Ted Christopher Public Enemy No. 1 For Competitors After Mod Tour Race At NHIS

[ShawnCourchesne]

Ted Christopher Public Enemy No. 1 For Competitors After Whelen Modified Tour Race At New Hampshire ( http://blogs.courant.com/autoracing/)

[LiquidBread]

Hope the air card is working ... what the heck? TC's new name should be the human incendiary device. Racing hard is one thing, being a dive bombing kamikaze idiot is quite another. Good thing it was well funded teams the 36 tore up. I heard "Evans/Bodine at Martinsville" comments ... BS!!!! Junk driving in my opinion. I hope the 2 and 10 team had something to say in the pits! Nice run by Pennink and Coby. The mosquitoes are awful.

[rumrunner]

Who did TC tear up? He was leading coming to the checkers wasn't he?

He touched nerf bars a couple times with Lia but I never saw sparks or him dump anybody. What do you want a powder puff race?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAE66f0QbzE

@7:30 Listen to Claire B Lang's statement after Eddie and Silky get done crying. She is right on the money about how the cup action stinks. The only thing Eddie should have said to her is "If they expect us to race more aggressive then they need to pay us more aggressively".

Lap 6-64 Green Flag Racing.......WOW its about time

[uticamike]

Rum, you missed Ed's larger point. Clarie was doing what the press does best.
Sell controversy. She implied that fans come for the wreck festival and Ed's reply spoke to people like me who like good hard CLEAN racing. Ed's right, its the win at all cost mentality that starts at the quartermidget level right on up that is making ALL levels of racing a SK wreckfest. Clarie baby , I'll bet, doesn't even know who Ed Flemke Sr. is. She would get the point.

[rayray28]

Hey Bread, how can you blame a guy for a wreck when he was leading the show coming of turn four coming to the checkered flag? Lia gets into to the 2 that makes the 2 get into TC's right rear nerf bar and then Lia finishes them both off buy hookin TC bumper. The one that should be getting baged on here is friggin Lia, He just a spoiled little rich kid that could take getting beat and destroyed a bunch of race cars.

[CTC Photos]

I didn't see the whole race but, there is no way anyone can blame TC for that accident coming to the checkers. He made a very strong move going into 3...I guess unless your TC you can do that...and had the lead coming out of 4 and was WRECKED FROM BEHIND.

[Camper Lady]

Everyone has the right to speak there voice and I respect that, but when you can say you beat TC in a race then you can say you beat one of the BEST

[LiquidBread]

A little less grouchy than last night. Amazing what a shower will do.

It was the previous 3+ laps that set up the last lap mess. Hard racing no doubt, but TC started that melee way before turn 4. Again my opinion.

Nope no interest in a powder puff race, but having had the chance to hear the post race comments from Ron Silk and Ed Jr. this morning, that was my point.

[Axel]

is there any video of the last lap anywhere?

[rumrunner]

There are a bunch of videos from YouTube listed on RaceNY.

Go down to the post by ole bones

http://www.raceny.com/discus/messages/13/160339.html?1246204394

[rumrunner]

I have the ESPN NASCAR now episode saved on DVR from 8 AM this morning. They showed the last half lap. Clearly shows Ron Silk and Lia causing the whole mess. Yet they were the ones crying about a guy who wrecked nobody. Anybody know how to get videos off of an internal DVR? There is no USB port.

I noticed a few things walking around at Loudon yesterday. Tony Stewart's and Kyle Busch's souvenir trailers were packed. They couldn't open boxes of hats and t shirts fast enough. Also besides the one guy wearing a Matt Hirschman T-shirt I must have seen a thousand white and red #36 modified shirts. No I wasn't wearing one but love him or hate him he's the champ.

[ToolMakerM]

Never been a Teddy fan , but I don't really think his one was his falt . This wasn't one of his "crome horn" moves. And how many of us could see something like this coming with a restart with only a couple laps to go? Just saw the campers world last lap pass on SPEED TV to me this a was much much worse "pass" for the win

does anyone know what happened on the restart crash, mid race? it looked like maybe Kasey Kane cut into line and the green flag waved . was someone not ready or was it just a miss shift?



and lasty in my walk thru the souvenir trucks did anyone else note the "Kid Stop" display was next to the "Hooters" display(with hooter girls).just seamed wrong.

[W. J.]

I have the ESPN NASCAR now episode saved on DVR from 8 AM this morning. They showed the last half lap. Clearly shows Ron Silk and Lia causing the whole mess. Yet they were the ones crying about a guy who wrecked nobody. Anybody know how to get videos off of an internal DVR? There is no USB port.You could transfer it to DVD using a DVD or DVD/VCR recorder, and then easily download it to a computer using the DVD. That's how I do mine.

[BigMac]

Never been a Teddy fan , but I don't really think his one was his falt . This wasn't one of his "crome horn" moves. And how many of us could see something like this coming with a restart with only a couple laps to go?


does anyone know what happened on the restart crash, mid race? it looked like maybe Kasey Kane cut into line and the green flag waved . was someone not ready or was it just a miss shift?


and lasty in my walk thru the souvenir trucks did anyone else note the "Kid Stop" display was next to the "Hooters" display(with hooter girls).just seamed wrong.

As far as the crash goes, Rudolph missed a shift and everybody wrecked trying to go around him. Kasey took a good lick at the end of that deal.


I'm glad you mentioned souvenir trucks. Why doesn't the WMT have their truck there? They really should get together with NHMS, set up a Whelen tent, provide show cars, autograph tables, gadgets for the kids, etc. It wouldn't hurt to maybe have some pretty young gals passing out race flyers for future events at Martinsville, Bristol, Stafford, Thompson and so on. It really wouldn't be that difficult. They're missing the boat here big time IMO. I thought it was a little ironic (and sad) that the drivers were signing autographs in the Camping World tent.

[Jaws]

Ted Christopher Public Enemy No. 1 For Competitors After Whelen Modified Tour Race At New Hampshire ( http://blogs.courant.com/autoracing/)

Geeze Shawn, do you write the headlines for the NY Post too?

[BigMac]

I just saw the replay on Speed. TC body slammed Lia coming off of turn four. Clear as day. Thats what got everybody sliding all over the place.

[fastbackss]

It must have not been that clear, because I watched the same replay and didn't see what you did.

P.S. It rebroadcasts at 2AM EST tonight. Also, if you watch closely during one of the commercial cutaways they actually have the view from the camera in the wall - and what a view that is!

[bud]

so did speed pick them up before or after the races final lap.........lol.

TED IS THE MAN!.....
YOU KNOW WHAT WHEN THEY SEE HE WAS A LAP DOWN THEY AL THOUGHT OMG WE HAVE A SHOT...........LOL

[limodmaniac]

Some people blame Teddy, some blame Lia, some blame Silk. When there's that much blame, it's probably not just one guys fault. What I'm curious about , did Teddy spin the car out intentionally at the start of the race to get that first caution? If he did, then the win is cheap one, in my opinion.

[NONCENT$]

limodmaniac
Im confused with your post? You stated if TC spun intentionally to bring out the caution, then the win is a cheap one! Ummmm...Teddy didnt win!!

[BigMac]

Of course he spun on purpose. He slowed down, found a safe spot and looped it. Selfish move IMO.

Did the tour get any practice time on Saturday? I think a 15 min shakedown should be order. It would help teams (36,3) avoid things like this.

[ThE sHaDoW]

yes, there was about a 45 minute practice at 8:15am Saturday.

[Rabbit504]

Of course he spun on purpose. He slowed down, found a safe spot and looped it. Selfish move IMO.

Did the tour get any practice time on Saturday? I think a 15 min shakedown should be order. It would help teams (36,3) avoid things like this.

The 3 car was chasing their problem all thru practice and changed eveything except the battery.
They ran out of time.
Impound race.

[CareyandCoffey]

Here is a link to the video...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=udrzGHmSUgc

[RLP]

Some people blame Teddy, some blame Lia, some blame Silk. When there's that much blame, it's probably not just one guys fault. What I'm curious about , did Teddy spin the car out intentionally at the start of the race to get that first caution? If he did, then the win is cheap one, in my opinion.

Seemed like a smart move in my opinion, almost won race. But it was an oil leak so might not have been on purpose. Silk took blame for it, and they still blame TC. Seems funny Lia and Flemke talking about TC, how did Lia win that truck race and Flemke I still go back to that Flemington race where he dumped Stefanik at least 3 times, not to mention nobody seems comfortable going to the outside of him. Silk don't remember him doing anything to stupid. I will say TC threw in there pretty good a few times, but he held his line better then I thought he'd be able to, plus he races weekly at TIS, and thats how they pass there. Imight be biased because I am a TC fan, hate to think of a day I watch a tour race without TC in it.

[bud]

a men!!!!!!! TED IS THE SHOW! and from that u tube vid its pretty obvious that Ted was infront and basicly got dumped. Shame on those other dirty drivers. I was wearing my TC shirt and I don't know how many people came up to me and said that man is awesome!!!!!! Not one said what a dirty move. Funny wonder if I had a Lia shirt on if I'd have gotten so many pats on the back? Don't get me wrong they are all great and I am a fan of them all but Ted does add that lil bit extra!

[LiquidBread]

C&C thanks for posting a video that shows more than the last half lap! I'm also prepared to offer a partial mia culpa. TC held his line better than it looked on Saturday. So there, I've said it.

[ModTourMan]

Thanks for the link...I had not seen the video yet...WOW!

[Flyin high]

I think the video shows it all. If Ted would have held his line instead of trying to squeeze the 2 cars on the outside it would have been a drag race to the line. However that did not happen and he squeezed them up a little what are Donny and Todd supposed to do?? Back Out?? I think not! If you do, then you're not a racer! Just look at the slide job Ted did on Donny the lap before. Donny could have held his foot in it then and Ted would have wrecked that lap, but he didnt! Theres no doubt he wanted to get up to the outside to keep his momentum going however you cant expect the other competitors to back out of the throttle on the last lap. I'm sure if Ted was in the middle or outside he wouldnt back off. Racing deal to me. Great job by the 4 crew and Donny to be in the position to win!!

[Sicklajoie]

I think the video shows it all. If Ted would have held his line instead of trying to squeeze the 2 cars on the outside it would have been a drag race to the line. However that did not happen and he squeezed them up a little what are Donny and Todd supposed to do?? Back Out?? I think not! If you do, then you're not a racer! Just look at the slide job Ted did on Donny the lap before. Donny could have held his foot in it then and Ted would have wrecked that lap, but he didnt! Theres no doubt he wanted to get up to the outside to keep his momentum going however you cant expect the other competitors to back out of the throttle on the last lap. I'm sure if Ted was in the middle or outside he wouldnt back off. Racing deal to me. Great job by the 4 crew and Donny to be in the position to win!!
Kinda hard for TC to hold his line when he gets hung in the RR after Silk hit Lia.
Speaking of slide jobs, Todd did the biggest one of all...

[uticamike]

As I've now seen the vid I now have an opinion. On lap 98 (restart)Going into 3&4 Teddy does take Lia high as Silk looks low and Teddy protects coming off 4.
Next lap same thing except Donnie pedals and drops in behind TC looking for the ole crossover which Teddy protects again. On the final lap Donnies sling shot on TC is a beauty but where does Todd think he was going with that dive bomb from hell.
Nearly takes Lia's front off and he's OUTSIDE of Teddy. The crash looks to me like Todd came down into Lia and Ted about all the same time. People closer had a better view than this vid provides but I'd absolve TC and DL from starting the crash. Gotta agree with Joe. Eddie wants to know when NASCAR is going to "punish" drivers for this kind of driving. Not anytime soon Ed I'm afraid.

[rumrunner]

What? Punish drivers for putting a black tire mark on a leftside rub rail? What have we come to as race fans?

Utica, don't play dumb you know the #79 accidentally caused the whole mess as stated previously. TC's nickname has been changed from THE KING to THE SHOW. If he wasn't in the race I would have fallen asleep.

[catfish]

Looks to me like hard racing, at some point they all dive bomb as obviously on the last lap they are all looking for the same piece of real estate and they are all going after it as hard as they can. In my opinion good hard racing, maybe a bit if an extreme move but hell its the LAST HALF LAP

[11skmod]

Take your favorite driver out and look at what really happened there was 1 guy who didnt hold his line cause he wasnt in the line cause he dive bombed.If he wouldve stayed where he belonged it would have been a 3 car dash to the line 2 drivers dive bombed the last lap and TC knew it was going to happen and let them he wasnt wrong on this lap and when they pushed up he tried to capitalize and did until the above i mentioned happened,my .02 wish i could see the whole race looked like there was some good passing at times

[Fkraft99]

Seems to me like it could be summed up pretty simply. 4 guys doing everything they can to win the biggest paying race of the year. I dont know the exact numbers but i'd bet its a $10,000 drop from 1st to 4th.... Unfortunately only one guy could win and we ended up with a couple wrecked race cars, but its looks like hard racing, and everyone wanting to be in the same spot coming to the line.

[hollywoodmic]

OK Listen, they were all pounding each other all day. Lia went to the OUTSIDE of TC 3 laps in a row and all 3 laps TC used him up. As someone posted earlier it more looks like a racing deal I was in 3 and 4 and watched these guys do it to each other all day. I like Eddie Flemke but I guess he forgets his "dive bomb" last year when he put Todd in the fence on the last lap. I just say that after listening to his post race comments.

This race was extremely exciting. The fans never sat the last 15 laps. Isn't that what we wanted ? Go listen to Ronnie Silk on his post race comments, he hit Lia into TC to start the whole mess. Way to man up Ronnie Silk, you ran a great race as well. I say congrats to Donny Lia and Bob Garbirino and the entire Mystic Missile team, job well done boys.

P.S - Can anyone tell me what the 70 was doing? He's running second having a great day and he takes out the 58 and 6 to 8 contenders, and himself......Why??? - He was patient all day and then just does that I don't get it. Unless you were in turns 3 and 4 (which was closed) where I was don't tell me he didn't take him out because he did, in my opinion. He ruined a lot of good days especially his own.

[Steve in NC]

I don't make comments without being there or seeing some decent video of the proper angles to see what really happened in these scenarios. This was a decent quality video and was located at probably the best angle it could have been to capture the wreck. It could've been closer, but still the angle was very good. Based on that:

I beleive you can remove Ronnie Silk and his "hit" from this equation and the end result would have still happened to a degree. Somebody is going to get turned or get really loose. Maybe not hit the wall so hard but there would be contact with the wall in some form with the same 2 cars.
TC was in the low line and wasn't going to lift. He has to drift up coming out of the corners. Simple physics says that has to happen. How much you drift up is dependant on how much of the outside line does the driver want to protect/use up. Was TC protecting the outside and using up real estate.... if anyone knows how Teddy races that question can be answered with obsolute certainty.
Todd did the biggest slide job of all :-| and Donnie gave him room in order to stay in the race in turns 3 & 4. Todd wasn't giving much room to the inside coming out of #4 to protect the inside line the same as Teddy was on the inside. So you have the #4 car in the middle who was not going to lift. So regardless of whether the #4 car stayed straight as an arrow or whether it turned a little due to Silky touching him.... the same outcome was bound to happen with the #4 car having at least a wheel stuck inbetween. This is because of Teddy using up a lot of track coming up and Todd was using up track space to his inside also. They ran out of room.

So if Teddy wasn't such a lightening rod a lot of the emotion would be removed from this incident and everyone would probably be calling this hard racing and oh well,... see ya next week.

So leaving this incident aside.... Eddie is 100% correct in his statements though, but nobody is holding their breath there for change. I think the comment about Ed Sr racing guys cleanly and running 2 wide is just as exciting as modern day "wreckfests" is the key issue. What do you want going forward? An exciting wreckfest or an exciting 2 to 3 wide dual lap after lap? That is the million dollar question!

Simple ecomonics tells you there is only 1 answer to that question that will sustain a racing series for a long period of time before the car owners get tired of paying the big repair bills. Something that modified racing in general needs to look at as a group. Modified racecars themselves are simply made to race side by side and be exciting on short tracks up to 1 mile in lenght. The big tires, lighter weight and high horses dictate that. So why take them out of their element and make them into crash'um up derby cars when you can put on an equally exciting show with side by side racing with cross-overs passes and such without the dive-bombs. It doesn't take skill to dive-bomb. Start black-flagging for it and some other bonehead moves and let these cars/drivers do what they are bred for. The excitement will take care of itself. Remember about a week or 2 ago someone posted the last 4 or 5 laps of the SK race at Thompson between Rocco and TC...... nobody wrecked and that was exciting based on the many comments i saw of people who viewed it!

I guess the slam-banging taxi cab TV drama is simply filtering down through the ranks. Question is the sanctioning body has shown that they don't want to do anything about it because it creates drama which in turn creates money. What are the modified drivers/car owners themselves going to do about it?

my honest opinion.

Steve

[uticamike]

Steve, you've nailed about 100% I'd say, great post. Rummy, I'm playing dumb you say? All I did was comment based on what I saw on the video. It may or may not be exactly what happened. Todds dive bomb however, a blind man could see. Yes, I agree what happened was a racing deal as they say, but the drivers actions are what set these things up. Listen to the post race comments.
The players (silk and lia) are both using words like could be, I don't know, if and such. So if they have doubts then I hardly know as you say I do. I see your a Teddy fan. That's fine. I didn't blame TC for the wreck quite the contrary. Ted is great driver and overall good for the series but he is also dirty at times. He doesn't need to run guys up, yet he does. He had great car control running the bottom passing all those cars going from 9th to 3rd in 3 laps. Impressive.
The video from the Stafford SK 100 a couple weeks ago where TC and Keith Rocco raced each other hard but clean is what I love most about Modifieds.
I was at Lancaster this earlier this year and very much enjoyed watching Teddy
drive in an unfamilar car, on a track he rarely drives, race like he does without
running the locals all over the place. I enjoyed talking with him after and told him how much I liked his racing that night. The bottom line is NASCAR bears the ultimate responsibility for allowing "slide jobs", "bumper hockey" and other
less than desirable techniques by their competitors.

I'm old enough to remember guys name Richie, Maynard, Ed sr, Bugs and Freddie et al didn't run each other over to win races. This sports golden era has passed I'm afraid.

[LiquidBread]

Okay boys, I'll take the shots from my first post because admittedly it was in the heat of the moment. But given a couple of days, I still stand by it. Steve and Utica, I'm with ya! You just put it better than I did.

Howie and Mary, awesome shots from Loudon. You captured the game faces and raised the bar again. There's a book in this somewhere... seriously, nice job of capturing the real guts of the ground pounders. You can feel it in your shots.

Hey Utica, Shang 2 is getting close ...

[uticamike]

No it isn't Bread. Still about 130 mi from Utica.............oh....sorry.....Yeah I know what you mean.(wink)

[BOWATCHER]

In response to Hollywood Mic's comment on the 70 car.Im glad somebody else saw that!!

[hollywoodmic]

The sad part of that whole deal Bo was Eric Goodale went outside of him clean, ran him like a gentleman and never touched him. Then he just got dumped, sad way to end the race for all of those cars. Look at Howie Hodge's pictures you'll see the entire sequence of events.

[MJProcko]

My God, all this whining, I would nominate this finish the best racing of the year along with the TC/Rocco Stafford Battle and the TC/Silk battle at New Symyrna. Yeah there was a crash, but you had 4 cars coming off turn 4 after 99.75 miles of racing for the win making split second decisions - there is a chance of something going wrong.

If TC had held on we say what a drive from a lap down.
If Todd had not slipped up the track inbetween 3-4 we'd be sayin what a pass for the win.
If Silk had not caught the back end of Lia and pulled it off we'd be saying wow 4th to 1st.

Ideal finish? Maybe not but with all that excitement going on you got to appreciate what the WMT brings to the table each time at NH. Name any other division, track or series in America where your going to get that.

[bud]

OMG........we agree MJ.

[MJProcko]

OMG........we agree MJ.

ALERT CONGRESS.... NO GLOBAL WARMING.... Hell just froze over!:cheers:

have a good holiday Bud!

[SUfan]

I agree. Isn't that what we all wanted? To see a three wide race off turn four on the last lap? And all anyboby on here can do is bash drivers because they were racing to win rather than "points racing". We can't get this racing anywhere else, so why not just enjoy it?
My only complaint is that NASCAR is hiding the next Loudon race on a Thursday afternoon in October so casual observers won't see it. Are they afraid of what will happen if it's on live and everyone across the country sees that this Modified racing is the best anywhere?

[BOBBY D]

Amen. To that . What a great race. Good hard racing .lets enjoy.

This kind of racing . Not tear each other down .

Come on bristol .what a race that will be. Enjoy the moment.