Carolina Clash announces new format, new officials as they gear up for '08

[Dirtfan_21]

Carolina Clash

LINCOLNTON, S.C. (February 25) - The Carolina Clash Super Late Model Series season opener is just a few short weeks away. The nine year old tour will kick off the 2008 season with a 50 lap $5,000 to win main event at Gastonia, NC's Carolina Speedway on Saturday night March 8th. Race fans and competitors alike will see a few changes to the format to help promote better and more competitive action all season long.

The 'Clash' will tweak its qualifying format to ensure that the race fans get the most for their admission ticket. All cars will qualify with the top 12 moving into a pair of six lap dash races. The odd number qualifiers will compete in the first dash with the even number qualifiers competing in the second dash. The drivers finishing position in the dash events will determine their starting position in the main event. The remainder of the starting field will be set through heat races for competitors that qualify from 13th on back. Two points provisional will cap off the 24 car starting grid.

"Our format has always been very racer friendly', said Carolina Clash President Larry Lee. "We wanted to offer our fans a little more action for 2008 and after talking with our race teams at our annual meeting in January we are very pleased to be able to announce our new format. I want to thank all of our teams that offered suggestions as we continue to move forward with the Carolina Clash Series. 2008 promises to be the best year yet and we are very excited about waving the first green flag at Carolina Speedway in a few weeks," said Lee.

Only one major rule change will take place in 2008. No two way radio communications will be allowed in the race cars at any time. Race-Ceivers will be mandatory in all events just like in 2007.

In other news veteran car builder and promoter Terry Harris has been appointed as the new Technical Director for the series and Steve Fish has been appointed as a new Pit Steward. "We are very pleased about bringing Terry and Steve on board," said Lee. "Both Terry and Steve have a tremendous amount of experience and will be welcome additions to our already fine staff. We defiantly have the strongest and deepest staff we have ever had."

The Carolina Clash Series will also re-launch the website in the coming weeks. To learn more about the Carolina Clash Super Late Model Series visit www.carolinaclash.com

[Dirtfan_21]

the new format definitely makes things a little more interesting.

[jhofficial]

Now if they would only open up the tire rule a little.

[Racerchaser]

John why do think an open tire rule is good???????????????

[Crash336]

I don't know JH opinion on the tire rule. But I would like weigh in. With respect to the racers and promoters trying to keep a lid on costs. some factors have me favoring open tires as a fan.

1. Tire rules limit limit drivers. The manufactures forbid some drivers to race on competitors tires. I understand why manfactures in a tire war do this, but from a fans perspective it stinks.

2. Racer used to running with restricted tire rules, fail when trying to compete at national events. Due my $.02 to lack of experience with both brands and all their options.

3. Cheating, after what happened at speedweeks, there are just so many ways to jack with tires its not fair for the honest racer to have to run against this. Restricting tires gives the cheaters a big big big advantage.

[Racerchaser]

I don't know JH opinion on the tire rule. But I would like weigh in. With respect to the racers and promoters trying to keep a lid on costs. some factors have me favoring open tires as a fan.

1. Tire rules limit limit drivers. The manufactures forbid some drivers to race on competitors tires. I understand why manfactures in a tire war do this, but from a fans perspective it stinks.

2. Racer used to running with restricted tire rules, fail when trying to compete at national events. Due my $.02 to lack of experience with both brands and all their options.

3. Cheating, after what happened at speedweeks, there are just so many ways to jack with tires its not fair for the honest racer to have to run against this. Restricting tires gives the cheaters a big big big advantage.


not if the rules are followed, and the durometer is followed. What happened in Florida was the promoter's fault and Bloomquist putting pressure on the promoter. He basically said if I can't run LM 10s I'm going home. UMP said that the tire LM 10 was not a approved tire and he was Dqd. So the promoter said He had 2 choices, run by UMP rules or keep Bloomquist and Kick UMP out and we all know what he did. That decision cost him big time money because a lot of teams where loading up to leave because it was $700.00 for a set of tires, and that is just a set , no spares, he paid for some teams to stay and race. Clanton being one team for sure.


When you open the tire rule as you saw right in Forida what happens, the big dogs win. A team has to get some many different tires that a small time racer don't have a chance. The series division run a tire rule, and that helps let a local get a shot of at least running with the big boys, if not for tire rules they would come to a track with a ton of tires and blow the local boys right off the track.

A tire puts everyone on the same tire and compound if the rules are followed. There are 2 ways to catch a person that is soaking or "doctoring" a tire. There is a sniffer that is made just for that purpose. Also the tire durometer and it doesn't lie.

Also it gives the drivers a chance to go out and get tire deals that help them on the expense end of buying tires.

If a track gets a tire deal that money most of the time, or at least it does up here, go in the point fund for year end rewards. Down south seems to be different. You don't see many tracks with tire deals.

[jhofficial]

But the tire rules also limit which drivers can because of tire contracts run which series. Also bill you know as anyone that the tires are not the same that the big dogs get as the locals anyway. So what difference does it make. The big dogs still have the advantage and will win 90% of the series races anyway.

[Racerchaser]

JOHN,do you how we buy tires.We go straight to the tire distributor AND START GOING THROUGH TIRES, we will go through 80 to 100 tires and maybe get 40 or 50 for the right side out that. then we back until we can get 30 to 40 good left tires. when they are gone we turn around and do the same thing again. Point is tire man wants you to buys tires and not just 2 or 4 tires at a time. That way your choice is just as good as the big boy as you say.the whole thing is you want to be there first when the tire man tells you a load of new tires are coming in, you be there to get first choice. Now you can guess what happens to the picked over tires.
The thing of it all is you got to be in with the distributor. Also a lot of series run two different brand of tire but only a selected amount of compounds.. That way the tire bill isn't as bad. As far as staying on a contract tire only a very very few stick to that at all. If another tire is the hot set up they will geton that tire and not worry about that contract.for instance Florida this year as I have all ready explained that.

[Crash336]

Maybe I'm missing something here, you have a deal with the tire distributor giving you first selection when you purchase tires for the series. So when a local upstart runs the series or a touring pro, he buys his series legal tires for said distributors he gets picked over rejects ??? that seems fair to you ? more over the fans ?

As for Florida, lets be real, if it was so easy to check for why were so many doing it. The chamber in Bloomers car hauler leaves no flumes and duromerter readings change. (as witnessed)

As for big dogs winning, with so many down there that was no surprise.
But again, when they opened the tire rule you saw a new cast of big dogs winning. Cars that could not be touched and made for some pretty boaring racing on restricted tires were not so dominate.

Bottom line for the Fan, what show were better. On paper Billy ran away with the last shows, but the racing was completely different from when Jimmy dominating the early shows. The later races were dogfights. The restricted tire early races were a walk in the park snooze fest.