Another great write up!  To echo Dan O'Mac, I'd work on the standings table a little bit.  Excel is great, but if you don't have that as an option, you could even manually space things out more evenly by just picking a spot and for each person, just hit space or backspace until it's all even, (it's a lot more work that way though).

As for favorite racers, it's probably because I'm likely one of the oldest members on the site, but I have a soft spot for the older guys, so I would say I root for the Clark brothers, Carlton and Tony, (seeing that Tony did very well at Bradson Motor Speedway).   However, if picking based on favorite cars, I really love that #8 car that James Norman drives!  Really big fan of that color and once again, I gotta say, awesome work on the hand drawings!  So out of the young guys, he'd probably be my favorite driver, (his story will be a fun one to follow too).

Great job again!

 

Stickman wrote:

As for favorite racers, it's probably because I'm likely one of the oldest members on the site, but I have a soft spot for the older guys, so I would say I root for the Clark brothers, Carlton and Tony, (seeing that Tony did very well at Bradson Motor Speedway).   However, if picking based on favorite cars, I really love that #8 car that James Norman drives!  Really big fan of that color and once again, I gotta say, awesome work on the hand drawings!  So out of the young guys, he'd probably be my favorite driver, (his story will be a fun one to follow too).

Without giving too much away, I'll be diving into the past of both of the Clark brothers, as well as a bit of information on the origins of the paint scheme on the #8 (and the rest of the JNR cars). That's a post that'll be out either late tomorrow night or early Monday morning, depending on how long I have to work on homework after I get off work.

I’ve hinted at this a couple times now, most recently last night, so here it is. In addition to moving forward with the series, I’m occasionally going to drop in a little information about a driver’s past or the sport’s past, either with an iconic moment, an iconic paint scheme, or anything else I (or you guys; suggestions welcome on this!) think would be fun to include. It wasn’t initially going to be a thing, but when I was asked about driver backstories, it got me thinking about where these guys were before this as well, so thank you specifically to Dan O’Mac for encouraging me to develop a more fleshed out backstory on these guys. Anyway, here goes:

Historian’s Corner
Episode I: An Emerging Dynasty

The scheme Carlton Clark would drive to his first championship for Russo Racing. Sponsors: Exxon & Mobil 1

In the first post of this sub-series, we’re going to be looking into the rise of Carlton Clark. While not a driver who contends for wins very much anymore, he was a force to be reckoned with back in his younger days. His career would start out like many drivers back in the day, by running his own team. He would buy a car and ride in the back most of the 1989 season, but that would be enough to catch the eye of Greg Maas, owner of MaasMotors, who respected Clark’s ability to keep the car clean, which stemmed out of necessity, as Clark only had the one car. Clark would sign with Maas to drive their number 14 Ford for the next five seasons, riding respectably just inside the top ten most days, and even putting together a few solid runs that he would capitalize on to bring home his first 7 career wins. But following the 1994 season, Clark would get an enticing offer from James Russo, a former champion crew chief with a desire to bring home some hardware as an owner and full backing from Chevrolet and Exxon/Mobil. Clark and Maas would end their relationship on good terms, with Maas even taking Clark’s suggestion of putting his younger brother, Tony in the car as his replacement, and Clark would move on to greener pastures. It would go well, to say the least. In his first year with the new team, Clark would put the 60 in victory lane 4 times and he followed that up with a 7 win season in 1996. Unfortunately, inconsistency would be the downfall of the team, as while they would get plenty of wins, 6 DNFs in each season would drop them to 6th in points in 1995, and 5th in 96. But 1997 turned everything around. Carlton Clark would strike gold, winning 10 out of the 29 races in the NSCA, as well as winning both of the ASCRA races he participated in, and finished all of them en route to his first NSCA championship. The hot streak continued into 1998, with Clark winning 5 of the first 12 races and pulling out to a full race’s worth of point over second in such a sort time, but that was cooled suddenly, when a hard hit to the inside wall would leave Clark needing medical attention. In a race at Hartford Motor Speedway, Carlton would lose his car off the exit of turn two, and an attempt to correct it would result in a harsh impact on the driver’s side with an access gate to the infield.  X-rays would show fractures in his legs, among other injuries, that would require him to miss the remainder of the season. Heading into 1999, questions were surrounding Clark and the rest of the team. With a replacement driver closing out 98, the team finished no better than 7th, and now they were opening a second car alongside their flagship number 60. Had the team fallen off without their driver? Were they stretching resources too thin? Was Carlton Clark going to be the same after his accident? All that, and more, in Episode II! (coming whenever… like I’ve said, I don’t really have a schedule for posting).

It's been a minute, but here we go again. Playing with the formatting/ordering a bit, and I'll probably keep doing this for quite a while until I find something I like. Let me know if I ever do something that you don't like and I'll try not to do that again. Anyway...

Race 3. Lynchport International Raceway. 200 Laps, 400 Miles

Race Summary
    When the series took to the rectangular track in Lynchport, chaos would be the early theme of the day. Polesitter Corey Mason, looking to get up to speed after a pair of rough races to start the season, had dominated the weekend, taking the fastest laps in all three practice sessions en route to the pole, as well looking like his car had great speed on long runs. Unfortunately though, he would not get a chance to show what his car could do on race day. After choosing the outside line on the start, Mason’s number 22 would be unable to clear second place starter Stan Gordon down the backstretch, and Gordon would go full-send into turn 3, keeping too much speed and wiping both drivers out before even completing lap one. Both drivers were able to make repairs and get back on the track, but not before they had fallen many laps down. While sitting in the garage waiting on repairs, Corey Mason had some heated words regarding the incident, “I know he’s new to stock cars, but that was just dumb. On lap 199? Go for it, do what you gotta do. But on lap 1? Man…. No wonder the FIA wouldn’t let him back on the track.” Gordon had his own opinion of the incident, “I’m a racer going for the lead, what do you want me to do? I thought I had the line and made a move I though would work. Did I go in too deep? Maybe a little, but he definitely wasn’t giving us any room to work with.” Gordon would get back on track 23 laps down to finish 20th place, while Mason would return 37 laps down on his way to a 24th place finish.


Stan Gordon drives it in too deep, taking out both himself and Corey Mason.

 Meanwhile, there was still a race going on. Seth Nichols would inherit the lead and after the ensuing restart would jump out to a 4 second lead. He would hold this position until lap 72, when the race would be stopped due to rain. With no lights at the track and no signs of the sky clearing, officials would decide to postpone the resumption of the race until the next day. At the bright and early hour of 9AM local time, the cars would begin heading back onto the track, and since the caution had fallen after quite a few laps had been run on tires, most drivers would bring their cars right back to pit road for 4 fresh ones, which was when Nichols would finally give up the lead, being hit with a speeding penalty sending him to the back of the field. With the dominant car of the race being sent to the back, this would put Lucas Morris in the lead. Morris would hold the top spot for the next 10 laps before giving it up to Pete Tucker, right as the caution would fly for an incident involving Jason Faulk, Tony Clark, and Marshall Thorton. During these 10 laps, Seth Nichols would move his way up the filed, jumping from 21st to 12th. After another restart, Lucas Morris would take the lead back again, but just for another 8 laps before losing it, this time to Darren Cannon. Cannon would hold the lead for the next 43 laps before his car would begin to fade and Pete Tucker would work his way back to the lead. Meanwhile, Seth Nichols was charging. He had shown a dominant car early, but many had assumed that he would need multiple cautions and strategy calls to fall his way in order to have a chance at the win, yet with just one caution only 10 laps into his march back to the front, he had been able to work his way up to 5th place, 12 seconds off the lead when his teammate made the pass on Darren Cannon. Over the next 31 laps, Nichols would cut into this lead, and when the final round of green-flag-pitstops had finished with just 42 laps to go, Nichols had moved into the runner up position, 2.4 seconds off the lead. He would continue charging, cutting it to 2 seconds with 35 to go, then under a second with 30 to go, and by lap 173, he would be at Tucker’s bumper. Over the next 4 laps, the two would go back and forth in a battle that was undoubtedly kept clean due to the fact that the drivers involved were teammates, but by lap 178, Nichols had worked his way back to the lead. Tucker would hold close for a few laps, even putting himself into position to make a move a couple of times, but at the end of the race, Nichols would pull away, winning by over 2 seconds.


Seth Nichols celebrates his victory. Sponsor: 3M (scheme 1)

Results
1. 10, Seth Nichols
2. 00, Pete Tucker
3. 55, Lucas Morris
4. 90, Caleb Jordan
5. 99, Denny Bryan
6. 1, Johnny Jennings
7. 15, Darren Cannon
8. 01, Jared Tyler
9. 0, Tommy Cunningham
10. 8, James Norman
11. 16, Tom Johnston
12. 9, Thomas Copeland
13. 08, James Chambers
14. 34, Taylor Patterson
15. 60, Carlton Clark
16. 18, William Hayes
17. 5, Ray Kelly
18. 35, Kurt Lowe
19. 21, Nick Andrews
20. 52, Stan Gordon
21. 20, Jason Faulk
22. 91, Tony Clark
23. 7, Marshall Thorton
24. 22, Corey Mason
25. 45, Clay Harris
26. 77, Jake Leonard
27. 71, Keller Burns
28. 31, Ross Gill
29. 65, Preston Prince
30. 17, Daniel McCall
DNQ: 40, Greg Peterson; 66, Peter Miles

Lap Leaders: S Nichols (98), D Cannon (43), P Tucker (41), L Morris (18)

Points Standings:


And that's that. Like I said, I mixed it up a bit, so let me know opinions on that.
Up next:
We head to the Winston Superspeedway, for our first superspeedway race of the year. Thanks for reading!

Stickman wrote:

Seeing Seth Nichols and Pete Tucker clean finish due to them being teammates had me wondering, would it be possible to get a full listing of all the race teams noting who's on what team?  (I know you do mention in the character profiles from a couple pages back some of the race teams some of the drivers are in, just thought for world building purposes, it'd be cool to have a complete list).

Thank you for the kind words! As for the quoted selection, there is a bit of a list in the first post, though that one doesn't go into specifics about numbers for every team/driver, so it can't hurt to put that all into one list right here (plus any notable sponsors in parentheses. Most do have other sponsors, but the ones listed are the primary for the majority of the season).

Andrews Autosport:
-15: Darren Cannon (Maynard Parts)
-35 (Part time): Kurt Lowe (Stanley Tools)

BDR Motorsports:
-71: Keller Burns
-77 (Part time): Jake Leonard

Carlson Motorsports:
-00: Pete Tucker (Busch/Busch Light)
-10: Seth Nichols (3M + associated products)
-16: Tom Johnston (Quaker State)
-18: William Hayes (Alsure)

Faulk Brothers Racing:
-20: Jason Faulk (Morgan Water Heaters, via Andromart)
-21: Nick Andrews (Andromart)
-22: Corey Mason (Klover Foods, via Andromart)

Floyd Racing:
-66 (part time) : Kyle Norton & Peter Miles

Gill Racing:
-13: Lance Williams & Ross Gill
-31: Ross Gill & Drew Moran

Jordan-Norman Racing:
-08: James Chambers (Taco Bell)
-0: Tommy Cunningham (Valvoline)
-8: James Norman (Mountain Dew)
-80 (Part time): Natalie Reid & Jordan Nash (Various Pepsi products)

Mansfield Motorsports Group:
95 (Part time): Rick Cross

Matsui Racing Group:
-01: Jared Tyler (Sony/Sony Products)
-52: Stan Gordon (Hitachi)

McCall Racing:
-17 (Part time): Daniel McCall
-47: (Part time): John Reese, Tony Price & Ross Gill

Mike Henderson Racing:
-72 (Part time): Mike Henderson (Mobil 1)

Moorison Racing:
-90: Caleb Jordan (Juul)
-91: Tony Clark (Bank of Alcada)
-99: Denny Bryan (Snap-On)

Mueller Motorsports:
-5: Ray Kelly (Alldsco Trucking)
-9: Thomas Copeland

Nance Motorsports:
-45: Clay Harris
-55: Lucas Morris (Cap'n Mike's Sports Bar)
-65 (Part time): Preston Prince & Jaime Reed

Newman Autosports:
-34: Taylor Patterson

Pratt-Russo Racing:
-1: Johnny Jennings (P&G Products: Mr. Clean, Old Spice, Tide, Gillette, etc.)
-7: Marshall Thorton (McDonalds)

Russo Racing:
-60: Carlton Clark (Mobil 1)