The fact that Clarksville (Tenn.) Speedway was the site of my first DIRTcar Summer Nationals race 22 years ago is strange in a couple of ways. | Complete Summer Nationals coverage

For starters, I’m a native Tennessean, yet it wasn’t until I moved to North Carolina and went to work at National Dirt Digest that I attended my first race of any kind at Clarksville. Secondly, I actually lived in Illinois — the heart of Summer Nationals country — for more than a year before I moved to North MORE

The first time I went to Eldora Speedway, Billy Moyer won the World 100. That was 1991. The next year I went and watched Donnie Moran win. I returned in 1993 and to my surprise — not really — Billy Moyer won again. For a reason I can no longer recall, I decided not to go back in 1994. Possibly I had to work or I couldn’t afford to go. Or maybe I didn’t go because I thought it a forgone conclusion that either Batesville, Ark.’s Moyer or Dresden, Ohio’s Moran would win the 100-lapper. MORE

It didn’t take long after Billy Moyer’s May 26 MARS Championship Series victory at Farmer City (Ill.) Raceway for a handful of loons to head for their keyboards and suggest that the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer was cherry picking by skipping Memorial Day weekend's Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo.

The suggestion was so absurd that I chose — wisely for once — to stop reading. I didn’t want to go down that rabbit hole as the strain to climb back out would have MORE

Seeing the Southern All Star Dirt Racing Series open its rulebook to allow American Racer Tires — at least for the rest of this season — brought a smile to my face.

The May 8 announcement went relatively under the radar and really won’t affect a ton of drivers, but in the South, where the SAS tour — America’s longest-running Dirt Late Model series — had long been a Hoosier-only series, it’s a big deal. I wish they’d done it 30 years ago, but Southern All Stars founder B.J. Parker MORE

I often say that I’m no mechanic. Working on race cars isn’t mechanic work. In fact, it’s far from it. I should specify that I mean Dirt Late Models. For people out there racing mini-stocks or true factory stocks or pure stocks, I don’t envy you because I suspect it’s actually a lot more work than running a Late Model.

Times have definitely changed in that it used to be mandatory for a race car driver to be a pretty good mechanic, too. Things aren’t that way anymore. I don’t know MORE