* ACT's Ford teams still have work left to do

It's not Ford facing more work to get its spec engine on track with the ACT Late Model Tour. It's the teams that have to make adjustments.


* ON PIT ROAD: Fords, funny names and a little fallout

When they began the process for putting a Ford spec engine into the series, officials hoped to re-energize the tour with some Chevrolet-versus-Ford rivalry, the kind of thing that race fans claim is missing from big-time racing these days.


* ON PIT ROAD: Rivalries, road tests and a rookie mistake

Public relations people cringe. Sponsors fear they’re getting negative attention. Promoters cringe at the idea of lawsuits and renegade justice being doled out. But the fans and media eat it up, which is exactly what makes short-track racing so freakin’ wonderful.


* ON PIT ROAD: Short tracks, short tempers, short jokes

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one sitting on my couch last Sunday afternoon, ooh-ing and ahh-ing out loud at the kind of racing Jimmie Johnson and Denny Hamlin were putting on at the front of the field with only a handful of laps remaining at Martinsville


* ON PIT ROAD: Winners, whiners and one big Shrub

You don't have to like Kyle Busch at all, but you have to recognize the fact that he is everything we love about stock car racing. His personality is precisely the kind that helped build the sport to what it is today, and precisely the kind of personality that short-track fans adore -- because it’s so polarizing.

* Nothing all that 'special' about Saturday night at Bristol

The only thing we learned from last weekend’s legends race at the track -- inappropriately dubbed the “Saturday Night Special” -- is that any talk of an old-timers NASCAR series can be put to rest once and for all. Not surprisingly, Sterling Marlin went out and won the 35-lap feature.


* ON PIT ROAD: New series, new engine and old school fun

The best thing for PASS would be to combine both of its Super Late Model series into one national series comprised of a dozen events. It’s not a suggestion to end PASS North, not by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a way to take the foundation the sanctioning body built and fashion an even grander house over the top of it.