Showing posts with label Street Stock. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Street Stock. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

Kevin Eby feature from 2012


HMS NOTEBOOK: Eby doesn't enjoy running away from the field

By:  Tom Gillispie  |     Hickory Daily Record  
Published: October 03, 2012  Updated: October 03, 2012 - 10:32 PM  
HICKORY, N.C. -- Kevin Eby, this year's Street Stock champion at Hickory Motor Speedway, isn't into boring racing.
EBY AND DAUGHTER KAYLA
"My enjoyment is to go out (and) race hard against somebody," said Eby, who lives in Lenoir but works at Shenandoah Furniture in Valdese. "I may have had to work hard to get around No. 33, but I enjoy it when I get somebody to race against.
"When you're just out front and riding, that's boring. I enjoy being side by side and racing, but I know not to tear stuff up."
Eby, 42, says he moved down from Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in late 1994 and began racing Super Sports at Hickory in 1995.
"It wasn't Street Stock, and it wasn't Limited (Late Model)," he said. "It was halfway in between. We had more motor than we have now."
Among track championships that Eby won were those in Street Stocks at Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson (2004, 2005 and 2007).
"The championships do not get boring, because we put just as much work into winning each one," Eby said. "Every time a new race season begins, it's like starting back at square one. So each championship is hard earned and unique."
If you saw all of the Street Stock races this year, you might have seen Eby with seven-year-old daughter Kayla, who joins him in the pits for many of his races.
He says his next race is a 100-lap Street Stocks race in mid-October at Lonesome Pines Speedway in Coeburn, Va., and he may run a Frank Kimmel race at Rockingham.
Webb improving
You may recall the horrific wreck Ken Webb survived nearly a month ago in a Sportsman Classic race at HMS.
"He's improving, but it's not going to be a fast process," said Mackie Webb, Ken's brother and president of the Classic Sportsman Racing Association. "He's doing OK. He got out of the hospital on the Wednesday after the wreck on Saturday.
"He's going to stay flat on his back for eight to 12 weeks."
Ken Webb, 53, was driving his No. 77 Chevelle in the Sportsman Classics race when his car hit the wall and got airborne. The 1965 Chevelle landed on its nose and spun before stopping in the middle of the track.
Webb was taken to N.C. Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem, and he got out the following Wednesday. He said he had "busted four vertebrae" and they put him in "a body bag."
Mackie Webb says his brother can walk a bit.
"He can do that to get to the bathroom," he said. "He has to keep it to the minimum. He's able to do that, but it's painful."
Trivia question
Where did Dale Earnhardt Jr. get his first Cup win?
Last Saturday's results
In the Fall Brawl last Saturday, young Pietro Fittipaldi won the Late Model feature, with David Garbo Jr., Josh Wimbish, Trey Gibson and track champion Austin McDaniel rounding out the top five. Chad Reed, the motocross/supercross star, finished 16th in a 22-car field.
Shane Lee, the track's 2012 Limited Late Model champion, won the 15-car Limited race, followed by Jeremy Pelfrey, Brandon Setzer, Roger Pitts II and Brandon Atkinson.
In the eight-car Renegades race, Gregory Austin finished ahead of Carroll McKinney, Darren Dickinson, Daniel Moore and Dillon Crouch.
Upcoming at HMS
The Rev-Oil Pro Cup race is Oct. 20 and The Fall Classic is Oct. 27, with a 100-lap Limited Late Models race, plus trucks and Renegades.
Happy birthday
Bill Elliott will be 57 on Monday. Dale Earnhardt Jr. will be 38 on Wednesday. Morgan Shepherd (71) and Ned Jarrett (80) have birthdays on Oct. 12.
Worth quoting
Joey Logano, from For the Love of Racing online: "They don't pay you for winning practice."
Trivia answer
Dale Earnhardt Jr. won twice his rookie year (2000), at Texas and Richmond. The famous photo of the two Dale Earnhardts hugging came at Texas.
Tom Gillispie, the author of "Angel in Black: Remembering Dale Earnhardt Sr.", writes about racing at Hickory Motor Speedway for HDR Sports. If you have a favorite story about HMS, he'd like to hear it. You can reach him at nc3022@yahoo.com.
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  TWITTER: EDITORatWORK

More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
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Monday, July 22, 2013

Moore family at Hickory

THE MOORE FAMILY (FROM LEFT, DAUGHTER
EMILY, DAN, WIFE PHYLLIS AND SON DANIEL)
ARE BIG INTO RACING AND SPONSORSHIP
AT HICKORY MOTOR SPEEDWAY.
(PHOTO BY NICK AND SHERRI STEARNS)
Moore family enjoys time spent
at Hickory Motor Speedway

 Posted: Thursday, April 11, 2013 11:34 pm | Updated: 11:35 pm, Thu Apr 11, 2013.
By Tom Gillispie Special To The Record
HICKORY, N.C. -- Dan Moore might be one of the most involved people at Hickory Motor Speedway.
Moore, a Conover resident, has raced in the Street Stock and Limited Late Model divisions in the past, and now he’s racing in the Late Model division. His children — Emily and Daniel — are racing Renegades on a part-time basis, and his business — WrenchRags — is sponsoring the Renegades division.

It’s like he’s trying to do everything after a long, long wait.
Moore grew up in Thomasville and graduated from Thomasville High, but he waited until his 50s to go racing.
“It (racing) was always a life-long dream,” Moore said. “A guy said, ‘Why not buy a car and go racing?’ Our company was having an outing at the racetrack, and we bought a Mustang dirt car, a 4-cylinder.”
He raced a year and a half on dirt at Antioch and Cleveland County speedways. Dirt was fun, he says, but he got tired of the mud and dirt, and he hated bringing home a torn-up dirt car. So he got an asphalt car and ran Renegades for a season at Hudson’s Tri-County Motor Speedway.
Then he moved to Street Stocks at Hickory two years ago.
“My biggest accomplishment was two years ago when I ran Bristol (Motor Speedway) in a Street Stock race and finished second,” he said. The race was a preliminary for another show.
Last season, he raced Limited Late Models.
This year, Moore finished 15th in each of the first two Late Model races, in 21- and 19-car fields, respectively. He ran 11th last Saturday in a 21-car field.
Moore says his children raced two or three races each last year.
“It’s truly become a family sport for us,” he said.
But he added that he worries about Emily, 30, and Daniel, soon to be 26.
“I was a nervous wreck, but I was not worried about them,” he said. “I worry about them wrecking each other. If they wreck each other, they’re on their own. They’re super competitive, and there’s a sibling rivalry there.
“Both decided they want to try it. We started with one car, and they were going to share it. They’d take turns racing. The first race was my son’s turn, and in practice she wrecked and totaled the car. So sharing didn’t last.”
Moore says he doesn’t expect them to race more than “six or eight times” this year.
On March 22, Daniel Moore finished fifth in a five-car Renegades race. Emily says that race was mostly a practice for Daniel, since he hadn’t planned to race. They ran over to the shop to get their car, since they didn’t want to see a four-car Renegades race.
“I enjoy seeing them run, but not at the same time, but they’re both adults,” Moore said. “For me, racing is a passion. For them, it’s fun.”
Emily, a 2001 graduate of Newton-Conover High, says she’s waiting for her car to be ready.
“I think it’s a lot of fun,” she said. “It’s stressful. When I’m behind a car, it can be nerve-wracking. I love the competitiveness of it, (and) I look forward to getting back out there.”
Moore says he didn’t race until his 50s because of his business and having to raise children.
“I didn’t have the opportunity when I was younger,” he said.
Now, he says, racing gives him a break.
“It’s hard for me to get away from work as a business owner, but that’s my solitude,” he said. “It’s hard to say it’s relaxing. In a lot of ways, it’s kinda like being a kid.
“When you’re a kid, you build model cars and roll them down a hill and crash them. It’s the same now, just a bigger car. Half of the fun is building the car.”
Emily says she learned about Moore’s racing bug on a family vacation.
“We were watching TV at the beach, and (Moore) turned to me and said, ‘Did I mention that I bought a race car?’ That’s how I found out about it,” she said.
Moore’s wife Phyllis doesn’t race, but she helps out.
“Without her support, we wouldn’t be doing this,” he said. “And on her NASCAR license, she is listed as car owner.”
“She’s a huge support out there,” Emily added. “She goes out there every Saturday and has the hauler stocked with food and beverages, and she’s always running errands.
“And she likes to remind (Moore) that it’s her car.”
Moore says the racing Moores keep kidding Phyllis about trying her hand at racing.
“She says she isn't ready, but we have a car ready if she wants to try it,” Moore said.
Incidentally, there’s another Dan Moore who races Late Models in North Carolina; in fact, he’s already won twice at Caraway Speedway in Sophia.
“People who know me say they saw where I won,” Moore said. “I guess I need to go down there (Caraway) and run. That would confuse them.”
Contact: I can be reached at tgilli52@gmail.com or nc3022@yahoo.com. Also, my Twitter handle is EDITORatWORK.
More entries from TARJ
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EDITOR@WORK blog entries 

Entries from The Dog Blog
More blog entries by Tom Gillispie

Anecdotes by Tom Gillispie
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