Story by: Langley Austin ~ [email protected]
Radford, VA(June 15, 2009) — Matt McCall started on the outside pole, led laps and eventually slipped to third at the finish of the ATK 150 at Motor Mile Speedway on Saturday night, June 13th, but a Sunday afternoon decision by track officials wiped all that away.
At nearly every short track across America the race is contested on the track in front of the fans and then the drivers and crew members of the top three or in some cases top five running teams are called to the “tech shed” for inspection of various parts of the car. That is certainly the case at Motor Mile Speedway and with his third place finish, McCall and his team was called to the “tech shed”, which in the case of Motor Mile is more a First Class Garage … nicer than some people’s houses.
McCall went in like the rest of the top five finishing cars and had his engine inspected and the officials had some questions about the heads on his 3V Performance Engine. The questions according to McCall were in the “look of the heads” and unfortunately for McCall the Motor Mile Speedway officials deemed them illegal.
“They said they didn’t like the way the heads looked,” said McCall in a phone interview of Monday, June 15th.
The officials didn’t immediately disqualify him from his third place finish, but according to McCall they had, Lynn Carroll, who is the head of the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Late Model Stock Cars in this region, take a look at the head first.
“They didn’t disqualify me at the track on Saturday night and as I understand it they had Lynn(Carroll) look at it, but I haven’t talked to him,” continued McCall.
McCall just kinda shrugs his disqualification off and is planning on going back and proving that the part in question had nothing to do with his impressive performance in his first start at Motor Mile Speedway this season.
“They said they didn’t like the way the heads looked and that’s all they told me. I don’t know any specifics, but I know I will be back to get me some more in a few weeks as my schedule allows with the tour(UARA) races and all.”
Certainly McCall will return to Motor Mile Speedway and I have no doubt that the veteran driver will be just as tough or maybe tougher than he was this time and those guys had better look out.