East Alabama

[flvideo]

Man you talking about a good weekend of racing. It don't get any better. We cruised into Phenix City Alabamba about 1:00 in the afternoon Sat and we had a line of haulers waiting to get in. The pits didn't open till 3 so they had a wait. Groups of them were out side with their lawn chairs just chilling. We went in and begun putting up all our banners for our sponsers and preparing for an awesome night of racing in absolute great weather. We ran thru a little rain in Ga but I think about Albany the blue skys appeared ane the rest of the day and night were beautiful, although it got a little cold. I went up on a tower above the press box/ suites to tape the racing and I left my jacket in the trailer. It didn't take long to realize that was a mistake. When we started registering Drivers, they just kept coming. We had a record number of cars for this show, 47. And man what a show. The track was the best dirt track facility I have ever seen, they have their poo together. The track is run by a woman and she seems to know her stuff. She has executive suites above the grandstands with couches and tables kinda like Nascar. The track is banked 18 degrees up top and goes to about 15 degrees lower and almost flat on the bottom. The racing surface was supurb. It is wide enough for 4 wide racing, and we saw it at times Sat. The clay was outstanding and they really work at it. The locals seemed to have a advantage over our traveling cars a little. All the locals seemed to ride the rim of the track, but as we saw that takes some experience there is no outside wall except on the front straight. Cars can, and did go over the rim and off the track. They would disappear over the top and reappear a few minutes later. I will post some pics below. I wish you all could have been there. I don't know of any thing I could have done last weekend to enjoy any more. My buddy Jim and I were up on the tower where I taped before our races started and we decided ther was no better fun we could have with our pants on. Especially at our age.LOL! Thanks Bob........

1: setting up our trailer
2: Tommy checking the banking incline
3: puttin up banners
4: Victory lane
5:front straight

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More pics

Here are a few more pics.

1: Tom and Tim in tech.
2: The girls signing drivers
3: Kenny and Track owner, Beverly
4: Drivers meeting
5: View from tower

[Frasson118]

It sounds like EAMS is getting their act together. For years, it's had a reputation as dusty and single-grooved. I did hear some great reviews about the place last October for the National 100 they host every year ($30K to WIN). Hopefully this new owner will keep up the good track prep that they had this week.

P.S.- I thought the Thomas family still owned EAMS!

[flvideo]

You are right

I think you are right Frazz. Beverly and her brother own the track. She is no longer a thomas I guess. Her Nephew was a thomas and he ran well till he broke. He ran a nice looking car #22. I've got a picture of it somewhere. This family has owned it for a long time. In fact I think the guy who ran Rob and I around to the grandstand side to do our thing said Beverlys grandfather built it. I think I heard that they own 200 acres around it. Obviously the don't have a curfew of any kind, we didn't finish till almost 2am sunday morning. we got to our hotel about 4:30 am. Maybe they have added clay and banking since you heard, because I can't see why anyone would call it a single groove track. In our feature there was racing all around the track. Thanks Bob.........


PS: Frazz, I looked at Ricks results on another post and William Thomas finnished 19th. He is Beverly nephew. Bob....

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William Thomas

Frazz heres the Thomas boys car. Nice ride. Also the winner of the feature, Mark Whitener. He is one of our traveling drivers. Bob..

[Frasson118]

I think this is the way the family tree went... Jimmy Thomas was the original owner and the Grandfather. He was laso owner of Jimmy's Speed Shop, and and a dealer for the Jig-A-Lo Chassis... one of the first "manufactured" Late Model chassis.
His 2 sons, Bobby (90) and Billy (22) took over the track for a long time and I believe both of them spent time in the ARCA series as well (I've seen one, or both, of them at Daytona, Atlanta and Talladega). They were each Dirt Late Model racers too.
William (the one pictured) is the Grandson, and last years Fastrack Series Champion (or was it StormPay?). I guess Beverly would be Williams sister...

So it DID stay in the family after all.