Thursday, June 15, 2000
Waltrip pronounces track fit
Kentucky Speedway consultant says it's 99 percent perfect
By Tom Groeschen
The Cincinnati Enquirer
NASCAR legend Darrell Waltrip took a spin around the new Kentucky Speedway at about 115 mph and pronounced the re-paved track ready for today's first Craftsman Truck and Slim Jim All-Pro practices.
Waltrip, a three-time Winston Cup champion driving his final season on the circuit, is a paid consultant to Kentucky Speedway. He drove the track in a Ford Mustang pace car earlier this week and noticed no major problems after the recent $552,000 re-paving.
“The repair job is about 99 percent perfect,” Waltrip said Wednesday. “There's a little bit of a problem in the third turn where they had to patch it again, but it's nothing anyone will complain about. It looks great.”
Waltrip will be grand marshal of Saturday's grand-opening festivities, featuring the truck race. There is also activity today and Friday, with local drivers included.
Jeff Fultz (Blue Ash native) and Matt “Spanks” Overbeck (Hyde Park resident) will try to qualify for the Slim Jim race.
Fultz, 30, ranks third in the Slim Jim season points race and has NASCAR Busch aspirations.
Overbeck, 24, ranks eighth in the Kendall Indiana late-model season points. He is the son of Cincinnati automotive media personality Steve Overbeck.
Fultz won a Slim Jim race earlier this year. He lives in Mooresville, N.C., where he is a fabricator in the race shop of Winston Cup driver Robert Pressley.
“I've been racing pretty much all my life,” said Fultz, a Sycamore High graduate. “It'll be fun to race close to home again.”
Overbeck, who graduated from the University of Cincinnati last Friday, is a St.Xavier High grad. He has a leg up on most competitors, having run nearly 200 laps at Kentucky Speedway in recent tire tests.
“It's great to have a facility like this in our backyard,” Overbeck said. “I decided if I only raced one race this year, this would be it.”
Gates open at 11 a.m. today for spectators, with truck practice from noon-4:30 p.m. and Slim Jim practice from 8-9 p.m.
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