THE RED
 RACECAR
 Books

Now out!
No Teammates in Motocross
the sequel to Motocross Summer

Jason Merlo, our hero from Motocross Summer, has made expert, the top level of racing in the Inland Summer MX Series. But Dick Gordon, the owner of CycleMart and Jason's sponsor, plans to have him ride a CycleMart Honda in the series' lightweight class after racing years on  Middleweight bikes. 
Bigger than that, Hunter Hayes, the defending lightweight champion, will be riding for CycleMart on a bike identical to Jason's.
But Hunter Hayes is no teammate. Actually, he's kind of a jerk.

So I'm at the Association of Rhode Island Authors' annual Authors Expo at the Crowe Plaza in Warwick, RI. Saturday. That's as in December 3.

It's a great place for readers and for Christmas gifts for readers. Thete's everything from history to historical fiction to fantasy to comics, and for everybody from preschoolers to retirees. That includes my Red Racecar books for kids, of course, as well as my award-winning "Henry Hits the Ball" for everybody. 

It's from 10am to 5pm. And it's free!

Saturday, September 17, Brookfield Orchards hosts its annual Local Authors Fair. Authors from around New England will be signing and selling their works. It's a great time to talk to the folks who created the stories, and there's always plenty of stuff in every genre and some books that don't fit any of them.

I'll be there with my "Red Racecar" books for kids as well as my award-winning novel  "Henry Hits the Ball." 

Brookfield is in south central Massachusetts, so check out the Brookfield Orchard website for more info and directions. The orchard also has good food and gifts, and you can pick some apples!

It's on from 10am to 4pm. Come say hi.

Is that it? Is that the name of the series Ray Evernham and Tony Stewart started?

Whatever it is, I think it's pretty good racing. More than that, these guys are having fun! Most have earned their reputations and burnished them. All that's left is a good time.

They're at Connecticut's Stafford  Motor Speedway Saturday evening, and on CBS TV. And yeah, on the 4th of July weekend. Perfect.

And wouldn't it be neat to see Helio Castroneves climbing the fence at Stafford?

Oh - and Speedway Heat, produced right here in New England, telecast races from Stafford before CBS ever thought of it.

Just sayin.

It's cool to see so much motocross on NBC in recent weeks. I would, if given a choice,  definitely prefer motocross to "supercross," a marketing term if I ever heard one. Really. I think it's like calling miniature golf "supergolf." It's just an imitation of what happens on a real MX track, although it's not as bad as selling that silly "shorttrack" racing from the LA Coliseum as real shorttrack racing.

And then NASCAR races at Bristol - after they cover it with dirt to make a "dirt track," even though there are legendary dirt tracks all across the country that would have hosted much better racing, not that the ending wasn't fun. But again, Bristol - paved Bristol - should have been where they hosted the LA-style shorttrack show of heats, consis and features.

I bet there would have been more fans in the stands.

And while there's supercross at Gillette Stadium, we're holding out for a trip to an actual MX track in Southwick, Middleboro or Baldwinville MA or Central Village in Connecticut. "cause, you can't go faster in midair."

Still, those guys are wild, and it was fun to switch back and forth between the supercross and a hockey game. Funny, too, after I put down putting down dirt on Bristol's pavement for Cup cars they set up a supercross track at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With that much room they dumped out, I gotta admit, the best supercross track I've ever seen.

Yeah, I need to apologize for not keeping this up. I won't use the excuse of the day (Year? Years?). In fact, I'm going to try to avoid that less-than-favorite subject entirely. After all, what does disease have to do with racing, other than our being addicted to racing? Not that I'm bringing THAT subject up.

What I do want to bring up was that season-opener for NASCAR, the one at the football stadium. Now, I wrote years ago in my long-gone magazine Shorttrack  that the Cup series (I forget what sponsor's Cup series. Who can keep up, and besides, who cares?) would do well to run a shorttrack race, a real shorttrack event, with heat races, a consi for non-qualifiers, before a feature of maybe 100 laps tops. But I meant that they run it on an actual shorttrack. I suggested Bristol. Instead we get that mess of a racetrack that discouraged racing in the hope of exposing Los Angelinos to something of which they're already well aware. But remember; $$$

And then they talked about it as if it was a revolution, instead of something that happens at a ton of tracks across the country every weekend, some of whom payed money to call themselves a "NASCAR track." 

I'm not impressed. 

...even though I never went away. But now I'm "on the road again" tot some of my favorite shows, events and swap-meets. Like two old favorites I've signed up for: the Association of Rhode Island Authors' Expo in December and the Automotive Swap N' Sell in West Springfield, MA in January.

Check 'em out on the Calendar page.

Leaving the house; eating out - breakfast, lunch or dinner; swap meets and car shows; motorcycle rides that can head to somewhere; and, of course, racing. Seekonk or Waterford on a Saturday night, Stafford or - say - Lee on a Friday; wandering around Thompson during a road course event;. MX at Southwick or Central Village. And I've missed writing about any of it.

Plus ball games, too. Any baseball - but the WhoSox after the Pawsox were stolen in the interest of more luxury boxes; a URI, Brown, Holy Cross, Nichols or other college football game, or an NEFL game of amateurs who often play harder than the pros. Or how about a PBruins or Worcester Railers hockey game. Or PC?

But now I have Covid killers coursing through my veins. See you around?

Of all the sports that might be able to get started again before we're completely back to "normal," you'd think auto racing would be at the top of the list. If the experts figure golfers can keep far enough away from each other, what about a sport where you couldn't get yourself within six feet of the competition if you had to?

I suppose if they're really worried they always could start with Formula One racing. Those guys usually aren't within half a lap of each other.

I haven't posted to my blog since September? No excuse for that.

I did want to praise Fox Sports for this past Sunday's presentation of Miller High Life 400 race-coverage from 1986. I know Fox Sports-1 had I-racing with current Cup drivers competing. A cool idea, too, but it paled in comparison to Sunday's Fox race. I mean, Dale Earnhardt? Richard Petty? Bill Elliot? Bobby and Davey Allison?

And it was true shorttrack racing. Richmond was real. It wasn't a 21st century mega stadium. It was a shorttrack, rough, short, grizzled, historic and tight as a better with his last buck. And the cars? Tanks compared to today's slick cup cars.

Ken Squier and Benny Parsons, long gone from our lives as well as from racing, talked often about how racing at Richmond is a battle every inch of the way around it. There hardly was a straight body-panel left after the race saw the checkered. And yet nobody was complaining or pitching their helmets at a passing car. They just raced, taking what they had to and giving what they could.

NASCAR could learn a thing or two -- from itself!