Attended the Jan. 18 opening-day activities at Lenny Sammons’ big Motorsports ’08 Race Car Show in Convention Hall here and was impressed. Despite spectacular competition from huge, lavish and deluxe casinos and swanky hotels, the car show attracted more people and, no doubt, more booths than last-year’s relocated from Pennsy revival. But attending isn’t cheap. Convention Hall parking (nowhere else to park!) is a flat $10 for up to nine hours; the old and once inexpensive hot dog has been replaced by a $7 “sausage sandwich” and what used to pass for a Coke, is now a tall $2 hand-drawn cup of soda by a tip-seeking staff bartender at the Hall’s huge food court bar. Show general admission was $15 daily. Booths reminded one of the Performance Racing Industry Show exhibitors, as every possible speed and performance-enhancing part extant was available for purchase. Is nothing home-made any more?

Traversing the aisles of the show we encountered Doug Wolfgang, busy in Dave Argabright’s booth signing copies of his “Lone Wolf” book. I asked Wolfgang what the biggest first-place payoff was. His quick reply: “I won six $50,000-to-win events,” to which he added, “while driving home the next day from one of those I heard on the radio that Cale Yarborough had won some $50,000 the day before in a NASCAR race that took over three hours to win. I made my $50,000 in 18 minutes.” An engaging guy is Doug Wolfgang.

New York City’s real estate pages reveal tenants in the city’s most expensive condominium building at 15 Central Park West include racing driver Jeff Gordon and sportscaster Bob Costas. Prices for one-bedroom suites in the building, say the press, range between $875,000 and $2.24 million.
  
Father-daughter knockout! Starting Feb. 12 celebrated racing businessman Humpy Wheeler and his TV-savvy daughter Patti Wheeler will combine to star and produce their own TV show on Speed. Plans are to attract noteworthy guests involved in motorsports, with Kurt Busch and Buddy Baker scheduled for the debut show.

It’s official. The much cussed and discussed drag strip planned behind the Dirt Track on Lowe’s Motor Speedway property in Concord, N.C., will now go forward, say track officials, with the starting line sited near Speedway Boulevard which will soon become Bruton Smith Blvd.

Over the years designers of the automobile engine — gasoline-fueled using the spark ignition method pioneered by August Otto and self-igniting engines invented by Rudolf Diesel — have loudly extolled the virtues of their particular versions. Now it appears a combined gasoline-diesel unit is being developed, one that would take advantage of the best features of each. The demand for reduced emissions has spurred interest in what is known as the Homogenous Charge Compression Ignition (HCCI) engine, which is now being developed by Volkswagen. Far from a reality, designers are, however, encouraged by their developmental steps. One can assume that when a workable unit is produced, it will get a tryout in a racing car. Question: Should I sell my spark plug company stocks?

For New Yorkers interested in the Daytona 500 let it be known that Delta Airlines has a one-way LaGuardia-Daytona fare of $89 for tickets purchased by Jan. 28 on Delta.com.

In Charlotte, motorsport construction is booming as the planned NASCAR Hall of Fame building is under way and, as of last week, the skeleton for the 20-story NASCAR Plaza, situated next door.  The 200,000-square-foot structure has will open in March 2009, a year earlier than initially planned.

Not so Peppy. The nationwide chain of auto parts and service shops known as Pep Boys reported a business downturn for the third straight quarter leading to an announcement it will close 31 stores and cut 550 jobs.

Sadly, we learn of the passing of Guiseppi (Joe) Mattera, age 96, in St. Petersburg, Fla., where he and Fran, his wife of 72 years, lived in retirement. Back in 1953, Mattera purchased a midget racing car when living in eastern Pennsylvania. He traded it for a big car in 1955 in which he installed a Ford engine, a then rarity. Mattera became a regular on the Eastern big car circuits driving his Ford-engined Deer Lake Spl. and an always gracious host at the Deer Lake Inn which he and Fran owned and ran in Deer Lake, Pa., until their 1973 retirement. Generations later, race-series regulars still recall with enthusiasm the famous sandwiches the Matteras brought to race tracks for family and friends.

Roger Penske’s Penske Automotive Group winning the U.S. sales rights for the Daimler-built SmartForTwo car is paying off handsomely. According to Daimler AG head man Dieter Zetsche, more that 30,000 Americans have put down $99 deposits on the tiny two-seater with 1-liter engine that gets up to 45 mpg. The demand, says Zetsche, exceeds supply.

Britain’s newest race-driving star, Lewis Hamilton, is now a pedestrian when in France. Caught speeding at 123 mph in his Mercedes near Leon, Hamilton’s driving license was suspended for a month, and he can no longer drive on French territory.

A few columns back it was noted F-1’s famed Bernie Ecclestone had sold off part of his elaborate classic car collection. We now learn that the Oct. 31 RM Auction House at London’s Battersea Park generated more than $20 million for Bernie, the sale highlight being a pre-war Mercedes-Benz 540k roadster for which an anxious buyer paid 3.55 million British pounds, somewhat over $7 million U.S. None of the cars Bernie sold were racing cars, as he told the press he “needed the room” to augment his racing car collection as he would henceforth concentrate on adding front-engine Formula One cars to his garage.  

Bye-bye Bob. Bob Cutter, a former Long Island newsman with an above-average interest in auto racing, died last week in Connecticut. He was 77. For a spell in the 1970s, Cutter edited copy for this newspaper.