Roby Helm, whose Helm Communications promoted the street stock and modified portions of the Winter Freeze XIII, wants racers to know he won’t tolerate altering tires. That’s why Cameron Holloway, of Sumter, South Carolina, saw his win taken away at the event held at Screven Motor Speedway in Sylvania, Georgia.
“It was the first race under my sanction,” Helm, who manages Helm Communications, of Etowah, Tennessee, said. “The drivers learned that the rules would be absolutely enforced the way they are written. We had 22 cars in the pits and the message was sent — the rules are the rules.”
Holloway, who crossed the finish line first, found his tires protested by the second-place finisher Roger McKenzie, of Swainsboro, Georgia.
“Tire samples can be made at the discretion of the technical director, and a competitor finishing in the top five may protest the tire of a competitor finishing in front of them,” said Helm. “Roger told us from past experience he knew something was wrong with Cameron’s tires. He took $300 out of his pocket and protested the race. We took samples of all four tires on Holloway’s car. They were tagged, marked and sent overnight from Statesboro [Georgia] on Saturday to the Blue Ridge Race Lab in Lenoir, North Carolina.”
On Wednesday, Helm received the results of the test.
“The tires on Holloway’s car did not meet the benchmark of the Hoosier H500 tires,” Helm said. “There were chemicals detected in the tires that were not there when the tire was built. It was a chemical not permitted to be in that tire for competition in our series.”
Roby Helm said he’s hoping to line up more dates for street stocks and modifieds, with sponsorship from Vaden Chevrolet in Savannah, Georgia. He hopes that the situation during the Winter Freeze sends a clear message on what to expect from events he promotes.
“Other non-sanctioned tracks and some sanctioned series don’t enforce their rules,” said Helm. “We let the racers know from the get-go that we play by the rules. Our racing is fair.”
Holloway did not return our requests for comment. Helm called Holloway when he received the results of the test.
“Cameron didn’t say much — he shrugged it off,” Helm said. “But, he did ask if it was okay if he used the photo in front of the victory lane sign anyway.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
