Upper Cumberland Dirt Racing Hall of Fame Inducts First Members

By Joe Dunn / joe@onpitroad.com

In the spring of 2008 a group of Dirt Racing fans and support personnel began plans for the establishment of a Hall of Fame for Crossville Raceway and the surrounding area.
Led by longtime racing announcer Thomas Montgomery they contacted several of the old time racers and fans for suggestions and nominations. The process continued into the summer months as a group of nominations was reviewed and a final selection of the first four inductees was made. Tom then had the task of tracking down those individuals, scheduling a date and time for the induction as well as securing a sign and engraved plaques for each person.
With the process completed and all details finalized the ceremony took place at Crossville Raceway, on Friday evening August 29. This was the final night of the regular season at Crossville Raceway, so the induction was a fitting cap of the season. The four Inductees are:
J Paul Smith, a Crossville native has been an Auto Racing fan his entire life. In 1984, Mr. Smith purchased a tract of land on Hwy 70N from Mr. Hugh Neal and began construction of a race track. During the process, he traveled to Braselton, Ga. to study the layout of Lanier National Speedway. With the information in hand, Mr. Smith returned to Crossville and implemented many of the design characteristics he observed in the construction of Crossville Raceway. On May 18, 1986 the new Crossville Raceway hosted it’s first ever race with a capacity crowd. That season continued with Standing room only crowds throughout the summer. Under Smith’s leadership the track was a Nascar sanctioned track hosting some of the biggest dirt racing events in the south. Famous names were seen at the track including Dale Earnhardt Sr., Ken Schrader and Michael Waltrip.
Lloyd ‘Red’ Williams began his racing career in the mid 1950’s with two partners. They drove the cars while Red maintained the cars. In 1968 Lloyd began driving the #97 racecar and about that time his son Sam turned 16 and wanted to join dad on the track. Among his accomplishments Williams won the very first race at the Legendary Atomic Speedway, in nearby Lenoir City. In addition to the racer side of the sport, Lloyd served as a flagman at various tracks including Crossville, Spring City, Atomic, Buffalo Valley and the Roan County Raceway. Red can still be found at the local races where his sons Sam and Rick are still driving as well as his grandson Brandon who already is a force to be reckoned with at Crossville Raceway.
Venable Tabor began his racing career in 1962 when he returned home to Crossville from a tour with the Army. He had a friend with an old Studebaker and they decided to go racing with ’Tabe’ as the driver. The plan was a simple one, they knocked out the glass on the Studebaker, installed a roll cage and headed for the track. Later he drove a Ford where he won one of the first races at the old Crossville track on Potato Farm Rd. In the 80’s Tabe was a favorite in his Red and White #25 Monte Carlo, winning 6 track championships, including five straight at Crossville Raceway. Tabe ended his racing career in the mid 1990’s and was called for the Lord’s team on May 29, 1999. Representing Venable Tabor at the induction were his wife Ruby and daughter Jennifer Purkey.
Dave Bilbrey, another Crossville native started racing at Atomic Speedway in 1982. Dave earned in excess of 150 feature wins as well as multiple track championships at Crossville Raceway, Atomic Speedway, Wartburg Speedway and the Tennessee Motor Speedway. Among Dave’s big wins were, The Plateau 100, the Firecracker 100 and the Pepsi 100. In addition Dave once earned $6,000.00 winning a pair $2500 races that added a $1000 bonus for taking both wins. Most fans remember Dave Bilbrey in his White and Blue #44 Ultra Lite A&B Body Shop car. Dave was unable to attend the ceremony. Jeff Kilburn accepted the plaque for Dave.
The Upper Cumberland Dirt Racing Hall of Fame will become a permanent fixture at Crossville Raceway with induction of new members taking place each year.

Edwards Locks into Chase with Win # 6 at Bristol

From the Crossville Chronicle - Crossville, TN Wednesday August 27, 2008

By Joe Dunn / joe@onpitroad.com
With two races left before the Chase, only two drivers are ‘locked in’, Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards. The Edwards - Busch 1-2 finish Saturday night at Bristol was a repeat of the previous week’s race at Michigan.
With clear skies and comfortable temperatures fans arrived at Bristol in droves. What is easily the largest temporary camping area in Tennessee the campers began lining up two weeks in advance to secure the ‘good’ campsites. The actual festivities in Bristol began on Wednesday as the Hooter’s Pro Cup series provided the opening act for the Nascar Craftsman truck series race. The big hype for Wednesday was the fact that Nascar Sprint Cup Champion Jimmie Johnson would start his first truck race. Johnson did manage to grab the lead by not pitting with the leaders on lap 42. He held that lead for 29 laps until Kyle Busch ran him down and Johnson faded to the back. His night ended on lap 109 when he lost control all by himself and collected Jeff green who was unable to avoid Johnson. Kyle Busch went on to win the truck race with series regular Todd Bodine in second.
In Friday nights Nascar Nationwide Series Food City 250, it was Brad Keselowski taking only his second series win, the first win came just a few weeks ago at Nashville Super Speedway. Clint Bowyer held on for second with Greg Biffle, Cale Gale and David Stremme rounding out the top 5.
Saturday’s Sharpie 500 was all Kyle Busch and Carl Edwards as the two combined to lead all but 1 lap of the race. Edwards started on the pole and lead all but 1 of the first 54 laps as Jeff Gordon was able to lead lap 48. Busch took the lead on lap 55 and held on until lap 470 when Edwards bumped him between turns 1 and 2. The bump caused Busch to chase the car up the track as Edwards swept by to lead the rest of the race and claim his 6th win of 2008. After taking the checkered flag, Busch drove into Edwards car in turn 2, but Edwards returned the favor turning the 18 car around at the exit to turn 2. Busch attempted to chase down Edwards into turn 4 but finally heeded the warnings of Nascar and turned into the pits. One thing that is obvious is the fact that these are the two top drivers in 2008 and one of them should win the championship. Dale Earnhardt Jr was saved from a standing drop by the wreck of Jimmie Johnson that gave Johnson a 33rd place finish. Earnhardt finished the race in 18th 2 laps down after going down a lap on the first lap of the race. On the start of the race Jr was penalized for passing two cars before the start finish line. The pass through penalty sent him down a lap and was never able to get the lap back.

Local Racing, The Advance Auto Parts Thunder series event scheduled for this Friday at Crossville Raceway has been cancelled, in it’s place the final points event of the season will take place along with a Special event. Along with the racing action the inaugural class of the new Upper Cumberland Dirt Racing Hall of Fame will be inducted.
Among those expected to be inducted are J Paul Smith, Lloyd Williams, Dave Bilbrey and Venable Tabor. Gates open at 5pm.

I-40 Dragway has rescheduled it’s ever popular Bounty Races to Saturday September 6 as VP Racing Fuels will guarantee a $1500 first place award. Other classes will include a $2,000 1st place for the Pro Torque Converters 4.90 index, $1,000 for the PRC Race Cars - Real Street, and $700 each for the Holeshot Wheels 6.0 Index, Mondello Tech Center 7.0 Index and the HVH Cylinder Head 8.5 Outlaw.

Edwards Sweeps at Michigan International Speedway

From the Crossville Chronicle - Crossville, TN. Wednesday August 20, 2008
By Joe Dunn / joe@onpitroad.com

Carl Edwards made the sweep last weekend at MIS winning the Nascar Nationwide Race on Saturday and taking the checkers again Sunday in the Nascar Sprint Cup Series.
Leading the most laps Saturday on the way to victory over second place Brian Vickers when the caution came out on the final lap. This was Edwards first Nationwide series win at MIS and Fords first since Ryan Newman did it in 2001. “I’m so happy we won this thing,” said Edwards, who won his third Nationwide race of the season, all since Drew Blickensderfer replaced Pierre Kuettel as crew chief in late June. “We’ve been so close before. It feels good to put a Ford here in Victory Lane.” The win moved Edwards into second place in the series points behind Clint Bowyer.
On Sunday, it was again Edwards leading the most laps with Kyle Busch battling with him for the better part of the day. Carl appeared to have a clear edge and the win in hand when Denny Hamlin’s engine exploded with 5 laps remaining. After the cleanup from Hamlin’s engine the restart with 2 laps to go promised to be a shootout between Edwards and Busch, but Carl pulled away at the green flag, never looking back and collected his 5th win of the season. He now stands at second in points in both of Nascar’s top series. With the 5 wins and Busch’s 8 wins these two drivers are dominating Nascar in 2008, as all three series head for Bristol Motor Speedway this week, for Nascar’s most popular week of racing.
Again at Michigan, Nascar impounded a number of the Nationwide cars for dyno testing, but the big news was that the Joe Gibbs Racing organization is in serious trouble with Nascar. Both the 18 and the 20 cars had magnets attached to the cars after the race and prior to the dyno testing in a blatant attempt to interfere with the testing equipment. Nascar is sure to lay out extremely heavy penalties for this one. JGR, released a statement calling for an internal investigation and terminate the guilty parties. The reaction to the team statement was seen by most in the garage area as comical as Michael Waltrip’s explanations of the jet fuel at Daytona last year.
The biggest news of the weekend at MIS was the announcement by Stewart Haas Racing, introducing Ryan Newman as the driver if the SHR #4 car next year. The announcement was the worst kept secret of the week. No sponsors were announced, but Tony Stewart promised that the details would be finalized and announced shortly. When asked how hard it was to convince Newman to sign, Stewart responded.
“We only had to sedate him for about four straight days at which point you have the subliminal messages you just replay over in a loop. After four days of that, I was really surprised, it took really well. Woke up and seemed to think that the week went by really quick.”
“You know what, I think the big thing – talking to Ryan and Krissie, these guys – was just explaining to them how the organization was going to be. Obviously we're not exactly, this year, with the teams where we want to be right now. But the big thing was showing Ryan what we're doing, what steps we're taking, how it's going to be different next year, and why I think it's going to be successful.”
“The thing that impressed me the most about Ryan was he asked all the right questions, from day one. You know, the thing with Ryan was it wasn't about, we've still never spoke about a dollar in the contract. I mean, from day one, the questions that he had for me were all about how are we going to win races, how are we going to win championships, how are we going to get the right people in place to do the right jobs.”

Crossville raceway is closed this week due to the races at Bristol, but they will return next week on Friday August 29, with the final race of the season. The Advance Auto Parts Thunder Series will start their Labor day weekend with a $3,000 Super Late Model race along with Crossville’s weekly racing series.

I-40 Dragway will have their regular weekly programs Friday and Saturday this week, with their 6th Bounty Series racing Next Saturday August 30.

Edwards Claims win number 4 at Pocono

From the Crossville Chronicle - Crossville, TN. Wednesday August 6, 2008
By Joe Dunn / joe@onpitroad.com

In a rain delayed race at Pocono, Pennsylvania, Carl Edwards and crew chief Bob Osborne got into a heated debate over the decision to pit when a caution for rain came out. Edwards, who based his call on his experience as a licensed pilot insisted on pitting as he predicted the rain would pass and the race would continue.
After making the stop, which Osborne opposed, Nascar put out the red flag stopping the race because of the heavy downpour. But about 40 minutes later the race resumed and went on to it’s full distance. That forced the 17 cars ahead of Edwards that did not pit to make 2 more stops while Edwards needed only one. The conversation between Edwards and Osborne became strained again late in the race as there was a misunderstanding between the two about the actual fuel believed to be in the car. With seven laps to go, Osborne asked Carl how he was doing on conserving fuel. Edwards responded that he was not trying to conserve and asked if there was a concern. After that exchange, Edwards did back off allowing Tony Stewart to close the 7 second gap to about 4 seconds.
At the finish both Edwards and Stewart were good on fuel, however 3rd place Jimmy Johnson coasted across the finish line out of gas while his teammates Jeff Gordon and Dale Earnhardt Jr both ran out and lost several positions coasting to the finish. The win moved Edwards up two positions to third in the standings a mere nine points behind second place Earnhardt.
On Saturday, Canadian Ron Fellows claimed victory in the rain shortened NAPA 200 Nationwide race at Montreal. The race made history as it became the first Nascar race run with ‘Rain Tires’ provided by Goodyear. The tires have been around for a long time, but this was the first actual race where they were used. If you wondered how long they have waited to use these tires, the ones used Saturday were manufactured by Goodyear for Nascar seven years ago.
Both series head for another Road Course this week at Watkins Glen, NY, while the Nascar Craftsman Truck Series take to Nashville Super Speedway Saturday at 7:00 pm.
On the local scene, Crossville Raceway will be hosting the Southern Regional Racing Series with the Sears of Crossville $3,000 Super Late Model race along with the full weekly program on Friday night.