Story by: Chris Owens ~ [email protected]

Rougemont, NC(December 18, 2010) — When the 2011 season gets underway in a few months, the new Carolina Late Model Series will be the newest touring series in the Southeast.

Founded by Ollie Spain and his wife, the series looks to give younger drivers a place to get behind the wheel of a full bodied stock car at different tracks in the Southeast and gain valuable experience. Spain, already operates Carolina Competition Sports, which operates a Legend and Bandolero touring series, giving young drivers in those divisions an organized series to compete in.

The series will be a support division to the PASS South Super Late Model series at Anderson, Dillon, Hickory, Motor Mile, Orange County, Newport, Ace, North Wilkesboro and the season finale at Orange County Speedway. The series will also make a trip to “Little Rock”, the half mile track behind Rockingham Speedway in Rockingham, NC. When they aren’t with the PASS Series they will be a support division to a host of weekly tracks including two additional dates at Ace Speedway in the month of July.

The series was developed by Spain because he saw a need for the young racers that he saw in Legends and Bandoleros to have somewhere to move up to once they were ready to move out of the smaller cars.

“The series came about because we had several racers which had cars that couldn’t afford to race,” said Spain. “I was given the challenge of putting together an affordable series and my goal is to provide the least expensive touring series out there today.”

“The objective is to provide a platform for young racers to get started in full sized racecars,” continued Spain.

The series isn’t like many of the touring series out there today as they have a plan to not only save the drivers money, but to always make it affordable for tracks and other series to utilize them.

“The goal right now is to be an entry based payout of $150 per car(ex: for a 10 car class entry = a $1500 purse divided on percentage throughout the field).”

This purse structure hasn’t been used much in full-size Late Model racing, but with the economy the way it is today and the need for young drivers to move up and not have to break their parents to do it, could make this work.

Below is a copy of the current schedule for the new series and over the next few weeks, they will be announcing a few more races in the coming weeks. Expect them to head north to Virginia at a very well know track and respected track as well as a couple of other dates.

“Being a support series, we have to wait and let the tracks or primary series release their schedules first,” concluded Spain.

The Legends and Bandolero tour will also race with the Carolina Late Model Series at every venue currently on the schedule except for North Wilkesboro.

From the looks if it, this series is going to bring a lot of excitement to short tracks in North and South Carolina as well as Virginia. RACE22.com is hoping to be able to cover a majority of these races, so expect to see some Five Star “Full Blown” Live Coverage of these races to bring the series and it’s young drivers into the spotlight in 2011.

Carolina Late Model Series
March 12th – Anderson Speedway(SC)
March 26th – Dillon Motor Speedway(SC)
April 17th – Rockingham Speedway(NC)
April 23rd – Hickory Motor Speedway(NC)
May 7th – To Be Announced(TBA)
May 28th – Motor Mile Speedway(VA)
June 4th – Orange County Speedway(NC)
June 18th – Newport Speedway(TN)
July 1st – Ace Speedway(NC)
July 15th – Ace Speedway(NC)
July 29th – Ace Speedway(NC)
August 6th – TBA
August 20th – TBA
September 3rd – North Wilkesboro Speedway(NC)
September 24th – Hickory Motor Speedway(NC)
October 15th – TBA
November 26th – Orange County Speedway(NC)