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Photography/Story - Stephen Jones |
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Photography/Story - Stephen Jones |
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QuarterMaster's Challenge
Maryland
International Raceway
September
6, 2009
Despite great early terrific weather, a very high
car count, and a great crowd, rain arrived just before the semi
finals eliminating any chance for final round action and results.
Compared to last year,
which had numerous oil downs and all sorts of on
track issues, this event was a complete turn around. The pits were
overloaded with race and show cars, the pit side stands were full,
and the
photographers and vendors were doing a brisk business.
Once the racing started, it pretty much kept
going all day long. There was a number of pro mods from the Pro
Outlaw Door slammers group, including most of the same cars that run
the MIR
Frantic 8 program and lots of jr. racers. We even
had a match race between 2 "old guys"! Hall of Famer Herman
Lewis towed his 2 AMX super stockers and, what looked like his entire
family, from Beckley,West
Virginia and "Bullet" Bob Reed from
Salisbury, North Carolina. Both ran a few test runs and made 2 out of
the 3 scheduled match races. Lewis was having trouble with red,
white, and blue AMX
for most of his runs and switched to the back up
brown AMX for the 2nd race. Reed won both races and looked to have
the advantage coming in to the 3rd race.
Unfortunately, dark clouds started to move in
around 6:30 in the evening and it started to rain just after around
7:30. After a few minutes of conversation between Royce Miller and the
Quartermaster officials, the event was called
just before 8:00pm. Most of the racers I talked to had a long day and
sveral had a long tow home and were happy to get their split off payout
and pack up to head home.
I believe Qmaster and MIR officials should be
happy and satisfied with this 6th running of the Quartermasters
Challenge event and, despite the late evening weather problem, consider
this event to be a great success.
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