The Back Stretch 2012 Season Wrap Up

As a race fan I love living in southeast Iowa as it gives me the opportunity to go to a bunch of races each season without having to travel too extensively. Not that I don’t travel a bit as well since one of things I love to do is to visit tracks for the first time and, to do so, I now have to go farther and farther away from my Mount Pleasant home.

During this 2012 racing season I went to fifty-five nights of racing at twenty-three different tracks located in seven different states. My season started on March 31^st at I-55 Raceway in Pevely, Missouri, and ended on November 17^th at the Springfield Raceway in Springfield, Missouri. As usual I spent the most nights, twelve, at the world famous Knoxville Raceway, but just one race night behind in second this year was the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. Wednesday nights are usually open for me to go racing without interfering with any of my wife’s plans and with Osky opening up in early April again I was up there five times before the month of May ended. 34 Raceway near Burlington was next in line with five nights, I went to Quincy and Donnellson three nights each and two nights were spent at West Liberty, Vinton and Tipton.

I made one race night at each of the following: I-55, Dubuque, Marshalltown, Spoon River, East Moline, Creek County Oklahoma, Belleville Illinois, Independence, Lucas Oil Speedway near Indianapolis, Davenport, Lakeside, Memphis Missouri and Springfield. My only two “new” tracks this year were the Salina Speedway in Kansas where I saw the ASCS National Tour and Perris Auto Speedway in Califronia where I saw the USAC/CRA Sprint Cars. Other touring series that I had the chance to see this year was the Deery Brothers Summer Series six times, the Sprint Invaders five times, the UMP Summer Nationals three times, twice each for the Hawkeye Dirt Tour and the MOWA Sprints and one time for the World of Outlaw Sprints, the ASCS Sooner Region Sprints, the USAC Silver Crown and Midgets, the All Star Sprints, the MLRA Late Models and the Lucas Oil Late Models.

I posted blog entries on just about every race that I attended this year so if you are interested go ahead and pick through the 2012 titles to see what I had to say about your track. There were a couple of stinkers along the way, but the season was a good one for the most part and I would have to place the following in my “Top Five for 2012”.

Double features were on the card at Oskaloosa onJune 6th and the racing action was good throughout, plus Modifieddriver Brandon Banks stole the show in support of young boy who is fighting arare condition.

I love going to the Dubuque Speedway and when theDeery Brothers Summer Series comes to town the racing always seems to beexcellent and April 22nd it was Darrel DeFrance returning to victorylane.

The Deery Brothers Summer Series stop at theIndependence Motor Speedway on July 2nd featured a classic battlebetween two of the Midwest’s best Late Model drivers over the past twenty years.

I have been to the Knoxville Nationals thirty-fourtimes and I can honestly say that I would have never ranked the Friday nightshow in my top five races of any season until this year. The new formatdefinitely was a success!

If it wouldn’t have been rainy and cold I would haveinstead been at a race much closer to home on October 19th. An earlycancellation and the fact that I hadn’t been to a race in three weeks sent meon a nine hour road trip to Lakeside for a fantastic night of racing.

Usually I use this season wrap up column to complain a bit about some of the things that I didn’t like along the way. Instead I am going to be lazy and refer you to an excellent entry by Dave Moody who pretty much sums up the thoughts of many race fans, including me.

You will continue to see the state Late Model points being posted until I get that project wrapped up, then it will be time to start compiling all of those 2013 race schedules that have already been released. Here's wishing all of you a very joyous Christmas season!