Fans in East Central Alabama looking for a race fix might consider wandering into Jefferson County this weekend.Barber Motorsports Park, in Leeds, will play host this weekend to the Porsche 250 Weekend, part of the Grand-Am Rolex Series.
The event weekend begins Friday, and featured weekend races include Combined Rolex Series DP and GT, Koni Challenge GS, SunTrust MOTO-ST Endurance Motorcycle racing, Ford Mustang Challenge Series and the BF Goodrich Skip Barber National.
That’s six different series, including vehicles on four and two wheels, this weekend.
If that doesn’t pique your interest, perhaps this will: scheduled to make an appearance this weekend is racing enthusiast Patrick Dempsey.
No, you didn’t imagine that name. That’s Patrick Dempsey.
Dr. McDreamy. The jilted groom in “Sweet Home Alabama.” Yeah ... that guy.
That sound you just heard was my wife tearing the front door off our house.
It’s his sixth start in the series, in the No. 40 Hyper Sport Mazda RX-8 that he co-drives with Joe Foster (who, to be fair, is slightly less famous).
For the fans more interested in the racing itself, there’s Scott Pruett and Alex Gurney, as well as NASCAR vet Bill Lester.
Pruett and Gurney were involved in the closest finish in series history at Daytona, with the former using a sling-shot to bypass for a narrow victory. Gurney is the defending champ at Barber.
Lester, you may recall, made headlines during the 2006 NASCAR season, becoming the first black driver in the Cup Series in the modern era. He’s on the entry list for this Sunday’s race.
The Porsche 250 begins at 2 p.m. local time, and will be televised on SPEED. For more information, visit www.barbermotorsports.com.
A FAMILIAR RING: One of the more successful head coaches in recent history at Talladega High School left coaching for good recently.
Maybe.
Wayne Grant, who’s logged nearly 30 years as a head coach in Alabama, resigned his post at Pike County High in May. Grant will remain at the school, but Luverne’s Brad Waggoner has already signed on to fill his role.
The notoriously salty head coach was the last man to helm a playoff squad at Talladega — his Tigers qualified for the 6A postseason at 5-5 in 1995. Grant came to Talladega after nine seasons at Pike County in 1992, then returned to Brundidge following the 1998 season (he’d left Talladega after ’97).
Grant has other connections to this area as well, among them Fayetteville head coach Jimmy Wright. The third-year FHS head man quarterbacked two state championship teams under Grant at Pike County, in 1988 and 1989.
JUST SMOKE, NO FIRE: Rumors of the demise of the Gerald Wallace era in Charlotte turned out to be greatly exaggerated.
Wallace, a seventh-year professional swingman with the Bobcats, landed in a particularly spicy trade rumor last week, one that had both he and forward Sean May going to Utah in exchange for All-NBA forward Carlos Boozer.
No dice, it turns out.
Utah has stated publicly that it has no intention of swinging a big trade this summer, and Charlotte will most likely hold onto its young core, despite letting young center Emeka Okafor go to the Clippers in free agency.
Says hoopsworld.com:
It does seem Gerald Wallace may be available for the right deal, as we’ve seen several rumors about him changing teams. That in itself seems weird, since the Bobcats just locked him up long-term last summer. But where there’s smoke there’s usually fire and the Bobcats played very well during a couple of stretches when Wallace was injured. There’s certainly more to a story about Wallace being traded than there is about Boozer going anywhere.
Whoever might trade for Wallace would get a veteran who plays with reckless abandon and averaged over 19 points per game last season. It seems as though he’d be a perfect asset to a team needing one more defender to reach the next level.
Stay tuned during the summer. Things could get interesting.
