COPPER HILL, VA :: With a new racing season just a little over a month away, it’s time we give an annual report card – our look at the “State of RACE22”. We look back on what we accomplished in 2013 and give a blueprint for our coverage of the year ahead.
2013 was our most successful year with record traffic throughout the season. Our coverage of the PASS South Easter Bunny 150 at Hickory Motor Speedway shattered records for traffic resulting in our owner and webmaster, Langley Austin, moving RACE22.com to a new server to handle more traffic. The move paid off throughout the year as the website was able to sustain a steady volume of traffic all year.
We covered a record number of venues this year with both live coverage and photo/recap coverage. On multiple occasions, the amount of readers viewing our live coverage set records. Along with the PASS Series, we had Live Coverage of the Virginia is for Racing Lovers 300, the Denny Hamlin Short Track Showdown, the Myrtle Beach 400 (both installments) and the Thanksgiving Classic. We had Live Coverage of the Hampton Heat 200 for the first time ever. We also had Live Coverage from races at South Boston Speedway, Hickory Motor Speedway, Kingsport Speedway, Lonesome Pine Raceway, Ace Speedway, Bowman Gray Stadium, Dillon Motor Speedway and Franklin County Speedway.
RACE22.com had complete, comprehensive coverage from all the big Late Model Stock Car races in 2013 as well as the race for the NASCAR Whelen All American Series (NWAAS)National Championship. We were there when Lee Pulliam scored his 18th “full field” victory which put him over the top and secured his second consecutive National Championship.
When we picked up coverage of PASS, it also brought on a series of firsts for RACE22.com. We had never covered Super Late Model racing outside of this region until 2013. This past season, we covered the Easter Bunny 150, the Mason Dixon Meltdown, the Winchester 400, the All American 400 at Nashville and the 46th Snowball Derby. At the Snowball Derby, we covered the big names and the not-so big names.
On the content side, 2013 was our strongest year ever with more features, spotlights and race recaps than ever before. We covered the storylines all season long with interviews with drivers, track promoters and newsmakers. We also provided in-depth coverage and analysis of the NASCAR Drive for Diversity. Our UNOH Battle at the Beach coverage consisted of features of nearly every driver to compete in the Late Model portion of the race… all while Langley Austin was also occupied with Franklin County Speedway
In 2014, we will continue our current approach which consists of our unconventional Live Coverage and features, photos and videos throughout the season. We plan to have Live Coverage of all the big Late Model Stock Car races again as well as coverage of the PASS tour. We will continue to build on what is working while keeping to the basics of RACE22.com.
We also have all kinds of new stuff planned for 2014 as well. While we are not ready to unveil those plans, don’t be surprised if we add featured you never thought you’d see on RACE22.com.
As we look ahead to another year, it is my pleasure to say that the state of RACE22.com is stronger than ever. Let’s go racing!
