Motor Sports Weekly News

Story and photo by: Drew Hierwarter

Well okay, it wasn’t really a 24 hour race, it just seemed like it. After a seven hour open practice session on Friday, a full day of practice and qualifying on Saturday, followed by a nearly three hour rain delay that resulted in the racing being postponed until Sunday afternoon, it was as if we all were at the track forever. But the long weekend was worth the effort because when the 150 lap race finally ran on Sunday it was excellent.

A great crowd showed up on Saturday and they were treated to a long autograph session that featured NASCAR Hall of Fame driver and car owner Junior Johnson and his son Robert. Then, just as the command to start engines was about to be given for the first race of the evening, the skies opened up and sent crews and officials scurrying to cover the cars and get pit equipment inside the haulers.

In spite of the best efforts to dry the track, the rain persisted and, amazingly, the huge crowd waited it out and no one left. When officials realized that an even larger rain cell was headed for the area the decision was made to call the race and try again on Sunday.

Sunday was hot and sunny and the track conditions were very different than crews had planned for. In victory lane, a sweat soaked Poole commented on the difference; “Everybody was all geared up to run last night, but when the race had to be postponed until today all my guys talked about how drastically different track conditions would be having to run in the heat with the sun baking down on the track. . . “

Poole had to wait until the 22^nd lap to get to the inside of Kyle Grissom who started from the pole. The two raced side-by-side for a lap and a half until Poole was able to gain the advantage. He never looked back and except for restarts after caution periods, no one was able to mount a serious challenge. The win was Poole’s fourth of the year and he remains the only repeat winner in UARA races so far this season.

There was plenty of action behind the leaders that was typified by performances like that of Coleman Pressley who negated his uncharacteristically poor qualifying effort by passing 12 cars to finish in fourth place, nipping Clint King by inches at the finish.

The top five finishing order was Poole, Kyle Grissom, Lee Tissot, Pressley, and Clint King.

This was the third UARA race held at Kingsport Speedway since last year (The track has been closed since 2002), and the outlook for the future is bright as former NASCAR Bush Series star Robert Pressley is working on arrangements to run a full schedule of local racing under a NASCAR sanction in 2011.

It’s always encouraging to see a short track come back to life. Kingsport Speedway is great track with a rich NASCAR history and everyone involved is looking forward to its new beginning.