Local Short Tracks - Home Cookin'

Home is where the heart is-and where you can find family, one's own bed, a familiar television remote control, and so on.

Home is where a racer's heart is, too, as in home track. It's also where the parts are, where you can find familiar corners, your own cheering section, and many other advantages.

But there may also be disadvantages to racing at the same oval week after week. We visited a long-time Florida short track to talk to drivers ranging from Late Model to Street Stock and TQ Late Models. We wanted to learn just what Columbia Motorsports Park (CMP), a half-mile asphalt facility in Lake City, means to them as their home track.

We even talked to one competitor who doesn't see it as home. But why is he at CMP? Simple. His number-one "home" track is closed for a summer break, so his team came to his second choice to complete a test for a Sportsman Series race he planned to run elsewhere.

Columbia Motorsports Park was dirt up until the late '80s, when promoter Skip Valdez purchased it and had it paved. Since then, it's hosted everything from USA to Florida Pro and even an All-Pro race as well as weekly programs.

But about those competitors . . .

You can probably get the same responses from competitors at just about any short track around the country.

You might agree with their answers, but then again, you might question them. Where better to start than with the Super Late Models and the guy who is leading the points in his black No. 57 Monte Carlo, Doyle Boatwright, and his veteran car owner, Henry Hodges? They're probably the patriarch and the crown prince of this facility, with already two track titles and many victories.

Boatwright, 38, of nearby Starke, started racing in the Sportsman class about 1991.

"But I ran just outside the Top 10," he recalls. "In '92, I got a little better, had a buddy (Al Beckelheimer) helping me out (yeah, at that same home track), and I started getting a little faster and started running more consistently in the Top 10."

Enter Henry Hodges, who was watching the action from the grandstands.

"His wife worked at Handi-Way there in Lawtey, where I lived, and she told me to talk to him, that he would help me out and buy me a tire if I went up to see him in the stands that next week," Boatwright says. "I ran up there and met him, and although that was the last race of the season in '92, he said 'come go with me and we'll go all over the state of Florida next year.'"

Boatwright says he was aware of this "home" track and was aware of a nearby dirt track, and of course, knew about Daytona. Barberville, New Smyrna, Hialeah, and Orlando were just names. But Hodges and Boatwright traveled around the peninsula and the relationship grew. They won two races in 1993, won right off in 1994, and by 1995 they went into Late Model competition.

"We've run Late Models since '95, and my biggest win was probably the first Florida Pro race I won here in 2002," Boatwright says.

He and Hodges were also CMP track champions in 1998 and 2004, and they were leading the points late this season.

Is it any wonder that this is the home track of Boatwright and Hodges? What are the advantages?

"You're relaxed when you get here," Boatwright says. "I've got so many laps around this track [that I know it well]."

"People say you can't drive blindfolded, but I know where the corner is and I pretty well know how long I can hold the gas and when I can get on the brake and when I can't," he adds. "You don't make as many mistakes at your home track, because you know it.

"You know how to adjust your car, too. You know the people and you just enjoy being around everybody you know. I go to some other tracks and have gotten a pretty good rapport around the state of Florida. The stress of going down south or to some farther tracks is that you have to get a motel or you have to drive back.

"Just last year we ran some races in Orlando. I've never actually won a race anywhere but here. I've run Second in South Carolina, at Hardeeville, and I've run Third at Punta Gorda and a bunch of places."

Ah, home, sweet home.

"Knowing the track owners well also helps," says Boatwright. "We wrecked a car a couple of weeks ago, and they called Henry and said 'we know you're working on another car. You get it ready. You can come over and test.' We're so close that's no problem."

No. 57?"My number had been 27, which was my high school football number, but when I went Florida Pro racing that was already taken, so I turned the 2 around and made it a 5."

Any disadvantages for that No. 57 at his home track?

"I think the only disadvantage is that it becomes the driver more than anything," he says. "He might get lax in setting up the race car, too relaxed in what he does. He might not want to change something on the race car because it messes up a little bit. I am so used to it running good and I'm so used to it being one way and not wanting to change it."