It’s been a particularly disasterous  the last few months, but it seems that  the smoke finally has cleared from the devastation that was the demise of Shorttrack Magazine. And the personal shock from the whole sordid affair has disappated as well.

We have dome our best to inform subscribers, advertisers and others within the racing community of what happened. If you’re not aware, the jist of what was said in a mailing to all parties can be found on this website’s main page. Put simply – we ran out of money  – after the majority of our advertisers stopped paying for their ads. And as is typical in this business, without ad revenue we were dead in the water.

We know that many of you paid for subscriptions in good faith. We apologize again that we can’t reimburse you, but of course if we could afford that we’d have paid the printer. We’ve done what we could to offset the subscribers’ investments. Subscribers were offered substantial discounts on subscriptions to Late Model Racer, Dirt Late Model, Flat-Out Illustrated  and Dirt Mod magazines.  National Speed Sport News also is working to fulfill at least the spirit of our agreements. Our thanks to these worthy publications.

In the meantime, we plan to maintain the Shorttrack blog as well as doing the same and even expanding the Shorttrack website. While I still believe in the power of the press, it’s time to acknowledge the role of the net and sign on in a more active way as an online voice of racing.

To those of you who have asked, we are blessed (Okay, “I” am blessed) to be able to continue the plan to build and race a midget in Whip City’s Quad 4 division. Car owner Don Douville is letting us keep the grizzled old Gennerton chassis he loaned for the magazine’s “Dirt, Cheap” project, and my brother Ward is continuing to provide financing and sweat-equity as part of the youth-training porgram offered by his MTTI tech school.

For my effort I’ll plan now to try to pick up where we left off with the construction of the car here on the blog as well as continue to relate our effort campaigning the car in 2009. I’ve admittedly dropped the ball in that effort, but I’ll be getting back at it by the end of February and going from there.

What the future otherwise holds for me I won’t even venture to guess. But who among us would dare to speculate on their own prospects in these outragously horrible times?

The issue has a nice feature on Whelen (Opps, excuse me. “NASCAR Whelen”) Series trooper Wade Cole. Find out why Wade continues to try to play the high-stakes game of NASCAR-Tour racing. Fred Astle also is featured. It’s the least we could do after he won the pro stock titles at both Thompson and Seekonk Speedways. Travis Benjamin comments on the challenges of gassing up for racing – in more ways than one.

For tech stories, we introduce you to a bunch of racecar parts that we hope someday soon will be the “Dirt, Cheap” Quad-4 midget, and Joe Publicover asks why supermod car builders and owners wouldn’t be interested in trying out a wing designed in one of the foremost aerodynamics labs in the world.

Vintage fans will enjoy stories about two colorful characters from racing’s past, Henry “The Frozen Logger” Montandon and Al “Blackie” Crockett.

In it you’ll read about a couple of “diverse” drivers, NASCAR Camping World East’s Jonathan Smith, who is struggling for success as part of NASCAR’s Drive for Diversity program, and Lori Langevin, who is making dirt late model competition struggle up in Vermont and New York.

There’s also a feature on Canaan Dirt Speedway promoter Wally Brown, who’s not as dumb as he thinks he is, and a look back at the Bodine Brothers’ days in modifieds. Plus some advice to racers looking to make a “field trip” to race in a track’s big open-rules season-ending event.

On August 23 my brother and co-conspirator Ward Ring and I went to Scott Viets’s to pick up the pieces of what will be the Quad-4 midget we’ll be racing at Whip City Speedway in 2009.  Other than an engine and steering components the “car-collection” appears essentially complete. The chassis is purported to be a 1984 Gennerton. Its most noticable feature is a roll cage that seems to tower over other midgets, which is fine because protection is more important to me than esthetics. It’s obvious, though, that every piece will require some particular attention.  The rearend hasn’t been apart in years; we’ll be sure to go through that carefully.  Bodywork also will need some massaging. By far the more important attention will come to the frame itself. This car has survived some wicked headers. Scott claims it remains (or has been returned to) essentially square. A couple of trophies attest to that. That could be good enough. The truism is that the frame only serves to square the four points of the suspension to the motor plate, and that every other point is irrelevant. But when you look at the naked chassis there are tubes that don’t actually follow the shortest disatance between two points. Every one of them invites chassis-flex, and as Scott already described the car as not exactly stiff, the less of that the better.

We’ll be meeting soon with Shorttrack tech advisor Walt Scadden, and Walt will help us inventory what we have in anticipation of wading into the process of preparing individual pieces for re-assembly. We’re also on the lookout for a motor (I officially have given up on using the more technically correct term “engine.” Usage of a word is subject to the whims of the masses. The masses have chosen “motor.”). Our priority is a working piece, preferably in a tired car, so that we can get the harness, electronics, and various other odds and ends. There already have been a few false alarms in this department. It seems every car out there “runs.” Of course “It did last time I started it.” Right. Five years ago. We do have some other options, but for now time is one of them. We’ll keep looking.

I’ll keep you posted.

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel a little disrespect coming from down South towards us “Yankees.” They think they’re so wonderful? How come every time we match up on the racetrack (PASS South, North-South Shootout, etc.) we hand them their butts? And yet how often does a driver from up here get a REAL shot at driving a Sprint Cup, Nationwide or Craftsman Truck racecar?

Yes, I know about Joey Logano. But he might just be the exception that proves the rule. Did he head south to make his mark because he knew if he did it up here no one would give him the chance that he’s currently taking advantage of to prove he’s one of the best young drivers in the country? Is he really that much better than Bobby Santos, or Derek Ramstrom, or Randy Cabral, or a dozen other “Yankees?”

Do you think he is? Do you think those Sprint Cup kids who keep losing their rides are on a different level than the best young local talent? Or do you think ya gotta be a good ole’ boy to get a real shot at NASCAR stardom?

In this issue you can read about two hot late model drivers, Thunder Road’s Joey Becker and Seekonk pro stocker Matt Hudon. RA Silva provides us with an opportunity to check out some four-door monsters that once roamed the shorttracks of New England, and Thompson racer Larry Barnett follows up on his advice for restart setups in our last issue with some tips on controlling race-starts from the driver’s seat.

I also share with you the experience of racing a midget on dirt, as Don Douville gave me a chance to race one of his quad-4 midgets at Whip City Speedway. It was a wild experience, to say the least. I have more to say in print.

But Don is going further than that. This longtime midget builder continually collects midget-components as he builds cars to race, rent and sell in this growing division. He’s offered Shorttrack the parts needed to put together our own midget. We’ll be sharing the process with you folks over the next few issues - from the first inventory of components to our education in racecar-setup on the dirt at Whip City. Read the story in this issue and you’ll see how far we have to go.

So you’ve just been left with a racetrack in your uncle’s will. Now is the chance to introduce that one perfect racing division you’ve always dreamed about.

What would it be? And don’t say “I’d have pro stocks.” Use a little imagination. What needs of racers – or fans – aren’t being met by any existing division?

Or tour. It can be a touring series if that’s what you have in mind.  Would it be a new low-buck series? Or something more exotic than has ever hit a shorttrack? Does it take advantage of some potent engine being used by an auto manufacturer – or in a motorcycle? Is it a “mini” version of some other series?

Give us your thoughts. Hey, it’s your racetrack now.

For example, I’ve pondered over the years a mini-late model-type division powered by Ford’s ubitquitous SOHC 4 in either 2.0 or 2.3 configuration. There are tons out there as well as various OEM street-performance components Ford has utilized over the years that could be built up into a decent racing engine, dropped in a Legacy-type custom-built car.

But that’s just an example. What’s your idea?

In this issue you can read about barnstormer Russ Hersey and his new perspective of racing, and Randy Potter, the overnight sensation of ACT who’s been at it for two decades. Or see the the summer project Derek Ramstrom and his dad put together for school.

Vintage fans enjoy the work of Steve Pellerin. The racing historian shares his memories of the amazing Homer Drew in his first contribution to our pages. Nice to have Steve aboard.

And Pete Zanardi shares a couple of his favorite stories about Bob Garbarino and the v-4 modified over the years.

Larry Barnett is back to share more insight into racing, this time explaining that winning restarts starts in the shop.

I just heard that Ralph Nason has decided he will not operate Unity Raceway this year, reportedly due to the economy.

I won’t offer an opinion over what this might mean to the bigger picture of racing in New England, as I believe it’s not necessarily reflective over the overall scene for promoters, as dire as that might be. I also won’t speculate about how the pending lawsuit against the track by Johnny Crawford might have been a factor.

I WILL ask where teams planning to run there can go at this late date ( it would have been nice if the decision was made sooner; maybe Ralph was hanging on trying to make the season happen) without having to make wholesale changes their cars. That’s the important issue of the moment.

You might be aware of efforts down at Stafford Speedway to create a proprietory, custom-fabricated “metric chassis” in repsonse to the reported shortage of A-Body GM cars from which to salvage chassis for streeters and southern New England style limited late model sportsmen.

While this is a logical and proactive response to this issue, it further calls into question whether the days of building racecars from abandoned street-iron are coming to an end.

Is junkyard-engineering a dying art? Will all racecar components ultimately come from a catalog? Could a modified – a REAL modified – be built out of the pieces one might find in a salvage yard or on the backlot of a used-car dealer today?

That in and of itself has been an intriguing issue to ponder for some time.  Might you use a pickup frame (maybe a compact p/up), the sheet metal from a compact car (A Neon, for instance), a 9-inch Ford rear, V-8, etc., to build something that might actually go?