Congratulations to the 2014 All Iowa Points Champions! If you landed here, but you were looking for the story on this year's champs just scroll down to the next entry or click here.
The World Finals get underway tonight with two rounds of qualifying at the Dirt Track in Charlotte, then on Friday and Saturday there will be full programs each night of the World of Outlaws Sprint Cars and Late Models along with the DIRT Modifieds. If you are looking for top notch pay-per-view coverage of the event I suggest you visit my friends at Dirt On Dirt.
I went to the first two versions of this event and while the inaugural offering was spectacular I felt that the second running was a let down as, in my opinion, the live TV coverage at the time dictated the schedule and eliminated the additional track prep that was needed to improve the racing. Even without extra track work that second year the races lasted until about midnight, and that was before the big block Modifieds were added to the card. Perhaps my expectations were set too high following that first year as I have not been tempted to invest the money to make the trip since, but it is good to know that I can still watch it live (at a much smaller investment) should I choose to do so.
I am more of a Jeff Gordon fan than I am a Brad Keselowski fan, but as I watched the replay of their contact at Texas it looked to me like Gordon flared out and then moved back down the race track as "Bad Brad" tried to shoot the gap. Would any punches have been thrown if Kevin Harvick had not have played the role of the playground bully who just wanted to move things along a bit? If things are this heated now, wait until Homestead when teammates of the "final four" (yea, I know that it is trademarked by the NCAA, but I didn't capitalize the F's) will have every opportunity to play a significant role in who wins the championship and, more importantly, who doesn't......and it should be one of the most watched races ever, perhaps even bigger than the Daytona 500. Just what NASCAR wanted......or did they?
Schedules, schedules, schedules. I cannot believe how many 2015 schedules have already been released before the first full weekend of November! Knoxville, Marshalltown, Raceway Park, Davenport and Park Jefferson have all released their full schedule for next year and, of course, each one of them state that they are tentative and subject to change, but still it is nice to start filling in the calendar already for next year. Along with the Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series schedule and a couple of other tracks in states surrounding Iowa I already have 62 events on the Specials schedule that will go up soon on the Calendar page at PositivelyRacing. However, if you went to that page now you would find that we still have one more event in our area for 2014 and that is the annual Turkey Bowl at the Springfield Raceway on Saturday, November 22nd featuring Late Models, Modifieds and B-Modifieds. Both Barry Johnson and I plan on attending and we look forward to providing some PR.com coverage just as we did when we were at Turkey Bowl VI two years ago. Hope to see you there!
Springfield snuck a race in on us last weekend with the Prelude to the Turkey Bowl on November 1st and it drew in some cars and drivers from "up north". Dylan Hoover of Vandalia, Missouri, paced the early laps of the Modified feature before he slipped off the top of turn three and that allowed Mexico, Missouri, driver Robbie Reed to take over the top spot. Scott Crigler would make a run at Reed on the final lap with the two cars making some contact in turns three and four, but Reed held his line and edged out Crigler for the victory. Jesse Stovall dominated the Late Model feature while Iowa drivers Randy Foote and Sterling Perkins finished sixth and eighth respectively.
I spoke with Bill Wright, the Public Relations Director for the new National Sprint League last week and he told me that the response from promoters has been fantastic. They might even end up with more tracks wanting races than what they had intended to schedule in the first year! I won't mention any of the possibilities that the NSL has not already publicized, but as I have said before I am very excited to see how this schedule takes shape over the next five months. The series has already announced specific dates for Knoxville and Eagle while both Marshalltown and Park Jefferson included NSL dates on their 2015 schedules. Other tracks that the NSL has hinted at so far on their Facebook page include Jackson, Husets, I-80 and Cedar Lake.
Okay, so that's it for me today. I think that I will watch me some Sugar by Karmin one more time and then get back to work. Such a simple video, why am I so mesmerized? :)
Enjoy the end of your week!
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