Tuesday, April 11, 2010 - UNDERDOGS ARE STILL FUN TO CHEER FOR IN EAST SERIES

CASEY’s Corner
By Dick Caseey

UNDERDOGS ARE STILL FUN
TO CHEER FOR IN EAST SERIES

Just when many people thought the former Camping
World East Series may be nearing an end especially after
announcing a ten race schedule, K&N Filters agreed to sponsor
the series for the next seven years. NASCAR has tried to keep
the struggling series afloat giving it the title as a developmental
series where up and coming youngsters from well-heeled
Cup stables could strut their stuff at sixteen years of age all the
while waiting for a ride in one of the three top touring series.
The K&N Pro Series East appears stronger than ever with an
influx of youngsters with an abundance of money. Long-time
series great Andy Santerre will bring his troupe of Diversity
drivers to run the entire schedule. Even former Pelham. N.H.
champ Sean Caisse has signed on to return to the series he
once dominated. Too bad we only get to watch these drivers
for ten races. There are a few independent teams left to
compete against the "big boys" and Nashua's John Salemi
is one of them.

Salemi is one of those drivers who battle each and every
week just to get on the track but it is this perseverance and
determination that makes him popular in the stands and with
his fellow drivers. As an independent, Salemi has funded the
bulk of the operation with the small yet essential sponsors
willing to help out. Since 2004 Salemi has run the familiar #63
to varying degrees of success with some top ten runs yet as the
veteran stated during our interview at the Toyota All-Star
Showdown in Irwindale, California earlier this year, "It seems
that every time we run well we have had bad luck."
Hopefully for the team, that luck is about to change. The
wine company "Dangerous Red" signed on to sponsor the
team at least through the Greenville-Pickens race, the first
event on the 2010 schedule and possibly beyond. "We are
talking about some Nationwide races with Dangerous Red and
possibly cutting back on the K&N schedule a little bit, maybe
one or two races. But I would hate to do that. But if they give
me the choice to go do two Nationwide races, I'm not going to
turn that down. If would be excellent. I think I can compete
with all these guys. I think I'm just as good a driver as the guy
that won the championship last season, (Trevor Bayne). We
have great racecars; we just don't have super great racecars"
Salemi, truly one of the nice guys in racing, believes the
teams never give up attitude will payoff saying, "It is satisfy-
ing to everyone on the team. We show up. We don’t have all
the funding and support as all these other teams but we have
a great bunch of guys that are educated and know what to do.
We are satisfied but we are not satisfied.. We haven't won a
race yet "We've been the fastest car in practice' and in races,
Weve had bad luck" This year's race at Irwindale proved him
right as the bad luck continued. After qualifying 29th, Salemi
had to make his way from the back of the pack and of course,
that is always dangerous. Salemi hoped to duplicate his 2007
run at Irwindale when he started 33rd then drove to a fantastic
ninth place finish, but it was not to be. After surviving the
first 100 lap segment of the scheduled 225 laps, Salemi was
discussing changes needed for the final 25 lap shootout when
he was hit hard enough to break the rear end on lap 195 to end
his night.

With the new sponsor and the same determination, Salemi
feels confident the team can achieve the success they have
been working so hard to get saying, "We just got some new
cars, so we are looking forward to the 2010 season. We're just
trying to find something here that makes me comfortable. I'm
one of those guys that if we are the fastest car in practice, I'm
still not satisfied with the racecar. Maybe that is what makes
us so fast is that I complain a lot and the guys on my team are
always trying hard to make me happy. As long as that hap-
pens, we'll keep going." The smile on his face saying this
really showed how much he cares about his team.