You'd almost have to be living under a rock to not notice all the provisionals sanctioning bodies are using now. One recent race in particular, I noticed that five of the 27 starters took some sort of provisional for the track or series, including "emergency" provisionals. Seriously? That means more than 18 percent of the drivers in the main event didn't even race their way into the feature.

More than 18 percent!?! Enough is enough.

Let me preface by saying this: I know that, to an extent, MORE

As a journalist, I’m not supposed to have favorites. I’m not supposed to pull for certain drivers. I’m supposed to make everything black or white. I’m supposed to call only balls or strikes. It’s that unwritten, ethical rule. But when Brandon Thirlby told me last week he’s made a decision to cut back a little on his racing and to stay closer to home, that hurt. It hurt him, obviously, but it hurt me, too.

“This season I’ll primarily be racing Friday nights at Mount Pleasant MORE

For whatever reason, I've always had a fascination with closed racetracks. There's just something about the mystique that draws me in. Whether I'm reading about a track in Allan Brown's History of America's Speedways or whether I'm looking for an old oval on Google maps, the mystery surrounding the track simply grabs my attention.

It's hard to say when or how exactly this happened. Perhaps it's because several of the tracks I grew up attending, such as R&R Speedway in Zanesville, Ohio, would MORE