Column Compiled By: PHIL SMITH / RPW – WESTERLY, RI – Believe it or not only 5 weeks remain before the flat lands of central Florida come alive with the sound of race car engines at the New Smyrna Speedway and the official start of the World Series and the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour Series. The World Series runs from Feb 9 thru Feb 17.
The Whelen Modified Tour Series event is scheduled for Saturday night, Feb 10. For the third consecutive year, the Tour will open at New Smyrna Speedway in Florida as part of the track’s “World Series of Asphalt Stock Cars Racing” during NASCAR’s Speedweeks, racing under the lights.
The 66th running of the DAYTONA 500 at nearby Daytona International Speedway then takes place a week later to conclude the opening week of NASCAR action.
As of last Friday, 12/29, the entry list of tour type modifieds totals 17. This does not include entries for the NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour event scheduled for Saturday, Feb 10. The field of 602 Modifiesd will be extremely stout as 25 entries have been received so far.
The entire World Series is expected to be live streamed by FloRacing. Speaking of FloRacing, they will again cover NASCAR’s touring divisions through out the upcoming season. Thanks to Flo and the tracks that have brought them in weekly competitors and their sponsors get nation wide, sometime world wide exposure. Weekly asphalt racing from Stafford Springs in Connecticut, the Riverhead Raceway on Long Island, Bowman Gray Stadium in North Carolina plus the southern based SMART Modified Tour and the New England based Tri Track Modified Series plus Dirt Track Modified Racing from the Short Track Super Series and weekly Dirt Track from the Fonda and Utica-Rome Speedways in New York state.
A subscription to FloRacing is well worth the price. It’s the next best thing to being there!
Riverhead Raceway owners Connie Partridge and Tom Gatz will culminate a successful 2023 season Friday night January 26th, 2024, when they host the 2023 Championship Awards Celebration at Giorgio’s Baiting Hollow. John Beatty Jr. of Merrick, the 2023 NASCAR Modified champion of the Advance Auto Parts Weekly Series will stand front & center for the annual parade of champions at the gala. Tickets for the 2023 Awards Celebration are now available by visiting the track web site.
Giorgio’s Baiting Hollow, located on the scenic north shore of eastern Long Island have hosted the Riverhead Raceway Awards Ceremony since 2016, and again will roll out the red carpet for the racers celebrating their 2023 successes. A 7:00 pm cocktail hour will get the party started with the Awards Celebration to commence at 8:00 pm. During the evening guests will enjoy an open bar from 7:00 pm through midnight while enjoying a full course, sit down dinner. Coffee and dessert will follow. Additionally, the festivities include a DJ spinning tunes to dance the night away after presentation of the 2023 awards is completed.
Tickets for the 2023 Awards Celebration are available at http://www.riverheadraceway.com. Follow the link to obtain tickets that are priced at $120 per person. Deadline to purchase tickets is Monday January 22nd, 2024 at 5:00 pm, tickets will not be available after the deadline or at the door on January 26th.
Earning his first career NASCAR Modified championship in 2023, John Beatty Jr., car owner Mark S. Mina and the MSM Elite Motorsports will be in the spotlight celebrating their championship campaign. While Beatty may not have won a feature in route to the title, he and his team were the model of consistency completing every lap of the 914 circuits contested. In addition to his championship plaque from NASCAR, Beatty will officially be presented the Eddie Partridge Drivers Cup, emblematic of winning the NASCAR Modified championship and the lion’s share of the 2023 championship point fund from Connie Partridge and Tom Gatz. Thirteen 2023 Riverhead Raceway champions join John Beatty Jr. during the 2023 parade of champions
On a sad note, Cale Yarborough, a tenacious driver whose hard-charging style produced three NASCAR Cup Series championships, has died. He was 84. Yarborough was a four-time Daytona 500 winner and a five-time victor in the Southern 500 – figures that rank second all-time for each crown-jewel event. His three Cup Series titles came consecutively from 1976-78; only Jimmie Johnson, who won five straight crowns from 2006-10, has claimed more titles in a row. Yarborough and Johnson are tied for sixth on the Cup Series’ all-time list with 83 victories each.
The rest of Yarborough’s life story veered between stock-car accomplishment and surreal folklore – with varying degrees of truth behind it – that underscored his toughness. Townsfolk in the South Carolina community of Sardis, where he settled, told the tales of how Yarborough survived a lightning strike, once flew and landed an airplane with no training and plucked water moccasins and wrestled an alligator in the Palmetto State swamps. Yarborough is forever linked with the historic Darlington Raceway, the hard-edged track one county over where he made his big-league debut. Darlington honored Yarborough in 2016 by dedicating the same garage that he snuck into as a youth in his name. He was inducted into the NASCAR Hall of Fame in 2012 as part of the stock-car shrine’s third class of honorees.
“Cale Yarborough was one of the toughest competitors NASCAR has ever seen,” NASCAR Chairman & CEO Jim France. “His combination of talent, grit and determination separated Cale from his peers, both on the track and in the record book. He was respected and admired by competitors and fans alike and was as comfortable behind the wheel of a tractor as he was behind the wheel of a stock car. On behalf of the France family and NASCAR, I offer my deepest condolences to the family and friends of Cale Yarborough.”
William Caleb Yarborough was born March 27, 1939, as the oldest of Julian and Annie Yarborough’s three boys in Florence County, South Carolina. The family farmed tobacco and cotton, and Yarborough was driving a tractor to help with plowing by age 9. When his father was killed in a private airplane crash when Yarborough was 11, the youngster grew quickly into a more prominent role managing the family’s land and business affairs. The experience served him well in later years as a farmer, a businessman and a multiple-term member of the Florence County council, but he had designs on a faster-paced career. “Somehow, I knew there had to be a better way to make a living than digging around in the dirt and picking tobacco worms off leaves by hand,” Yarborough said in 1988.
Yarborough won multiple races in each of those first five years as a part-timer, including back-to-back Daytona 500 wins in 1983 and 1984. The first of those came in a reserve car after a wild flip in qualifying demolished his primary No. 28 Harry Ranier-owned entry. The second came also by way of a last-lap slingshot pass, with CBS Sports’ in-car camera riding along and showing Yarborough pumping his first shortly after crossing the finish line.He retired from full-time driving in what he described as a crossroads moment after the 1988 season, when he split driving duties with Dale Jarrett in cars he owned under the Yarborough Motorsports banner.
“I must have changed my mind 40 times on the way up here today, but I know deep down that it’s time to quit, and that’s what I’m going to do,” Yarborough said during his retirement announcement at Charlotte Motor Speedway, site of his last Cup Series win in 1985. “But it’s not like I’m giving up the sport. It would be impossible to just walk away. I’m going to be around, hopefully for a long time as a team owner.”
Yarborough spent the next 11 years involved in Cup Series team ownership, with a rotation of drivers filling the seat. John Andretti gave Yarborough his only win as a car owner, prevailing in Daytona’s 400-miler in July 1997. He spent a quieter life on his 4,000-acre farm in later years, making occasional appearances at Darlington events. Yarborough was also a surprise guest at the 2008 NASCAR Awards banquet, congratulating Jimmie Johnson on tying his record of three consecutive championships, a mark he would break the next year.
At the time of his retirement from driving, Yarborough counted restaurants, auto dealerships, textile interests, dry-cleaning franchises and his farming operation among his business interests. But he looked back ever fondly on his dream of chasing a career in racing, kick-started from sneaking into the Darlington garage for the second Southern 500 back in 1951. “Racing is kind of like a big, tall ladder,” Yarborough said during his NASCAR Hall of Fame induction speech. “When you begin, you start off on the bottom step of that ladder, and it’s a long, hard climb to the top. But I feel like tonight that I’m finally standing on the top step.”
The all new book, The Modified Years At Stafford, by the Grace of God and 600 hp, is gaining interest and has become a must have in race fans and competitors library. Race by Race, Year by Year, it’s all there. Read all about it! Books are now available on Amazon.com and Coastal 181 (877-907-8181 toll free) and are available thru Stafford’s web site in their store. Order yours now. Makes a great gift!
With the cooperation of the Arute family another book has been published with pictures and biographies of the 50 Greatest Drivers at Stafford.
The Stafford Motor Speedway had become the epicenter of NASCAR Modified racing in the northeast by the late 1980’s. From its dirt beginnings to its lightning-fast asphalt, Stafford had become the toughest and most gratifying track to score a victory. The Arute family which has owned and guided the destiny of the facility commissioned their thousands of loyal fans to name their favorite drivers. In alphabetical order so as not to offend anyone:
Tom Baldwin, Gene Bergin, Brett Bodine, Geoff Bodine, Ken Bouchard, Ron Bouchard, Mario “Fats” Caruso, Rene Charland, Ted Christopher, Leo Cleary, Tim Connolly, Jerry Cook, Corky Cookman, Pete Corey, Fred DeSarro, Richie Evans, Mike Ewanitsko, Ed Flemke, Sr., Jeff Fuller, Rick Fuller, Ernie Gahan, Bill Greco, Bo Gunning, Ray Hendrick, George “Moose” Hewitt, Tony Hirschman, George Janoski, Charlie Jarzombek, George Kent, Buddy Krebs, Randy LaJoie, Jan Leaty, Jerry Marquis, Mike McLaughlin, Ray Miller, Steve Park, Bob Polverari, Bob Potter, Brian Ross, John “Reggie” Ruggiero, Greg Sacks, Ollie Silva, “Wild” Bill Slater, Jimmy Spencer, Mike Stefanik, Carl “Bugsy” Stevens, George Summers, Jamie “The Jet” Tomaino, Maynard Troyer and Satch Worley.
Books are priced at $17.95 each and be purchased at the track at the Novelty Booth or at the Stafford Motor Speedway on line store. Books are also available at Amazon.com and at Coastal181 (877-907-8181).