Monday Notebook: January 19, 2015

Rico Abreu held off four-time winner Kevin Swindell to score his first Golden Driller as the champion of the Chili Bowl in Tulsa, Oklahoma Saturday night. With more than 330 drivers in competition, the most ever for the storied indoor midget race, it is another impressive accomplishment for the up and coming driver from California who, along with his winning driving style, is quite unique. Several have suggested that the 4' 4" Abreu is on the fast track to a NASCAR ride and can you imagine the marketing possibilities should that come to fruition? First though I would love to see him continue to rise in the ranks of open wheel racing, perhaps following up his 2014 USAC Midget National Championship with a run at Rookie-of-the-Year honors with the World of Outlaws. One thing is for sure though, if he does make it to the Cup ranks it could end up being a story made for Hollywood as it was just six years ago that Rico caught the racing bug driving go-karts against another teenage rising star from California, Kyle Larson.

The Wild West Shootout drew to a close last evening with six events over nine days in near perfect weather down in Tucson. I have made several trips to Florida for SpeedWeeks over the years and while I did not make the trip to Tucson this year, I have been there for at least a portion of the series the last two. In Florida the weather is more of a crap shoot both in regard to temperatures and precipitation while in Arizona, yes it did get a bit chilly on me one night two years ago, but rain is seldom if ever an issue. And the track is very racey, proven once again by the video summaries of each of the six races on Dirt of Dirt.

Darrell Lanigan won the opener and then followed up with a win in the fourth race driving the Childress Racing #F5, but his Shootout ended early when he suffered a broken thumb in an accident on Thursday night. Lanigan will now have about three weeks to heel up a bit before his defense of the World of Outlaws title begins on February 6th at Screven, Georgia.

Missouri's Tony Jackson Jr. and defending USMTS Modified champion Rodney Sanders scored victories in nights number two and three before Jimmy Owens became comfortable in his new seat owned by Bryan Rowland and won the last two races including the $10,00-to-win finale. In that last event New Mexico's Garrett Alberson was the early leader before his engine grenaded handing the lead over to Iowa's Chris Simpson. Owens drover around Simpson mid-race, but Chris stayed within striking distance and appeared to have the runner-finish secured until a late caution for Jason Krohn slowed the field. Jimmy Mars took advantage of the restart and snared second away from Simpson who had his best showing of the series finishing third.

Lanigan looked to have the $2,000 Keyser Manufacturing point championship all but locked up before his injury, but in his absence it was Sanders who claimed that bonus ahead of California driver Jason Papich who has shown great improvement after spending 2014 on the Lucas Oil Late Model Series.

Super Late Model racing now takes a break before Speedweeks kicks off in Georgia on February 5th, but for a look at how the Back Stretch Dirt Late Model standings look after the January events, see below. Points are awarded for each event, weekly races and specials, with the point-scale determined by the winner's purse. And, if you really want to see the names of a bunch of Late Model drivers, check out the final points from 2014.

Brookfield, Missouri's Hunter Marriott won the $1,250 in the second night of action at Arizona Speedway's Snowbird Classic for IMCA Modifieds. North Dakota's Marlyn Seidler was the winner the first night.

The Tipton saga continues with no confirmed news despite the fact that some not so anonymous forum board posters seem to think that everybody needs to know exactly what is going to happen here at least three months before anybody would be thinking about having the first race there for 2015. As if there are no other tracks that a driver could go to if he just went ahead and prepared a car for the upcoming season......

No news out of Bloomfield, but I did see that a gentleman indicated that the track in Fort Dodge may return to action this year as Frontier Raceway Park. Remember how I have said that while it seems like we are losing race tracks from year to year, we are actually net even?

		The "Back Stretch"
		Dirt Late Model Points	Through 1/18
Pos.		Driver	Hometown	Points
1	.	Darrell Lanigan	Union KY	10
2	.	Jimmy Owens	Newport TN	10
3	.	Jimmy Mars	Elk Mound WI	6
4	.	Tony Jackson Jr.	Lebanon MO	6
5	.	Rodney Sanders	Happy TX	5
6	.	Billy Moyer	Batesville AR	4
7	.	Chris Simpson	Marion IA	4
8	.	Donald McIntosh	Dawsonville GA	4
9	.	Jason Papich	Santa Maria CA	4
10	.	Tim Roszell	Coldwater AL	4
11	.	Adam Hensel	Barron WI	3
12	.	Russell Brown Jr.	Valdosta GA	3
13	.	William Thomas	Phenix City AL	3
14	.	Jeremy Faircloth	Swainsboro GA	2
15	.	Riley Hickman	Ooletwah TN	2
16	.	Stormy Scott	Las Cruces NM	2
17	.	Walker Arthur	Forest VA	2
18	.	Chase Junghans	Manhattan KS	1
19	.	Joe Kump	Hollywood FL	1
20	.	Larry Damitz		1
21	.	Stephen Breeding	Isom KY	1

It is sad to say that we still have a long way to go to realize the dream