Ray Cook Wins A Muddy Ice Bowl At Talladega Short Track

EASTABOGA – The annual Ice Bowl race at Talladega Short Track has been the Frigid Bowl, the Snow Bowl and the Sunshine Bowl. On Sunday it was the Mud Bowl.A persistent drizzle all morning left the one-third mile dirt track near Talladega Superspeedway a soupy mess – not enough of a mess to halt racing but just enough to make for challenging conditions in one of the biggest dirt races of the year in Alabama.

The starting lineup

“They’ve done the best they could,” Ray Cook of Brasstown, N.C., who won the super late model race, said of track officials’ efforts to fix the racing surface. “We just had to do the best we could.”

It was Cook’s second Ice Bowl win in the 50-lap super late model feature race. His first win came in 2009, but Sunday’s was a unique challenge.

Of the 25 cars that started the race only nine finished.

“Due to track conditions people just couldn’t stand it anymore,” Cook said of the attrition rate. “A lot of it was just due to parts failure.”

Cook started fourth but didn’t waste any time getting to polesitter Jason Wilson of Southside. By Lap 8, Cook got inside of Wilson on the backstretch, powered to the lead and never gave it up.

The hardest part, he said, was negotiating his way through Turns 1 and 2, which were so rutted that track officials had to bring out heavy equipment during a caution to try to smooth it.

Cook stayed to the top of the track through Turns 1 and 2 because “that was just the smoothest way through there. Had to run high there and low in (turns) 3 and 4.”

The muddy track contributed to broken parts all afternoon. Cook said he isn’t sure just how much damage his No. 53 sustained but “it’ll probably take all that (prize) money to fix it up.”

The race for second place was a battle to see who could keep his car in one piece.

Vic Hill of Mosheim, Tenn., was running second when his driveshaft fell onto the track about halfway through the race. Wilson moved back up to second but started smoking with eight laps to go. By Lap 45 Wilson’s car was on fire.

That brought out the final caution and a four-lap sprint to the finish. Cook easily held off Joe Armistead of Senoia, Ga., who finished second. Stacy Holmes of Munford was third; Jason Hiett of Lincoln was fourth and Chad Winkles of Falkville was fifth.

For Armistead, it was his first Ice Bowl in seven years. He said he had quit racing altogether in 2006 but started back a year ago.

Then his father bought $300 worth of raffle tickets and won a Roush Yates engine at a trade show. He said they traded it for a late model engine and entered the Ice Bowl.

Armistead said he, too, was worried about busting up his car on the rough track.

He said he drove “wherever I could go without bouncing and I still bounced. My arms are all bruised.”

One driver who has been a fixture at Talladega Short Track for years, Alabama Gang legend Red Farmer, didn’t make it to the Ice Bowl this year. TST promoter Lynn Phillips said Farmer, who is almost 80 but still races regularly, has been in the hospital with back problems but is expected to recover and return.

“It was killing him that he couldn’t be here,” Phillips said.