Cody Darrah, the youngster from Pennsylvania who was all set for his rookie campaign with the World of Outlaws behind the wheel of one of the Kasey Kahne Motorsports sprinters before a highway accident in Volusia County broke his femur in February, returned in grand style on Halloween weekend by winning the winged sprint feature at Hagerstown, Maryland. It was Darrah’s first race since his injury. During that same weekend Brad Sweet wheeled one of Kahne’s cars to the $15,000 Short Track Nationals victory at I-30 Speedway in Little Rock. It will be interesting to see if Darrah gets a mulligan on that rookie campaign with Kahne in 2011.
If you are a Modified fan mark your calendar for April 6th, 7th, 8th and 9th as the Deer Creek Speedway near Racine, Minnesota, will stage the $20,000-to-win “World Modified Dirt Track Championship”. The event will run under USMTS rules, but will not be one of the series point races. Drivers can choose to qualify on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday night and if they pay an extra entry fee they can purchase a “mulligan” that will allow them to throw out their first night and try again on Thursday or Friday. Interesting concept, now we just need to have some favorable spring weather in southeast Minnesota!
If you haven’t listened to Dewain Hulett’s CFF Racing Show found at the Tri-State Speed Review lately you have missed out on one of the juicier off-season side stories in some time. Rumors hit the street, and of course the message boards a few weeks back indicating that eight tracks were going to switch from IMCA sanctioning to USRA sanctioning. Kudos to Hulett for going straight to the folks who were at the center of the rumored scenario and getting them to go on the record while asking some tough questions. The result was two different versions of the tale, but at this point it appears that those eight tracks will remain with IMCA for some time to come. Listening to these interviews is quite intriguing and I have enjoyed the different conclusions that “forum posters” have come to even though they are hearing the exact same thing showing how a certain bias can sway you one way or another. One thing is for certain though, if not for these interviews, that original forum post that talked about the rumors would be 20 or 30 pages long by now. Funny how facts can get in the way of a good forum post, isn’t it?
Southeast Iowa hobby stock driver Tanner Thomann was the co-host with Hulett on these shows and Thomann is unique in the fact that he is the only driver from that division in this area that has openly expressed his support for a move to the IMCA sanctioning of Hobby Stocks at 34 Raceway and Lee County. The interesting note here is that Thomann is not some back marker wanting to even out the playing field; he is a track champion. We’ll see if that idea gets any traction around here, I know that northeast Iowa driver Steve Holthaus would support Thomann by telling his story of how he went from thinking that 9:1 motors were the dumbest idea ever, to how he feels today after making the change.
Did you know that for the past forty-three days it has only rained on three of those days here in southeast Iowa? Of course two of those were the weekend that we tried to run Shiverfest at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson. That makes two years in a row that Mother Nature has picked up all five “feature wins”, do you think she is trying to tell us something?
I talked to my buddy “Herb” today and he wondered when my son Morgan was going to update his Open Wheel News and Notes blog again. Well Herbie, not only is Mo busy with school, but he has something else distracting him as well.
I can’t say that I blame him for not finding the time to post a new blog entry!
There will be a couple of changes at Positively Racing for 2011. The first will be on the Calendar where we will try to expand the Special Events schedule to include all events at tracks in Iowa and all of the states that border the Hawkeye state. We will do our best to keep up with changes, additions and subtractions on the Specials calendar as the season plays out as I have heard from several people this past year that they actually found a mid-week event by accessing our calendar. On the Weekly calendar we will now only list those tracks that are included in the All Iowa Points. The other change is that we will no longer tabulate the All Missouri Points in 2011. I know that there are several drivers, especially in the B-Mod ranks, who have paid close attention to the Missouri standings again this year, but looking at the page view statistics for the site we are just not getting enough looks to justify the time that goes in to tabulating the points. There is one more points-paying event on the schedule, at the Springfield Raceway on Thanksgiving weekend, and after that we will post the final points for about a month before taking them down. If anybody in the Show-Me state is interested in picking up the ball and keeping the points alive in 2011 let me know and I will be happy to share the spreadsheets with you.
Speaking of Missouri, The Racin’ Boys will debut a new weekly internet audio program tonight, November 8th, as Kirk Elliott will host the KC Race Report. This show will focus on tracks right around the Kansas City metro area and was developed after it was noted that perhaps their Track Talk show that runs on Sports Radio 810 WHB every Saturday morning had become more national in scale.
I'm getting closer to completing the first year (2000) of my research to close the gap of when I did not compile the All Iowa Points. Here are the top ten in each division through August 23, 2000. We will have the full rundown on the Points page at Positively Racing once I get through the remaining weeks of that 2000 season.
Late Models
1 Gary Webb Blue Grass 189
2 Steve Boley West Liberty 133
3 Jeff Aikey Cedar Falls 116
4 Darrel DeFrance Marshalltown 105
5 Joe Kosiski Omaha NE 105
6 Mark Burgtorf Quincy IL 101
7 Mike Smith Jewell 99
8 Kyle Berck Marquette NE 97
9 Rick Wages Moline IL 96
10 Chris Smyser Lancaster MO 87
Modifieds
1 Ron Barker Dubuque 137
2 Ricky Stephan South Sioux City NE 115
3 Rich Lewerke Garner 113
4 Bob Dominacki Bettendorf 101
5 Adam Larson Ames 96
6 John Logue Boone 93
7 Dave Farren Des Moines 92
8 Rich Smith Davenport 92
9 Kevin Pittman Waterloo 88
10 Al Hejna Ventura 87
11 Jeff Walker Davenport 87
Pro Stocks/Limited Late Models
1 Jeremiah Hurst Dubuque 87
2 Tom Hanson Vinton 87
3 John Anderson Omaha NE 62
4 Bobby Sexton West Branch 58
5 Dan Helm Milan IL 55
6 Jeff Tharp Dubuque 55
7 Lloyd Nabb Maquoketa 53
8 Roger Ciesielski Waterloo 53
9 Don Erger Brandon 52
10 Jeff Fallon Elkhorn NE 50
11 Kyle Berck Marquette NE 50
12 Leon Zeitner Omaha NE 50
Stock Cars
1 Jeff Anderson Atlantic 226
2 Brian Blessington Breda 140
3 Dana Wells Moscow 130
4 Scott Bloemke Belmond 120
5 Scott Carlson Council Bluffs 104
6 Steve Jackson Des Moines 93
7 Kevin Bidne Decorah 85
8 Brian Bushong Colona IL 81
9 Ed Anderson Marshalltown 81
10 Mark Elliott Webster City 81
Hobby Stocks
1 Randy Embrey Granger 131
2 Brian Schmitt Wall Lake 115
3 Damon Murty Chelsea 108
4 Dan Hanselman Algona 102
5 John Davis Altoona 98
6 Ryan Griffith Webster City 92
7 Jeff Zehr Manson 90
8 Kris Walker Oskaloosa 90
9 Terry Shaffer State Center 87
10 Earl Webner Garner 85
Limited Modifieds
1 Larry Cook Fort Dodge 127
2 Alex Webner Garner 69
3 Ed Green Garner 64
4 Ryan Ruter Kanawha 58
5 Gary Dreyer Fowler IL 57
6 Brian Wendel Clarence 56
7 Lance Gardner Garner 55
8 Brad Willier Mason City 52
9 Jared Boumeester Waseca MN 44
10 Mike Meyer New Richland MN 44
410 Sprints
1 Terry McCarl Altoona 103
2 Jeff Mitrisin Oskaloosa 41
3 Danny Lasoski Dover MO 38
4 Steve Kinser Bloomington IN 37
5 Don Droud Jr. Lincoln NE 36
6 Sammy Swindell Bartlett TN 30
7 Mark Kinser Bloomington IN 29
8 Chad Radel Sioux Falls SD 20
9 Matt Moro Des Moines 20
10 Craig Dollansky Elk River MN 19
360 Sprints
1 Jake Peters Sioux Falls SD 60
2 Tim St. Arnold Des Moines 53
3 Gordy Vogelaar Worthington MN 50
4 Ryan Jamison Mediapolis 49
5 Dusty Ballanger Harrisburg SD 41
6 Tyson Hart Monmouth IL 40
7 Justin Henderson Sioux Falls SD 39
8 Matt Spies Spirit Lake 35
9 Chad Meyer Sioux Falls SD 34
10 David Hesmer Marshalltown 34
That’s it for now, enjoy your week and as I look out the window it sure looks like nice weather for some racing!
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