Sitting around waiting for racing season to start,  you would think there would be plenty to for me to write about. But these last few months I just couldn't seem to develop a good idea. Maybe that's because I have been completely consumed with what I deem as my hell time (a slight homage to the Hell Tour intended) - the off-season.

Certainly not because of the time spent with family or the holidays or anything of that sort. It's because that's when I am trying to finalize my schedule for the new MORE

The gates of the old fairgrounds will swing open this weekend at Brownstown Speedway, and the convoy of haulers will roll into the pit area. The Lucas Oil series is in town for the Indiana Icebreaker, promising one of the best nights of the year at the historic track.

As the program gets underway John Gill will be on the sidelines. The 53-year-old Mitchell, Ind. driver has enjoyed a significant presence at Brownstown over the past 30 years, but he finds himself on the outside looking in for this MORE

It's 2,838 miles to Hagerstown, due east. Brownstown is a little closer at 2,364 miles, making the flight some 90 minutes less. Wheatland is a mere skip away from home, 1,912 miles over the Rockies onto the Great Plains.

Nothing is close for Eric Jacobsen, and he's on a first-name basis with the counter agents at the airport. Forgive him if his eyes are constantly looking eastward, thinking of the coming weekend's racing adventure.

His is perhaps the most unusual arrangement among Dirt Late Model MORE

It was like a desert, with nary an oasis in sight. Earl Pearson talks easily of the longest stretch of his life, when a championship racer suddenly found himself locked out of victory lane.

Twenty-eight months it was, the span from the 2010 Dirt Track World Championship to his recent win at the finale of the Dart Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park. Long months and weeks and days, when he surely wondered when the prolonged dry spell would end.

Pearson was a prolific champion over the past MORE

Last weekend's Bama Bash at Green Valley Speedway was just one of those that catch you completely by surprise. Track staffers affectionately refers to the 3/8-mile Alabama oval as "The Jungle," and jokingly use the phrase "Welcome to the Jungle" to explain the odd things that almost always happen in the course of putting on such a large event.

I was sure excited that track owner Dennis Harker and general manager Adam Stewart invited me back as race director for the track's signature event. I MORE