This last Saturday night was the USARacing Pro Cup Series(formally Hooters Pro Cup) season opener. I first want to thank, Gary Kale, Carl Hubbard, Jack McNelly, Chip Lofton, and Larry Camp for keeping this series alive. This is the best short track series and will continue to be.

As always the season opener is a two day event and walking around Friday you could feel that racing bug in the air. Many were happy to be there, others had comments about the new owners still having race teams in the series. Bottom line is no one would be there without these guys, and they bought the series so they could continue racing in the series.

Saturday rolled around and a few more cars showed up bringing the car count to 21. Definitely a lot lower then everyone wanted to see. But it was still a good thing to be back at the track for everyone. A lot of speed in practice and only 1 incident to slow the session. It appeared the 75s was the fastest but i cant confirm that. After that everyone takes a little break and prepares for qualifying, while the teams do that its the first official drivers meeting. Larry Camp introduces himself and speaks with great enthusiasm about the series. An anouncement of the tv package from the new production company. Look for it on Fox Sports Net on Sunday mornings. And then they get to it with Jimmy Wilson and the rules. New rule in 2009 must take fuel and has to be after lap 50.

Qualifying starts and Clay Rogers wins the pole with a 16.472. As always in between qualifying and the race is the autograph session where the fans have a chance to meet the drivers. After that its time for business, and when the green flag drops Clay takes off. He starts lapping cars and laps everyone except the top 10 when the first caution waves. At this point you think the only thing that will stop Clay is some bad luck. Mostly everyone makes both their before Clay can make his. When Clay finally does make both of his stops, he restarts in the back of the field and trouble starts in front of him and he has no where to go. His team makes the necessary repairs but he is several laps down at that point.

With Clay out of the race for victory its time for others to step up. The top 3 are Brandon Ward, Benny Gordon and Derek Kale. Caleb Holman, Trevor Bayne, and Drew Herring who were all fast in practice are towards the back, so its anyones race. When they restart Clay is furious and storms through the pack making some crazy passes. While he does that the battle for 2nd heats up, Kale gets under Gordon and tries to make the pass. Gordon does what he does best making it difficult, but maybe this time he made it too difficult on himself, when he just kept coming down on Kale and eventually taking himself out of the race. Anyone knows these twos past you would think there would be some words exchanged but Gordon just goes to his hauler and calls it a night.

Kale now finds himself 2nd with Clay lining up to the inside of the leader. Everyone knows how Clay is going race but what is Ward going to do leading? The restart is clean, Kale cant follow Clay through the bottom but does put some pressure on Ward. While behind him Holman puts a little pressure but cant make any progress. Bayne’s coming strong, puts the pressure on Kale for 10 laps before he finally lets Bayne go. Bayne gets by Ward and is in the drivers seat. He goes on to win the first USARacing Pro Cup Series race. Followed by Ward, Kale, Gill, and Herring.

Overall it was a great night for racing and some good racing there was. A couple ruffled feathers but nothing to explosive. The series is the same, so if you live anwywhere near a race make sure you go to it. And teams its worth it, dont let your stuff sit idle any longer. Especially when all your doing is waiting to see if they find a sponsor for the series. They will and it will be back to normal.