Okay, enough with the "throw backs", let's get back to the present! My sons, Kyle, Morgan and I had a great trip to Pasadena that was interrupted by one terrible half of football, but we stayed in the beautiful Rose Bowl stadium to the very end and cheered for every positive thing that happened for the Hawks as did about 40,000 other fans who were dressed in black and gold. Sure we were disappointed with the outcome, but why let it ruin a great experience that only comes along every 25 years!
Believe it or not the first races of 2016 have already taken the checkered flag headlined by the Winter Heat Sprint Car Showdown at Cocopah Speedway in Arizona. This is the second year for the mid-winter event and the car count, and talent level, is once again strong in the desert. Pole-sitter Dale Blaney picked up the $12,000 win on January 1st with fellow front row starter Justin Henderson running second. Iowans Terry McCarl and Tasker Phillips also made the feature race from the 45 entries and finished 10th and 19th respectively. I also noted that Steve Kinser again made the trip southwest where he was the winner on one of the nights last January as "The King" finished 15th. Kyle Larson had a great night on Saturday as not only did the young NASCAR driver return to his roots in grand fashion by taking the win in round two, but the team that he is one of the owners of finished second with Shane Stewart behind the wheel. Defending Winter Heat champion Danny Lasoski finished in third while Blaney backed up his opening night win with a fourth-place run. McCarl was 9th and Kinser finished 14th. Winter Heat continues this Tuesday night, January 5th.
Last year Morgan and I caught the Saturday daytime action at the Tulsa Shootout and I was amazed at just how huge of an event this is for the Micro and Mini Sprint drivers. This year's Shootout wrapped up a four-day run on Saturday that saw 305 races being run for the 1,247 entries. Believe it or not, the IMCA Super Nationals is not dirt racing's biggest event! I'm sure that if I took the time to read through all of the results I could find a ton of interesting tidbits, but just looking through the A-Main finishes in each division I came up with these.
USAC star Brady Bacon was the winner of the headline Winged Outlaw division, his third win in the Shootout showing that you will definitely find future stars at this event. Ayrton Gennetten, the son of Steve and the grandson of the late Gene Gennetten, both fine Sprint Car drivers of the past finished in the third spot and he also qualified for the feature race in two other divisions. Joe B. Miller who is also driving the full sized winged Sprints now finished fourth. Tulsa's Chris Andrews who finished second to Bacon in the Winged Outlaws was the winner of the Non-Wing Outlaw division, also his third career win at the Shootout. Jason Friesen is listed in the 12th spot, perhaps the former Late Model star from Nebraska? In that feature USAC Sprint Car driver Tyler Courtney was disqualified "for endangering track officials and re-entering the track when told to stop." It didn't matter if the wing was on or off of the 1200 cc Mini Sprints as Chase Briscoe and Andy Baugh finished one-two in both divisions. And, judging by some of the names in the results, the ECOtec Midgets are the same that we see in action now at area tracks like 34 Raceway, East Moline and others with ASCS Sprint Car regular Blake Hahn taking the win. Click that link above and pick through the names, I'm sure that you will find someone you might know.
The Dirt Late Model season kicked off once again on New Year's Day with the 6th Annual running of the Hangover 40 at 411 Motor Speedway in Seymour, Tennessee, and while the large crowd on hand was missing the butt kicking that the Iowa Hawkeyes were taking from Christian McCaffrey and the rest of the Stanford Cardinal they were instead watching a butt-kicking by Dawsonville Goergia's Donald McIntosh. In repeating his victory from one year ago McIntosh lapped all the way up to the fifth-place finisher in the 40-lap event that drew a solid field of 41 Super Late Models. Jason Hiett, Ray Cook and Riley Hickman finished second, third and fourth respectively while Tommy Bailey rallied from 21st to fifth at the checkers in a race that was slowed by just one caution.
Many of these same drivers will pull to the Talladega Short Track this coming weekend for the annual Ice Bowl while many of Dirt Late Model racing's biggest names are headed to Tucson where the Wild West Shootout will take the green for the first of six races on Saturday night.
Short track pavement racing also has a traditional New Year's weekend event in the Red Eye 100 for Super Late Models at Florida's New Smyrna Speedway and this year's winner was young Cole Anderson of Northfield, Minnesota. A regular competitor at Elko Speedway and on the 2015 Big 8 Late Model Series, Anderson held off Georgia short track star Bubba Pollard and New England youngster Kaz Grala to take the win. In the companion Pro Late Model race it was former NASCAR Camping World Truck Series champion Mike Skinner taking the win with Anderson running second. USAC Sprint Car star Kevin Thomas Jr., who has a full-time ARCA ride in 2016, began his transition to pavement stock cars with a 15th place finish.
Finally for today, there have been a couple of blogs released over the past few days that take opposite views on the use of social media in racing and it makes me wonder if this one by T.J. Slideways, aka T.J. Buffenbarger led to this entry on the TheOrangeConeBlog. I am quite flattered actually that the Back Stretch was looped into this discussion on one of my favorite internet forums and even better that our efforts were defended by people who I greatly respect after they were ripped on by three whom I do not.
Enjoy your first full week of the New Year!
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