A busy week in the Charlotte area

I have cut this out of the print version of Kickin' the Tires in order to make room for the breaking story that H.A. 'Humpy' Wheeler was retiring from Lowe's Motor Speedway after 32-years. It is a brief overview of how things have been going for the past week and some of the things that are still to come for this weekend's Coca-Cola 600 at Lowe's Motor Speedway in Charlotte.

On Monday, I was given the grand tour of Richard Childress Vineyards. I am not known to drink but the place is phenomenal.

When you think of NASCAR you probably don’t think of the wine and cheese crowd but Childress has done it up right. The winery is top-notch and has won more than 120 awards for best wine in just four years. Check out the pictures from the fermentation and barrel rooms. A little known fact that I did not know — the French oak barrels used for wine, cost $800 apiece. There were hundreds of them at Childress Vineyards.

On Tuesday, I was at Kyle and Pattie Petty’s Victory Junction Gang Camp for the unveiling of the Kurt Busch Superdome and at the NASCAR Technical Institute in Mooresville for the 9th Annual MAHLE Clevite Engine Builder Showdown.
I will have a much larger story later on about the Victory Junction Gang Camp but for now, I can tell you that this has to be one of the neatest places I have ever been to. It was the grand opening of the Kurt Busch Superdome, an indoor arena that will be used for kickball, whiffleball, dodgeball and other games. It is climate controlled and state of the art. 

Busch was there along with teammates Ryan Newman and Sam Hornish Jr. Also on hand were Kyle Petty and The King Richard Petty and some big football player that I should probably know who plays for the Charlotte Panthers. I was lucky enough to interview The King, who donated 72 acres of land in order to build the camp in memory of his late grandson Adam Petty, who was killed at the former New Hampshire International Raceway.Then it was off to the 9th Annual MAHLE Engine Builder Showdown. Dennis Borem and Darrell Hoffman from Pro Motor Engines built a 357-cubic inch engine from the block up in 15 minutes and 59 seconds. 

To win the competition, the engine had to stay running for 60-seconds after being cranked and upon teardown could not have any loose or missing parts. Borem’s and Hoffman’s engine was perfect, even though it did smoke out the exhaust header a little bit.

The dynamic engine-building duo will split the $26,000 first place prize. Second place finishers, Jim Snyder and Mike Kasch from Roush Yates Racing Engines had a time of 17 minutes and 14 seconds. The Roush Yates team had a little bit of excitement as flames shot about two feet out of the intake when they first tried to crank the engine. It was quickly extinguished and ran like a top, it was just finished a little slower than the PME team.
I am writing this week’s column on Tuesday because Wednesday is going to be an especially busy day. I will spend most of the afternoon at the NASCAR Research and Development Center in Concord with NASCAR’s Kerry Tharpe, Director of Communications for Competition. You can look for an update on that visit on kickinthetires.net and in a later edition of the print version of The Examiner Newspaper.