From the MARS roster I would look for Brian Shirley, Justin Wells, David Turner, Jesse Stovall, Tony Jackson Jr., Dustin Walker and Brandon Morton. The ALMS drivers I would expect would be Jason Jaggers, Billy Drake, Kevin Weaver, Rich Bell, Ryan Unzicker and depending upon the status of races originally scheduled east of here perhaps even some of the East Region ALMS competitors like Brian Ruhlman and Jon Henry may make the trip over if they have no place to run. The Corn Belt Clash will be well represented by current point leader Terry Phillips (although he might be considered more of a MARS point chaser), Chris and Chad Simpson, Dave Eckrich, Justin Mitchell, Jake Meier and Tim Isenberg. The Burlington Hawk Eye has reported that Tyler Reddick and Ray Guss Jr. will also be in action, plus add in Late Model drivers who are just looking for a place to race this weekend and the pit area should be full.
Both tracks are going the extra mile to put on a show this weekend and I hope that you, the race fans will get out and support them!
While making my regular stop at Ron Meyer's The Rest of the Dirt blog this week I noticed that he had a link to a story by Charlotte based motorsports writer John Close titled NDRL A Reminder That There Is More To Racing Than NASCAR. At first glance I was thrilled that dirt track racing was getting some pub from someone who primarily only writes about the "big leagues", but as I read further it became obvious that it was written by someone who did not actually attend either NDRL show and who was perhaps using this to just bag on NASCAR. He makes a comparison to "start and parkers" yet at Paducah it was reported elsewhere that only 10 of the 24 starters finished the race due to rough track conditions caused by the miserable spring weather. So that point kind of misses home. Then he writes "another full house at Federated Speedway" watched the Saturday night show while the guys from Dirt on Dirt had a discussion this week as to why the crowd count was so low in Pevely.
Close writes "These comparisons are made not to discredit NASCAR, but rather to remind race fans that there’s a lot more to America’s auto racing landscape than what they see on television each weekend." Well I'm not so sure about the first part of that statement, but amen to rest of it!
There is another interesting scenario playing out here in Iowa right now and that is the effect of the demise of the Who?Who Forum boards. I have had several conversations with racing friends and we all felt the same that without this board a lot of race tracks may suffer for awhile until they figure out a new way to get the information out to the race fans. A perfect example of this right now is the scheduled April 28th Shootout at Knoxville featuring the Modifieds, Stock Cars, Sport Mods and Hobby Stocks. Last year this event gained a ton of momentum from discussions and debates on the Who?Won forums and most race fans knew what was going on. Unfortunately Mother Nature forced multiple postponements until the event was finally run in June. This year the event was put on the Knoxville Raceway schedule once again and as we are just eight days away from this show the number of pre-entries is surprisingly low. One of the reasons? Nobody was talking about it on a forum until it was brought up this week on Iowa Stock Cars and fans who do not actually go to the track's website would not have even known about it otherwise. ISC has prided itself on being the information place for eastern Iowa racing, but here's hoping that their reach gradually grows to the west to take care of the whole state.
I still have some people who believe that I am "anti-forum" and that is absolutely not true. I am totally against AWP's (anonymous weasel posters, Craig Kelley's term, not mine) and if a forum is properly moderated, as is Iowa Stock Cars, then it can be a great source of information and entertainment as well. For instance I had to chuckle when one of the biggest cheerleaders of the Shoot Out at Knoxville last year on the Who?Won forum made his first comment on this year's race stating "Knoxville only cares about Sprint Cars." But yet this event was still included on this year's schedule.
My friend Randy Foor stopped by the office this week and dropped off another disc with several old racing photos from West Liberty and Columbus Junction. A couple of them are below and if you want to see more visit the PositivelyRacing.com page on Facebook. Hope to see you at either Burlington, Quincy or both!
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