By Lou Lauer, USARfans.com and ProCupDigest.com

The 2010 USARacing Pro Cup Series Championship Series is set to kick off this weekend at a track which has been the site for many Pro Cup races over the years. As the originator of a Championship Playoff format for a racing series back in 2001, this year there will be 5 races to determine the 2010 Pro Cup Series Champion. Defending series Champion, Clay Rogers, is gunning for his fourth title.

The good news for the field of drivers chasing Rogers is that the points reset chopped his lead down to a mere 15 points over second place Logan Ruffin. The bad news is that the first championship race is at Concord and for all intents and purposes, Clay owns the place! He has ten starts, with three wins to his credit. He's led the most laps of any Pro Cup driver at Concord Speedway and has an amazing 3.90 average finishing position over those ten races. He's tied with Bobby Gill for the most wins and leads all drivers with the most poles, top 5's, top 10's, and has zero DNF's. If the rest of the drivers want a shot at the title, they need to make a statement at Concord because it certainly looks like Rogers already has!

Pro Cup races at Concord have shown a trend for the race winner to come from a top 5 starting spot more times than not and they have never been won by someone outside the top 10 when the field takes the green. Considering how fast, challenging, and potentially hazardous the track is, that's a bit of a surprise, at least to us! Things happen in a hurry at Concord and can ruin your night before you have a chance to make it to victory lane. Caution flags seem to fly between 10-14 times per race.

The Clay Rogers Victory Tour moves on to Langley Speedway this weekend. Rogers hopes to continue with his impressive season, but the rest of the field would love nothing better than to put an end to his dominance. A nice flat, short track like Langley Speedway can have unpredictable results.

This will be the fifth race at the Hampton, Virginia track for the Pro Cup Series. Rogers has the last two poles and two of the four prior wins also have his name of the trophy, so the target is squarely on the back of the #16 machine. In the spring race, Jeff Agnew dogged Rogers lap after lap but was not quite able to move him out of the way for the lead and then at the end of the race, young Logan Ruffin was coming on strong but ran out of laps and had to settle for second place.

Agnew will be returning to action after sitting out the Iowa race. With Agnew's 217 prior starts in a Pro Cup race, nobody can remember when the last time he was not at a track! The Team 7 Motorsports guys will have the orange #73 ready to go this weekend and Agnew should be strong again. Ruffin has been having his own impressive season. With only 11 Pro Cup starts under his belts, he should not be a threat to either Rogers or Agnew but he's proven that youth and lack of track time are not a problem. But they are still chasing one guy. Defending race winner Clay Rogers is looking to sweep both races at Langley this year and how can you bet against him and his L&R Motorsports team?

Mother Nature has put a temporary halt to today's activities. A storm blew through the area around 11:15 and brought with it plenty of rain. Luckily, Motor Mile Speedway has two jet-dryers to add to the usual track drying vehicles to rapidly get the track ready for practice. The Pro Cup Series officials are revising the schedule for today to try and get some practice time for both the Pro Cup cars and for the Late Model field of cars. Tentative practice start time is 1:30 pm.

I counted 20 Pro Cup cars in the pit area this morning. New names for the race tonight are Dylan Presnell in the #83 car fielded by Holman Motorsports and the #12 car with driver Michael Mohelski. Returning to action after a few races off are the #21 of Derrick Kelley and Mark McFarland will be in the #8 car for Mark Huff Racing. One car # change will find John Gibson behind the wheel of the #59 ride. Gibson normally drives the #13 car for his own family team, but tonight will be in equipment from Mark Gibson Racing, with crew from both teams working on the car. John is not related to Mark.

The good news is that the weather forecast appears to be better for the race tonight and www.PitRowRadio.com will be providing you with live coverage of the race.

Cheryl and I wish you all a Happy Fourth of July. We hope your weekend brings you good weather, great food with friends and relatives, and an opportunity to thank someone who helped make this great nation!

By Lou Lauer, USARfans.com
It's time to roll onto a classic short track with a lot of Pro Cup history - South Boston Speedway! This will be the 19th race at the tight bull ring which calls itself "America's Hometown Track". The Pro Cup teams have been racing at the track since the series began in 1997, skipping only one year (1998) and running two races a year since 2004. Despite the track being in an area that most would consider 'South', when the series ran two divisions this speedway was always on the Northern Division schedule!
One thing that stands out in the stats for SoBo is the higher percentage of winners who have won the race from a top 5 starting position (11 out of 18), with 6 wins from the pole slot over the years. This is one track where qualifying can be considered VERY important. It's also not a track known for new winners, with only 3 Pro Cup drivers getting their first series win here.
Benny Gordon and Clay Rogers each have one win from the pole with Gordon on top with 3 total poles at the track. Gordon also edges out Rogers in the victory department, with 3 track wins to Rogers' 2 wins. You can be sure that the rivalry between these two Pro Cup Champions will be on display this weekend. Rogers wants to keep his momentum rolling and Gordon, well he's just getting plain tired of not running like he is used to running. Add a track where contact is common, and you might want to pay special attention whenever these guys are running near each other on the track.

By Lou Lauer, USARfans.com
The series moves on to Langley Speedway in Hampton, Virginia for the 5th race of the regular season. Much like the last race at Rockingham, the Pro Cup Series does not have a lot of history at Langley Speedway. This will be the fourth race at the track, but with two races last season and two scheduled this year, it will not take long before the stats will start to accumulate and begin to have more meaning.
Right now, the familiar name of Clay Rogers sits atop the stat tables for the track. Rogers had a pole and a win in the two races in 2009, leading 245 out of a possible 500 laps last year. He has an average finish of 3.0. Bobby Gill gave Clay a run for his money last year and would probably do the same this time except for the minor fact that Clay took over the seat in the Lamb & Robinson car that Gill had occupied. The race winner from August 2009 is Brandon Ward but he's not on the entry list and probably won't be around to defend his win. Ward and AJ Frank had been alternating rides in the Mac Hill Motorsports cars this year.
The May 2009 race was one of the most exciting Pro Cup races we have seen in the decade we have followed the series. With a virtually flat track, the expectations of a race with not much action or passing would have seemed logical, but the teams last year proved that wrong and put on one whale of a race and a spectacular 3 wide finish. It would be nice, but it's not very likely that every race at Langley will produce the same result but we'll be there watching just in case! If you are in the area, heading to the beaches for Memorial Day vacation, squeeze some extra time in to get to the track and catch the race on Saturday night. Here is the race day program with all the times you'll need to know.

Good morning from The Rock! It's going to be a hot, but decent day here. The UARA cars have just taken to the track for their first practice, to be followed by the Pro Cup Series at around 10 a.m.

I don't have an accurate car count yet, but it is probably around 19 or 20 Pro Cup cars in the garage area.

http://PitRowRadio.com will be doing live coverage on the Internet of today's activities and tomorrow's race. We will put up the proper links to the broadcast once we find them out.

9:45 am UPDATE - I took a walk thru the Pro Cup garage and there are 19 cars here. A number swap between AJ Frank and Brandon Ward will see Ward in the #56 today with Frank behind the wheel of the #65 ride. Pro Cup practice starts in 10 minutes.

10:40 a.m. UPDATE - The car count just dropped by one when Brandon Ward's #56 veered right off turn 2 and made hard contact with the wall. The car does not appear to be repairable. A.J. Frank is in the team car, #65, and it appears from scanner traffic that Frank will step out of the car and Ward will assume the driver role in the #65 car for the weekend. That is the only incident in practice so far as all of the cars except the #86 of Andrew Gordon have taken laps. I've not seen or heard any lap times yet but will update if I do.

10:50 a.m. UPDATE - The first practice session for today has concluded. Practice times should be published from USARacing soon. Clay Rogers was one of the last cars to make any laps this morning, but that is not unusual for that team and driver.

Rockingham Speedway is going to be placing photos from today on their FaceBook page - http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/RockinghamSpeed

Speed51 is here and will be providing live coverage vie their Trackside Now coverage (http://www.speed51.com/2010_Stories/A..._5-14.html)

We are also uploading photos from the track today and they can be found here - http://usarfans.smugmug.com/2010-Seas...1998_rqLKL

USARacing is also updating their FaceBook page with updates today - http://www.facebook.com/pages/USARaci...482?ref=ts

Practice Speeds below:

By Lou Lauer, USARfans.com

The series rolls into the sand hills region of North Carolina this weekend and will take on biggest and fastest track on the schedule - Rockingham Speedway!
This will be only the third time that the Pro Cup Series has raced on the well-known track. The speedway held it's first race in 1965. After hosting 78 NASCAR races, the 2004 season saw the last NASCAR race at the track before it was closed as the owners moved races to other venues. Eventually it was sold and has been given a second chance at life and in 2008 it was re-opened for racing. It's a challenging track for Pro Cup veterans and also attracts younger drivers who don't normally run with the USARacing Series full-time but want to add "big track" experience to their resume. A couple of those new names (Chase Elliott and Johanna Long) are slated to attempt their first Pro Cup race this weekend.
This weekend there will be two other racing series competing at the track in support of the Pro Cup race and providing more great value for racefans. The ASA Late Model Series will run a 100 lap race on Friday at 4:30 p.m. On Saturday the UARA Series will hold a 75 lap event at 11 a.m. with the Pro Cup Series 200 lap feature event taking the green flag at 1 p.m. The Carolina 200 presented by Black's Tire and Auto Service raceday program will provide you with all the times so you don't miss a thing!

After spending the day driving yesterday, we've got some catching up to do today. We'll be working on getting photos online, calculating fantasy league results, and perhaps even offering opinions and race report, even thought it's well know already. Check back throughout the day.

12:30 PM - fantasy league results done. Click the logo on the right column to see how you did!

8 PM - getting stats database setup for new season is taking longer than expected so photos and other things didn't get done yet.

Good morning! It's finally here after the usual miserable off-season - the first race of the year. Teams will enter the pits at 10 am today to begin final preparations for the Racing Electronics 250. I expect one of two more cars to arrive this morning to add to the current field of 19 on hand.

The weather is very crisp and windy, more like football weather than race weather, but the skies are clear and there is no threat of rain interrupting the event.

The track looked fast yesterday, with most cars running the low groove, which is pretty normal during practice where most teams are trying to work on performance and aren't concerned with the race groove quite yet. With lots of grip from the new surface, the groove will surely be available to use in tonight race if drivers choose.

We're heading to the pits soon and will try to have a few comments here and there during the day. The track website is covering the race with a live webcast and I think that http://RacetalkRadio.com might be here to do a live Internet radio cast, but I can't confirm that yet, so you will have several good choices for race coverage!