[Jerry Shaw]

There's always suspense when you make that slight left off of Highway 67, onto the road now known as Edd Sheppard Memorial Highway, that after a few curves in the road and after you pass the farm and clear the silos and agricultural equipment, you're going to suddenly find yourself 10 feet away from the edge of the Paragon Speedway pits. You know right away whether there's been a small turnout of race cars for that night's event or a large one. Tonight was one of those nights that there were haulers in every corner and every space. The pits were full. Mother Nature was again posing a threat to a busy Hoosier racing weekend and so many racers showed up to do what racers do, while they still had a chance to do it. The crowd was a late arriving one, but once everyone had filed in and taken their seats, it was a very impressive, also.

With 47 sprint cars on the property and nice representations in all the other classes, we would be watching heat races for a while. Somewhere near the end of the sprint heats, Chris Nunn, who was sitting beside me taking notes and keeping score says. "Hey man, look at the radar." It didn't look good. A big green blob, on the other side of Spencer and it was headed right at us and wasn't going to miss. The track stepped up the pace and was running stock car heats rapid fire, one immediately after the other. The rain hit right before the Hornet heats and was steady enough to send a lot of the fans to their cars, to wait it out. But they weren't leaving. This is a hardy fanbase that never has been scared off easily by a little bit of weather. And when it finally started to let up after a while and the radar looked fairly promising, the heavy equipment made it's way onto the track. There was never any doubt. These folks showed up to put a race on tonight and we were going to see a race.

With AJ Hopkins starting on the pole, another thing was for sure. By the way AJ looked in the heat race, we would either see him check out and wonder who was going to finish second or see someone race their ass off to cross the finish line before him. Right off the bat, he went to the top, grabbed the lead and started to build a margin. But here comes Colten Cottle, racing on the bottom, coming up through the field, as Travis Berryhill trailed the leader. A few laps in and after a yellow, Cottle had worked his way up to third and a really good battle on the bottom of the race track broke out between he and Berryhill. In the middle of the field Josh Cunningham was passing car after car, around the outside and he was definitely going to be heard from before this one was over. After Colten finally wrestled second away from Travis, he then began to reel in Hopkins. And the 77 car was staying right with him. Cottle caught the leader several times, but each time AJ would rally and pull away. Even after he changed tactics and went to top, like Hopkins had been. As tough of a race as he had ran tonight, it was starting to sink in that AJ was destined to win this race. But just that fast, after a late yellow, the leader pulls off the track and into the pits. So, we had a restart, with 4 to go and Colten was in the driver's seat. One lap..two laps..three laps, he was in control when they threw the white flag. Then, as they came down the back stretch Travis had inched a little bit closer. When they came to turn 3, Colten dove low and Travis charged into the ledge in turn 4. They raced back to the flagman and Travis's momentum got him there ahead of Colten by the narrowest of margins. Most people in the crowd didn't really know who had won. We were standing almost right behind the flagman, so we had a pretty good idea and it was confirmed by a fired up Brad Dickison on the p.a. system. Travis Berryhill had won a race that he probably only led for 5 feet or less. And Colten Cottle ran such a great race and had to settle for second. And AJ Hopkins led for almost the whole race and had to settle for even less than that.

I'm just thankful that these guys stuck it out and decided to not let Mother Nature win. They didn't give in and we all got to see Travis Berryhill win a wild one.

Jerry

[tmac39]

the guy running paragon now is the best and I live 7 blocks from a place called the sprint car capitol of the world lol good work joe and crew

[Chris Nunn]

I just had to look at the radar.