Picking up the phone, my poor buddy Russ must've thought I'd lost my marbles. On a steamy July afternoon more than 20 years ago, I unexpectedly called him from a banged-up pay phone attached to an outbuilding at St. Francois Raceway in Farmington, Mo., excitedly trying explain why in the world I was there — and how I'd just discovered the coolest dirt racing series ever.

"Where? St. Fran-what?" Russ must've been saying on the other end of the line.

The transcript of the phone call is lost, but MORE

ROSSBURG, Ohio (June 11) — Oftentimes at Eldora Speedway's biggest events, the starting fields are filled with the usual suspects. With Dream XVII bringing a record-low car count and a dozen drivers making their debuts at the historic half-mile, this year initially promised some fresh faces.

Will that hold true? Even with fewer cars, drivers who haven't made big-race Eldora lineups like Andrew Reaume, Jacob Hawkins, Kent Robinson and Chris Brown will have their work cut out for them against MORE

We rolled into Wheatland, plugged in our cameras and microphones, and did our best to show the world that Dirt Late Model racing is exciting and enjoyable and worth checking out. CBS Sports gave us access to the largest potential audience in the sport’s history, and everybody at Lucas Oil Studios — the crew at the event and the people back in California — worked hard to make the historic production a success.

It was a privilege to be a part of the broadcast, working the pit area along with MORE

From time to time, I comb through the racing message boards and happen to stumble upon a post that leaves me wondering why I wasted so much of my day reading it. We’ve all been there.

You see a stupid post and it’s kinda like a train wreck ... you hate to see it (in this case read it), but for some reason you just can stop looking at it.

Actually, it doesn’t take long to find such posts. In fact, they’re usually predominant on most of the boards out there. Filtering through the rubbish and MORE

Usually, when I’m at the races where I'm merely spectating, my friends and I get into some pretty colorful conversations about this, that and the other. Almost always, the topic revolves around our firm beliefs on a various racing-related discussions.

Such was the case recently when I adamantly slammed a certain track for running their headlining class last in the running order. I was cold, I had more than two hours to drive to get back home, and the Late Model feature (last on the card) MORE