I spent this past weekend in Oklahoma celebrating my son's birthday in Oklahoma City and visiting family in Tulsa. Since I was not planning on hitting the ASCS National Series opener at Creek County Speedway near Tulsa anyway it did not bother me when the event was cancelled earlier in the week. However when Saturday was bright and sunny with temps in the high 60's I wondered if there were any regrets with the decision.
I was, or better said am planning on going racing this coming weekend although one of my main options fell by the wayside this morning when the two-day event at the Scotland County Speedway in Memphis, Missouri, was cancelled due to wet conditions and a cold forecast for the weekend. The wet conditions I can understand as it was easy to see the standing water in the fields as we drove through northeast Missouri on our way back home from Oklahoma on Sunday and there is more rain predicted for today and tomorrow. The normal high for Memphis MO for this coming weekend is 52 with a normal low of 30, so even a slightly below normal forecast of 48 and 32 is "cold" plus the weather folks are discussing rain/snow possibilities for Friday night into Saturday. Oh well, hopefully things will stay good for this coming Sunday March 20th when the USMTS Modifieds visit the I-35 Speedway in Winston, Missouri, and that will be my northern opener for 2016.
There are other options still for Friday and Saturday that you can find on the Specials Calendar at Positively Racing, but once Chrissy found out that Memphis was off the table, BAM, I had other plans. :)
Congratulations to our good friend Gary Lee of Kirksville, Missouri, who ranked fourth among the ticket buyers in Ron Hedger's annual Super Fan contest. Gary attended 128 races at 48 different tracks in nine states in 2015 and offers up some great commentary and stats within the article. I have asked Gary on a couple of occasions if he would like to write for Positively Racing, but each time he politely turns me down. He does however send to us many, many pictures that he takes in the pits before the races and we feature those on our Positively Racing Facebook page so make sure that you take a look at Gary's albums. And, while you're there, give the page a "like" as it is our way to not only give you several photo albums to look through, but it is also our way to notify you when there is new content up on any of the blogs. As of this writing we only need two more people to follow to eclipse the 2,000 mark!
Three more gentlemen who we always enjoy sitting with in the stands and hearing about their travels finished just outside of Hedger's top five in Bob Litton, Kevin Babcock and Jack Miles III. You can keep up with Kevin's current travels on his Chasin' Racin Facebook page and for some history and several great old pictures visit his Chasin' Racin website.
How about those car counts out at the IMCA Spring Nationals in Beatrice, Nebraska, this past weekend?? 302 cars in four classes on Friday night and then on Saturday night with the Sport Compacts joining the card the total count soared to 347! The headline class, the Modifieds topped the charts with an amazing 118 cars on Friday and 113 on Saturday. Then to make things even better, the Modified feature on Saturday night was a thriller throughout topped off by a finish that brought the entire crowd to its feet. A photo of the finish along with the feature results can be found in this article and if you want to watch the entire feature race on video click here. Our own Ed Reichert was in Beatrice for the weekend and even though his report from there is not yet up on One Fan's Travels as of this writing, it should be soon.
The big news in Dirt Late Model racing this past weekend was an incident that happened in the infield following a Friday night heat race at the Smokey Mountain Raceway in Tennessee when, after a heated battle on the track between Scott Bloomquist and Chris Madden, one of Bloomquist's crewmen rode a mini bike in between the two of them as they made their way to the scales. As Bloomquist turned to go onto the scales, Madden continued to drive straight dumping the crewman and the mini bike. Race promoter Ray Cook reviewed video of the incident, determined that it was intentional and then disqualified Madden for Saturday's $15,000-to-win main event. Bloomquist came back the following night to edge out Randy Weaver for the big payday while Madden recovered nicely by capturing a $5,000-to-win main event at the Dixie Speedway just north of Atlanta on Saturday. The incident is getting plenty of discussion on the forums especially since Madden used to drive a Bloomquist chassis and was essentially a teammate for several years.
The World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Cars were rained out on Friday night at Thunderbowl Raceway in Tulare, California, but coming back on Saturday it was David Gravel scoring his first win in the CJB Motorsports car #5. The bigger story though was the fact that Donny Schatz did not qualify for the main event after struggling in his heat and finishing sixth in the B-Main, plus with new rules for the series provisionals stating that a driver cannot improve his points standing position when using a provisional, Schatz turned down that opportunity. It was the first World of Outlaws Sprint Car A-Main that Schatz has missed since November of 2012. Brad Sweet continues to lead the early season points standings for the Outlaws while Schatz, even with the DNQ, still sits in fifth.
Earlier in today's notebook I referred you to the Schedule page and you will note that we always have the disclaimer at the top that encourages you to always check with the track prior to making a trip. Obviously a mistake on our part is always a concern, but this is mostly due to the fact that tracks and series will often make changes in their schedule after they are first announced with little or no notice and since I don't go searching those schedules once again after they are initially released, those changes often go unnoticed. Thankfully today on DirtDrivers.com I noticed that the Clay County Fair Speedway in Spencer had released their schedule.......again......as I first saw a schedule for the track back in early December. Today's revision had several changes that will be in the next update, but let's just say that the differences between the first "draft" and the final were significant!
One of the tracks that we were still waiting on a 2016 schedule for came out with a surprise announcement on Friday that the gates at the Illiana Motor Speedway in Schererville, Indiana, will remain closed. In the story you will see that the owner cites negative comments on social media as one of the reasons for the track closing and that will likely just rile up the masses once again who will say that negative posters were only trying to point out things that needed to be improved upon at the speedway, not shut it down completely. You will see it described as a "cop out" for the promoter to blame negative social media and while that might be true in a sense, isn't it the ultimate "screw you" response by the promoter to close down the track and place the blame at the keyboards of those he felt brought him down? I know one thing, the Illiana Speedway did itself no favors in regard to promoting the track on its website or in social media as it was the only facility in the upper Midwest that I could not get race results from in 2015. Guess I won't have to go looking this year.
Here's an interesting concept. The Flint Creek Speedway in Colcord, Oklahoma, appears to only be running Test and Tune sessions this year at $20 per pit pass. No races, just practice. The ultimate "back gate promotion".
Our condolences to the family of Grant Junghans.
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