Drive for Diversity Combine moving from South Boston to Motor Mile

South Boston Speedway Late Model Series driver Laura Hayes will participate in the Drive for Diversity Combine for the second consecutive year, even though the combine is moving from SoBo to Motor Mile Speedway in Radford.

“It’s going to be fun being at another track,” Hayes said. “I’ve only been at South Boston this year, so, I’ll be taking my South Boston Speedway skills and putting them to use at Motor Mile and hopefully have a good run and turn some heads at the combine and be in the 2010 Drive for Diversity lineup.”

There are 29 drivers competing for 10 spots on the D4D roster. Six of those drivers will compete in the Late Model Stock Car division of the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series and four will be in the NASCAR Camping World Series. NASCAR has not released where any of the six Late Model cars — all fielded by the same team, The 909 Group — will be competing in 2010.

The combine begins today with the drivers being at Lowe’s Motor Speedway in Concord, N.C., for the weekend’s racing action and the on-track experience will take place at Motor Mile on Monday and Tuesday.

“I think that the changes that they’ve made this year are going to benefit the drivers. It’s going to be more of an academy-style approach, more of a driver development program,” Hayes said. “This year, everybody’s going to be running under the same roof — in identical equipment — out of Charlotte. We’ll see how it goes.”

The 10 teams will be based out of Charlotte and gives the drivers more of a feel of how it’s like as if they were in one of the three national touring series (Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Camping World Truck Series). Hayes mentioned that the combine will allow the development drivers to gain more media training, more on-track testing and more time in the shop working on the cars.

In her first season racing at SoBo, Hayes finished 10th in points after recording four top-10 finishes. The new format should give her a week-in, week-out mentor, something she really never had in her time at SoBo.

“We ended up 10th in points, which isn’t too bad for your first season at South Boston,” Hayes said. “It’s a tough track, and I’m glad I had the opportunity of racing there this year, but we had our ups and downs. I think we came a long ways from the beginning to the end of the season, and I learned a lot as a driver and grew a lot as a driver. I’m a competitive person, and I wish we had finished a little better in the points, but I’ll take a top 10, and we’ll see what’s going on next year after the combine.”

w Sordelett is a staff writer for the Danville Register & Bee.