Happy New Year! Here it is only the ninth day of the year and we already have race results to comment on as well as some big events coming up this weekend. The "off season" has really been minimized over the past few years!
Super Late Models ran for $4,000-to-win on New Years Day at 411 Speedway in Seymour, Tennessee, and not only did a full field of 46 cars show up on a chilly, but a big crowd also bundled up and came out to watch on the biggest day for college football in years. Dawsonville, Georgia, driver Donald McIntosh went flag-to-flag for the win while the racing behind him was pretty entertaining. McIntosh has been racing and winning weekly shows at the Dixie Speedway just north of Atlanta for the past couple of years, but now that he has teamed up with Blount Motorsports you might want to keep his name in mind for more regional and national level shows.
Paul McMahan, Kyle Larson and sixty-year-old Steve Kinser have taken wins on the first three nights of Winter Heat out in Arizona. If you click on the links you will be able to watch highlights from each driver's victory. This is the inaugural event and while the car count in the low thirties may be a little less than some expected, the caliber of talent is definitely solid. It is hard to tell from the videos, but it does look like the stands are a bit sparse so hopefully between those tickets sold and any cut of the pay-per-view fee by SpeedSportTV this event will make enough to return in 2016 and beyond as it is definitely a trip that I would like to make someday. You can watch the final races this weekend on PPV.
The last two Januarys I have made the trip to Tucson for the Wild West Shootout and as I sit here in the frigid cold I am wondering why it is that I am not out there again! Oh yeah, that's right, my lovely bride has convinced me that all of our travel and entertainment budget must be dedicated to our first ever visit to Italy this summer. So instead I will be checking in with Dirt On Dirt beginning on Saturday for this event that draws an interesting mix of both Late Models and Modifieds. Iowans Chris Simpson and Ryan Gustin are slated to compete in the Late Model division as Gustin will try to repeat his success from last year when he captured the $10,000 finale, why Brad Dierks and Jesse Sobbing are on the long list of Modified drivers expected to compete. Dirt on Dirt is offering free video of practice tonight before six nights of pay-per-view action through Sunday the 18th.
For those of you who really want to sit in front of the computer and watch live racing all weekend you can login to SpeedShiftTV beginning at 4:00 p.m. Central today and start watching the Ice Bowl from the Talladega Short Track. Saturday and Sunday's shows are day races so you could watch them during the ay and then switch over to your choice of the Winter Heat Sprint Cars or the Wild West Late Models and Mods that night.
If you are a regular reader of the Back Stretch you may be surprised to see that I am essentially "promoting" live pay-per-view broadcasts as I have stated in the past that I do not believe that these are healthy for our sport. I have noticed that the cost of these PPV's have risen significantly which tells me that the tracks are now getting a fair amount of the revenue from each subscriber and, if they are not, well they are being sold a false bill of goods. However I still cringe at the prospect that we may eventually have races that have only friends and familes in the grandstands while "race fans" sit at home and watch on the computer. How can that happen? The Ice Bowl is a perfect example. For a total of $50 I can watch all thee days in climate conrolled comfort from a comfortable chair. Contrast that to the five times that I have driven from Iowa to Alabama for this event spending money on fuel, hotels and admission to, at times, freeze my butt off while sitting on the concrete block grandstand. Fifty dollars or five hundered dollars. Sure the computer can't beat actually being there, but that $450 difference in expense and the 24 hours of drive time makes the choice pretty obvious and empty grandstands are not good for the sport.
Ducks or Bucks? Who are you picking in Monday night's Championship game? Oregon looked like a machine in the Rose Bowl and made Florida State look like they didn't belong in the "First Four". Wrong! The Seminoles belonged, they just had the misfortune of having to play Oregon first.
Oregon 51 Ohio State 24
(Tuesday morning update....well that went completely different than I expected! This is the reason that I am not a gambling man....)
As an Iowa fan I am seeing more signs that the Ferentz era is nearing an end with the January release of a "depth chart" for 2015. First of all, I don't ever recall that happening before, but more importantly it lists C.J. Beathard as the "starting" quarterback, his job to lose. Two reasons why this makes me shake my head in disgust:
1- After sticking with Jake Rudock through almost all of the previous season this is essentially an admission of stupidity by the entire coaching staff for making that decision game after game, and
2 - It makes it look like the theat to transfer if he didn't get more playing time from Beatherd's father is the reason why this change is being made. This sets a very bad precedent.
Sorry Hawk fans, but I don't think that "Sunshine" is any better than Rudock when it comes to playing quarterback for this team. Yes, Beatherd has a stronger arm and appears to be quicker when on the run, but Rudock to me at least appears to play smarter and is more accurate with his short throws. Both are solid quarterbacks. Neither of them are stars. And neither of them is going to excel while playing for the current coaching staff.
The first game on the 2015 schedule is Illinois State, the team that will play for the FCS championship tomorrow. It will likely be a long season for the Hawkeyes.
While we wait for the 2015 plans at two tracks that ran weekly here in eastern Iowa last year, and may not this year, race fans in northwest Iowa not only ave another weekly track, but they have a new race night as well. Now known as the Kossuth County Speedway, the track in Algona will now run weekly on Thursday nights with IMCA sanctioning. This comes after long time promoter Joe Ringsdorf moved Britt to Saturdays and announced that he will bring weekly racing to the Clay County Fairgrounds in Spencer on Friday nights.
That's all for now, enjoy your weekend!
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