Volunteer Speedway
Notes: Casebolt involved in Volunteer blame game
By Joshua Joiner
DirtonDirt.com staff writer
Steve Casebolt (9) battles Chris Madden at Volunteer Speedway. (Chad Wells)
BULLS GAP, Tenn. (March 15) — In a race that produced few passes among front-runners, positions were hard to come by in Friday night’s Spring Nationals opener at Volunteer Speedway. Not surprisingly, drivers attempted to take advantage of the smallest of gaps during the race, which served as the inaugural event of Ray Cook’s Spring Nationals and the first leg of Volunteer’s Spring Thaw doubleheader.
The close racing produced more than a few scuffles during the 40-lapper, two of which involved third-place finisher Steve Casebolt of Richmond, Ind. The sixth-starting Casebolt was one of the few drivers to move forward in the race, but it came at the price of wrinkled sheet metal on both sides of his No. c9 race car. | McDowell wins opener
“It was just single-laned racing,” Casebolt said. “You had to take every spot you could get, and it got really close there a few times.”
Casebolt was on both ends of the blame game after the race, with fifth-place finisher David Payne of Murphy, N.C., pointing the finger at Casebolt for a mid-race run-in while Casebolt was unhappy with fourth-place finisher Chris Madden of Gray Court, S.C., after the two drivers made heavy contact while battling after a late-race restart.
“Steve Casebolt decided he needed to use me to scotch off of and gain a spot,” Payne said, pointing at the large dent in his driver’s-side door. “I had a lapped car in front of me and I didn’t just go in there and slam him, but here come Casebolt and slammed me. We’ll just put that in the memory bank and go on.”
Said Casebolt: “I got into Payne a little bit. It was my fault, I just messed that up. I actually eased way off, trying not to hit him that hard.”
While Casebolt accepted the blame in his contact with Payne, neither he nor Madden admitted fault for their late-race run-in.
“I drove by Madden without any contact at all, but he decided he wanted to crash right there at the end,” Casebolt said. “I went ahead and decided if he wanted to crash I’d crash too. We’ll beat the doors of off ‘em if he wants. We’ll do it either way.”
Madden didn’t see it the same way, saying that he felt Casebolt took too much room.
“When he passed me there I gave him plenty of room,” Madden said. “When I got back by him going into three, he got to the center of the corner and took more racetrack than he gave. I’ve raced with that guy before, and he’s always ran that way. I just race him the way he races me.”
Whatever their differences, all three drivers agreed on one thing in hoping for a multi-grooved surface for Saturday’s $10,000-to-win Spring Thaw finale at Volunteer.
“This is a great place here, I just hope they’ll get it a little better for us tomorrow,” said Madden, echoing the thoughts that were also shared by Casebolt and Payne. “It started out real dry tonight because I think they were maybe worried about some weather in the area tonight and tomorrow, so maybe they were looking out for that.”
Room to improve
David Payne was happy with his fifth-place performance in Friday night’s Spring Thaw feature, but he’s looking for even better in Saturday’s $10,000 finale. The veteran racer feels he has plenty of room to improve after missing hot laps for Friday’s race, which was his first visit to Volunteer’s 4/10-mile oval in four years.
“Overall, I’m happy with a top five,” Payne said. “We haven’t been here in a few years and we didn’t get to hot lap, so to be able to get locked into the race and get a top five out with all that against us, I think that shows we’ve got a pretty good car here.”
Payne knows he’ll likely face stiffer competition in Saturday’s race as the increased payout is expected to attract a few more top competitors to an already stout field.
“Hopefully we learned a little bit tonight and can be a little bit better for tomorrow night’s race,” Payne said. “We’ll need it because there’s a lot more money, so there’ll probably be a few more good cars come in. But hopefully we can get in there, run up there in the top five and see what happens.”
Another runner-up finish
Finishing second usually gives a driver plenty of reasons to be happy and few to be worried. But for Billy Ogle Jr., another second-place finish in Friday’s Spring Thaw feature has stirred up memories of his 2012 season that saw the Knoxville, Tenn., driver finish second a whopping 11 times.
“I’m happy with second, but we had a lot of seconds last year,” said Ogle, who recorded his second runner-up finish of the season. “I hope we’re not headed for that again. I mean, seconds are good, but you keep finishing second and everyone starts hounding me about being a bridesmaid so much. I just hope here pretty soon we can start turning these seconds into wins.”
But running near the front is still a positive for Ogle, who feels his team is capable of breaking into victory lane soon.
“We’ve started the season pretty strong, so that’s promising,” said Ogle, whose seven victories in 2012 all came after Memorial Day weekend. “Usually I don’t get going until June and July, but we’re running pretty good here early in the year, so maybe we’ll get a few wins before then.”
