LMAO!! I love that pic! oh man I laughed good!

Davey, that car was a 68' Camaro that my dad cut up to turn into a race car.....(shaking head) fool! He showed me picks of it before the modifications and all I could do was laugh, red with white racinmg stripes, sitting out front of Pat's gas bar LOL!
Through his tenure in "Stockers" then "LM" he managed to muster up one win, albeit a consi but hey, he has the pic to prove it hahaha! His greatest accomplishment in racing next to wrecking his old car that Bill Stephonson bought and had my dad drive for a night was marrying Harry Daltons daughter. He recieved the mangled fan mounted on a nice block of wood, painted gold, with a trophy plate on it. Bill took it with good humour partially due to the fact that my dad broke his thumb because the dumbass was hangin onto the steering wheel the wrong way LOL!

Do I have what it takes to replace body panels at Barrie Speedway in the LLM....hell ya I do, do I wanna? no. If my last three leads on sponsors fall through I will be runnin out of my bank account 100%, can i do a full year with it, yup, do I wanna? Nope. I like my lifestyle and Im not gonna go into debt for a hobby. If I get some support this year then I will definately run as much I can. Barrie? maybe here and there, I wasnt pleased with Brian Thomas's words he muttered as he walked by me while walking out of the drivers meeting calling all drivers a bunch of babies, I dont like the 2 feature format with no pay increase, just the same cut in half? others may like it, I dont. I am not kean on some of the motor rules, my engine is already done so for me to de-tune it even more would cost more $$ because Barrie has taken their usual stance of "we dont care what everyone else is doing, we are doing it our way" so I am sticking to mainly Sunset because their engine rules line up with every other track in ontario that runs LLM.
As far as Tom goes, Davey, you should know by now that what he said 2 weeks ago means absolutely nothing, I have heard him say that he was running barrie garuanteed at the drivers meeting, then the next weekend I was at his shop and he said that it was definately peterborough...fast forward to a month ago, standing at the shop, he told me that he wanted to wait and see what was happening with Sunset this year? and peterborough was about 80% a go, again, depending on Sunset? KD was 100%? so it just goes to show you that when it comes to Father Time (Tommy, I call him that because he has been around as long as time itself hahaha!) you can only take what he says about racing when he is at the gates opening day.

AHH yes JUNIOR!!! The more I thought about it last night, I did in fact remember that car was a 68 Camaro before I read your reply..Was a sweet lookin ride for sure!!! In fact I think I even remember being there for your Dad's consi win!!!lol You see I used to root for him back then, cause my step sister (Linda Vine) used to take her car to Pat's garage for service, so that's how I first met your pops.. And no worries bud, your free and clear to race wherever you want, and I do understand at least part of your reasoning.. As you say its pretty stupid to go broke for a hobby... Just a couple of points though;;; Brian Thomas??? I'm sure you know he has zero to do with BSW anymore, as hes the new tech director for the O.S.S..So I'm not sure why anything he had to say at the meeting should reflect badly upon what Barrie's doing now (he was fired for that)?? Just so you know Brad Richmond is back in his rightful head tech job with assistance from Steve Penny this year I believe. And Derek Lynch WILL be the new race director on at least a part time basis as has been mentioned a few times on this forum.. Now back to THE STOMPER, you are correct when you say I should know better then anyone to evaluate where he will race for this upcoming season until opening night. ( As you pointed out before how many times when your folks had Sunset did he say he was running Pete the following season??) That is why I said I'm still holding off on the spinning backflips for now..But that being said I do think you'll see Tommy back at BSW for at least a few races (if not the entire season).. As you also probably know, he has a great deal of respect for Derek and the way he conducts business and handles racers, and I've heard many other racers also share this same opinion that is why I feel pretty safe to state that...And as for your body panel comment, sure BSW is a tight and tricky track, and due to this sometimes sh*t is bound to happen out there.. But this didnt really come into play last season much in the LLM division at all (outside of the first month) and that was due in part to the fact we had 4 rookies last year, and guys seem to take a few weeks to get the cars set up just how they work best out there.. But after June 14th of last season when "The Gambler" won a caution free feature, the wrecks were few and far between in that division so I'm kinda 50/50 on that statement you made in regards to that. Even with you in Thunders last year when you came up for a few weeks didnt wreck your car nor had anyone intentionally try to take you out that I'm aware, so word to the wise dont forget you've been treated pretty decently by SOME folks at BSW over the years too(including myself)... And dont get me wrong I can take any and all good natured ribbin about me being a "Barrie Guy" cause as you are also aware I LOVE to give it back to the Sunset folks too.. Lastly best of luck with your sponsor pursuit (its a tough go out there this year I hear) and the same applies for your racing season at Sunset.. I wont be down to see you obviouslly, unless there's a Sun rain date or such, but I'm sure I'll get to watch you drive at the season ending events and maybe we can make another road trip this coming season to watch some dirt cars or such, still gotta do wings one night too!!!! I'll call ya soon brother and again best of luck in 09..

Ya, it looked good, but thats about it hahaha! I have tried to talk him into doing so wednesday night laps in the LLM but he says he doesnt have the gonads anymore, i asked what has changed since '78? LOL.

I was just stating that I didnt like his comments, your right, its a bottomless point. It still rubbed me wrong and I think its a great move on Barrie's part asking Steve to come in, now there will be a guy that see's something not legit and will actually call it. I lost my crew cheif because of it but hey, he couldnt refuse the offer so I said have at'r.

Im not knocking barrie, its a great facility but unless i have the budget, I wont run regularly. I know that there have been spectacular nights with flag to flag, but then again, there have been just as many nights that have been baysides dream $$$ too. I ran there and had fun, I did have a guy try to wreck me on purpose after the checkers one night, he tried to root me across the line and drive me up into the turn one wall, after we got stopped, I let him back up a couple of feet and bcked up over his hood...that should refresh yer memeory on what incedent I am talking about, then on my first night there, I had just put brandnew pannels on and had them freshly painted, first restart beside St.Onge on the outside in my first feature and he drove staright into my door tearing my fender off coming out of 4 so ya, 4 nights there cost me a whole nose, a whole tail, left door, lf fender, paint and vinyl. Im not mad but im just countering your point on clean driving, yes its a tight track and yeah sh*t will happen, I get that, but in a LLM things cost more, alot more and the whole double feature really turned me off bigtime.
I never once said that I wasnt treated inapropriately at all at Barrie, they have been great to me and Dave Simpson was by far the most accomadating owner and it blows my mind at why they would let him get away?
As far as Lynch coming to Barrie, thats awsome....to a certain extent. He is only going to be there for 2 months if what I heard was true, and what happens when he leaves? Is there that much faith that Jim and (the ghost) Howie will be able to tough it? Drivers dont care if you pull up in a hummer or ferrari, they wanna race and have a facility that operates at a top notch level, that doesnt happen and with Derek, he will leave some big shoes to fill. I hope Jim, who I am assuming is going to be the frontline guy this year, forgets about the bottom line this year and learns racing knowledge and how to operate a track, Barrie has a tonne of potential but hasnt been the same since Steve and Brad left.
If I am not there with the car, I will be there to watch when time permits thats forsure, but there maybe something in the works possibly for me to try out merritville this year? Im really intrigued by it thats forsure, but again, its racing talk so take it at face value right?  😉

It is what it is Steve, and I think if you had a couple more nights around Barrie you would have fit in with the TC boys just fine. Being a little bit of an abbreviated season I think that didn't help ya much. But anyways...  ;D

I'm certainly keeping my eyes open around the track this year to see how things go, but I certainly feel pretty optimistic about the addition of certain people.

I think it will be very interesting.

I talked to Tom Walters two days ago. Nothing is set for where and if he will run the full Kawartha Season or if he'll run the full Peterborough or Barrie Speedway Saturday schedules. Sunset Speedway is not in his plans for 2009, at least not for now. If it works out, he'll definitely be at Kawartha on Fridays, that much he's comfortable with. He's going to start the 2009 season at Peterborough, but he's not committed to the entire schedule. Lots of guys use Peterborough to start the season, but don't continue through for the rest of the year. John Baker Jr / Freeman Motorsports plans to do the same thing.

One question mark that has a lot of teams on the sidelines is Barrie's operations. Derek Lynch is supposed to be helping out part time at Barrie Speedway as Race Director for 2009. It's been said that a lot of teams are encouraged by the move.

There's obviously a lot of questions this year at a lot of facilities and it's certainly caused some interesting stories that will unfold this year!

Doug

...
Whats Lynch going to do at Barrie screw that track up too, why not leave things alone and get Brad back and let's get to racing the way it should be.