Made it out to the last half of practice today, under blue skies and a crisp spring breeze.

The track is definitely under renovation. Walking up to the front gate/ticket window, everything has been sandblasted and ready for a new coat of paint. There's some spots on the concourse dug up where I believe they've begun installing some new wiring for scoring and public address, as well as a few brand new booths (presumably for snack/food sales) Many of the granstands are also under repair.

Down below, pit road is a moonscape right now, as much of it has been jackhammered up to make room for the new concrete. You can see it in some of the photos from the Delaware website, as well as a few pages of photos taken today at practice, viewable HERE

It looks like the Late Models will be stout this year. I counted 13 of them myself, and some had already left by the time I got there. A pretty good number of them were front runners, with Verhoeven, Lindsay, Ramsay,  and the Remax 3 (I believe piloted by Rijnen.) Bunch of new cars too, with the 9 of Brendan Watson, the 8 of Mark Jacobs (ex number 33 LM) the 02 of Mark Watson (very sweet looking ride). As well, saw Simon Wild, Todd Barlass, Kyle Delisle and Rick Emery. One I'm wondering about was the green "Incredible Hulk" 55 driven by Bruce Rankin. That one didn't look like a new machine and I'm not sure if he's going to be a Delaware regular.

There were a few Sportsman types too, with the 23 of Dave Bintner and the 93 (someone told me it was Jason Meyer)

In the super stock end were a lot of the usual suspects back for action, such as 3-Perkins, 77-Lake, 9-DeJesus, 66-Peters, 51-Rabideau, 84 Steve Smith (ex Monaghan, then JR Fitzpatrick Camaro...very sweet looker.) as well as a rookie number 7 of Jared Shields. (heard he was a Krown Junior grad...and it looked like he was doing some pretty serious learning out there!) A couple Super Stock notes: Looks like the BT racing gang has decided to go back to the red white and blue for Kris Lawrences 28 car, and Kris looked good in it. I'll look for them to be a factor this year. Also looks like the return of the Silverthornes for Friday nights at Delaware, with the 9 car piloted by Dave Jr.

Now, but the time I got there, a lot of guys had already packed it in, so I didn't see many trucks, but did see 16-Hosang, 82-Demilo, 56-Showler, 33-Sid McDonald, and a few others whom I didn't catch.

Missed the enduro guys completely, but saw a few mods out, namely McCullogh, Limon, Richmond, (who was just pulling out the back gate when I walked in. Someone musta tipped em off.  )  One new, and super sharp looking machine was the 38. At first I thought maybe Kirk Hooker was sporting a new modified, but it was actually rookie Tyler Hendricks.

Noted an awful lot of cars today running the primer-grey paintscheme. What that says to me is that in 2 weeks time, there's gonna be a lot of cars on the track sporting spiffy new paintjobs.

Next practice is next Saturday between 12-5, and if you want to get out and have a look, by all means come on out. Doesn't cost anything to park it up top and watch them practice.

And damn it was nice to get under the sun and hear some stock car noise!