualifiers into the A-Main and sent the rest of the field to one of the two Last Chance Qualifiers.

The prelim racing at Smoky Mountain was so-so, with a few good races mixed in with a few not-as-good ones.  The first A-Main of the night was the Crate feature and, after lap two, there were no green flag passes for position within the top ten.  Adam Beeler would notch the win in that event which was followed by the 35-lap Southern Nationals A-Main.

Ty Dillon entered his second straight Southern Nationals race.

Madden and Mike Marlar led the field to the green and, much like the night before at Wythe, Madden rocketed out to the early race lead.  Somewhere around lap ten, I noticed Marlar had changed his line ever so slightly and was running about half a car length higher than Madden was.  The small change made a big difference as the Winfield, TN driver was able to chase down the race leader and work his way into the top spot right around the halfway point.  From there, Madden hung with Marlar for a few laps as they sliced through the back of the field, but the driver of the Bryson Motorsports #5B proved to be just too strong as Marlar held on for the $3500 payday.

I'm not sure what time the feature ended, but it had to be somewhere around 10:30pm or a little after.  Again, not terrible for a weeknight.  Once the victory lane ceremonies were finished, I was in my car and, with my a 5 Hour Energy in hand, was making my way back to Asheville, NC.