Welcome Readers of "Flat Out" Magazine!!

Barry and I were thrilled to stumble across our names on page 80 of the December issue of "Flat Out" magazine this week as editor Justin Zoch gave PositivelyRacing.com a nice mention in his "You May Have Missed It....." section. If you are a reader of "Flat Out" and you are clicking on the Back Stretch right now you are probably wondering why in the heck J.Z. sent you to a site that is not exclusive to open wheel racing! For sprint car coverage here on the Back Stretch scroll down to the Blog Archive area on the left side and click on August. There you will find a story on the Sprint Invader event held at the West Liberty Raceway late in the month (the Invaders are also featured in the December issue of "Flat Out" with a nice article written by the series announcer Bill Wright), and you will find a bunch of coverage from both the 360 and 410 Nationals at Knoxville as well as a couple of nights in Oskaloosa. From the July archives you will find a report on a great Midget show at U.S. 36 Speedway in Osborn, Missouri, as well as a write-up on Joey Saldana's World of Outlaws win at 34 Raceway. The June archives start out with the ASCS National Tour event at the Lake Ozark Speedway and the first story that you will find when you click on May is from Knoxville's midget show. Two more stories from Knoxville are in the May archives and if you go back to March you'll see a report from the 360 Sprints and Midgets at Springfield, Missouri. While you are at it, make sure and check out Barry Johnson's "Running The High Side" archives for even more sprint car news and photos from this past season. Yes "open wheel only" fans, you will have to sort your way through a lot of stories on "taxi cabs" here at PositivelyRacing.com to find what you are interested in, but we do hope that you will check back in often going forward!

Now, for those of you who have never read or do not subscribe to "Flat Out" magazine it is now my turn to try to get some of you to take a look at the best magazine on the market featuring open wheel racing. In each issue, from page one to the back cover, it is obvious that editor Justin Zoch and his entire staff are extremely passionate and knowledgeable about the sport and when you sit down to read the magazine you can't help but to start planning your next trip to the sprint car or midget races. I especially enjoy the no-holds-barred writing style of Rob McCuen and not just because he and I grew up in the same hometown of Mount Pleasant, Iowa, riding our bikes around the big half-mile dirt oval at McMillan Park acting like we were Jerry Blundy (in Rob's case) or Mel Morris (in my mind) beating our competition like a drum. Sadly that half-mile is now gone with only a few hundred feet of the frontstretch remaining where antique steam tractors parade daily during the Labor Day weekend at the annual Old Threshers Reunion, but back to the magazine! If you enjoy open wheel racing you really need to subscribe to "Flat Out" and you can take that step by visiting their website at http://www.threewidemedia.com/

For those of you who enjoy dirt track racing in and around Iowa in general you need to check out Kevin Babcock's "Chasin Racin" site at http://chasinracin.homestead.com/index.html There are a bunch of great snapshots of cars from all around the Midwest (see how many you can identify) and Kevin has some great statistics on there as well. I found the "Iowa Numbers" page particularly interesting as it shows just how many rainouts each track suffered through during this past season. Kevin now has thirteen seasons where he has attended at least one hundred nights of racing! Take a look at his efforts and enjoy.

A couple of blogs back I mentioned that 34 Raceway in Burlington announced that the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series would be making its first-ever appearance at the speedplant in May of 2010, but I didn't have the exact date. This race will take place on Friday night May 21st. In fact the full 2010 schedule for the series has been released at http://www.lucasdirt.com/ and not without a bit of controversy regarding what is on the schedule the week following the race at 34. For the past few years the series has run "The Diamond of the Dirt Nationals" at the Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Missouri, in mid-May, but on the 2010 schedule it is listed for Memorial Day weekend, the same weekend that the Show Me 100 has been run at the West Plains Speedway. As also mentioned in that blog from a week or two ago, the Show Me became a part of the Lucas Oil Series last year at the last minute and apparently series officials thought that they had a deal worked out where the event would now be moved to the Lucas home track in Wheatland. However, West Plains Speedway owners Don and Billie Gibson have come out this past week and stated that they would have the Show Me 100 penciled in on their 2010 schedule despite the fact that the Lucas Series is scheduled just 175 miles up the road in Wheatland. Reports state that the two parties are discussing the situation and it will be interesting to see how that discussion plays out.

Good luck to Todd Staley and his crew as they run this Saturday night October 31st at the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa and then again on November 6th & 7th at the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri. Hopefully the weather treats him better than every other October show here in Iowa this year!!! The Memphis show will be the final All Iowa Points event of 2009 while Springfield's Turkey Classic will wrap up the All Missouri Points season. Check back often during the offseason as we'll try to keep you up-to-date on news and notes from racing as well as provide you with some feature stories on area drivers.