The racing world today mourns the loss of legendary promoter Earl Baltes who passed away this morning at the age of 93. The man and his wife decided to build a race track next to a dance hall that they operated in western Ohio and the rest is history as Baltes became one of the most powerful people in the sport. Dave Moody has a great write-up on the life and legend of the man that many just knew as Earl and I encourage you to read it here.
Did you see the finish of the World of Outlaws Sprint Car feature in Stockton, California, Saturday night? If you haven't, then take a moment and watch it here. Go ahead, I'll wait for ya.
Even announcer Johnny Gibson thought that Shane Stewart had won the race as you will hear in his call only to quickly change it to "Schatz wins it" after quickly looking to his timing and scoring monitor for confirmation. Yes, the camera angle can be deceiving and by now all of us should know that the start/finish line is usually not right at the flagstand. If scored manually it would be at the point where the scorekeepers consider to be their line of reference, such as a fence pole directly in front of them, or in today's world it is where the scoring loop is clicked by the transponder. So yes, Donny Schatz won the race and even Shane Stewart agreed tweeting "Thanks for all the love peeps but we got beat fair and square. Can't take away that we had a great race" and he then provided a link to another video that you will need to be a Facebook member to view.
Yes, now I agree that Schatz won. But by 0.22 seconds? Now way! Perhaps 0.02.......but either way after Rico Abreu thrilled his home state crowd with his second Outlaws win of the season on Sunday night Shane Stewart leaves Stockton with the series point lead. And kudos to Iowa's Terry McCarl who ran second to Abreu on Sunday night and even though he is not following the Outlaws this year, T-Mac now sits tenth in the series point standings. McCarl will be one of nearly forty drivers who will chase the first-ever championship in the National Sprint League that will debut on April 11th at 34 Raceway in Burlington.
Proponents of the proliferation of live, or slightly delayed video of dirt track racing will tell you that it will actually increase attendance in the future at the featured track because those watching will see how great it is and then make a point of making a trip there for another race soon. I can honestly say that 90% of the time I experience the exact opposite effect especially if that video shows a locked down single-grooved surface, or if the dust is flying so much that you can barely even see the race in the video. However, this weekend when I watched the highlights from the Lucas Oil Late Model series event from the Atomic Speedway in Alma, Ohio, on Dirt On Dirt I absolutely marked it down as a track that I need to get to and soon! High speed and wide, with little or no dust to be seen in the air, the Late Models had to have had the fans in attendance on the edge of their seats and catching their breath as I even felt that way sitting in front of my computer! Jonathan Davenport took the win at a facility that my friend The Fasttrackfan would never want to leave.
Wet conditions over the past two weeks played havoc with the Springfield Raceway in southwest Missouri Saturday night as normally owner/promoter Jerry Hoffman has the quarter-mile smooth as glass. One last track prep session before the feature though did produce some exciting racing up front for the MARS Late Model series opener as former champions Jesse Stovall and Tony Jackson Jr. battled young Texan Tyler Erb only to have Erb drop out late in the event. Jackson would go on to take the win as only six cars finished the race. Don't forget that the MARS Late Models make a three race swing through our area April 17th, 18th and 19th with Davenport and East Moline sandwiched around the Slocum 50 at 34 Raceway on Saturday night.
The Gustin siblings had a pretty good weekend in northern Missouri. Jenae won the Sport Mod feature on Friday night in Memphis and followed that up with a runner-up finish to Clint Luellen on Saturday night. Then on Sunday night, as her brother Ryan collected the $3,000 top prize in the USMTS Modified main event at the I-35 Speedway in Winston, Jenae ran fifth in the B-Mod feature bringing her winnings for the weekend to $1,230. Older brother Richie Gustin posted a third-place finish in the Modifieds at Memphis on Saturday night in his only outing for the weekend.
Perhaps I was expecting too much after seeing the huge numbers in Beatrice a week before, but I was surprised that the car counts were not higher for the Midwest Bottom Heavy Spring Nationals in Memphis this past weekend. The Beatrice event has been running for several years now and drivers make a point of getting their cars done and travelling to southeast Nebraska for the event each year. Promoter Mike Van Genderen tried to run a mid-March show at Memphis last year, but it was snowed out so this was the "inaugural" event and perhaps several drivers who would have otherwise participated just weren't ready to go yet. Van Genderen did announce that the event will be on the schedule again in 2016 so hopefully drivers will plan accordingly. The other possibility may have been the unique purse structure where the winner was actually paid twenty dollars less than the second-place finisher with the extra money that would usually be in that winner's check spread equally down through the rest of the finishers. While Van Genderen noted that he had drivers thank him for the unique purse structure one has to wonder if drivers still look at what it will pay to win before deciding whether or not to make the trip. Most of them will tell you that they don't, but........
MVG and his crew will be back at it this coming weekend at the Lee County Speedway Spring Extravaganza scheduled for Friday and Saturday in Donnellson, Iowa. Last year weather forced the show to be run on Saturday and Sunday though and Mike has hinted, based upon the current weather forecasts, that might just happen again so stay in touch with the speedway and hopefully we'll see you there sometime this weekend.
Changes are already being made to the schedule for the weekend ahead as the Illini 100 for the World of Outlaws Late Models at Farmer City Raceway has been postponed to April 17th and 18th due to forecasted cool temperatures.
So how are those extended weather forecasts evolving? If you check through my last several blog entries you can see the progress.
Donnellson, Iowa, Saturday March 28th - Sunny and warmer 49
Burlington, Iowa, Saturday April 11th - Periods of Rain and 55
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