For just coming out of Thanksgiving it sure does seem like the news has been hot and heavy around the world of dirt track racing!
If you read back a few entries here on the Back Stretch I mentioned that I didn't think that it would take long for Stuart Speedway to find a new owner and that happened on Friday when Mike Van Genderen picked up up the keys to the 1/4-mile speedway about an hour west of Des Moines. Now full disclosure here, I am a friend of Mike's but even if I didn't know him personally at all I would have to tell you that in my opinion he has set the bar when it comes to presenting a dirt track racing program starting with final track prep and running all the way until the checkered flag. From a fan's standpoint nobody uses the Raceceivers better and as proof of that he was in control the night that the Lee County Speedway went an entire race night without one single caution flag a few years back.
So my first selfish concern was that Mike was getting farther away from home for me and while others were filling up his Inbox with congratulations and questions on Stuart I was asking him if he would still be putting on the shows in Memphis and handling the Race Director duties in Vinton. His answers to both were "yes", although he did say that the previously released schedule for Memphis would have to be changed a bit since there were a couple of Friday nights on it where he will now be at Stuart. Racers and fans at Stuart should be excited as it is no secret that MVG is a bit of a gambler and he has already announced that the track will open up the IMCA Frostbusters with a Wednesday night show on April 3rd and that the MLRA Late Models will make their first appearance at Stuart on Thursday May 2nd. Look for some additional special events once he releases the full schedule.
As best that I can recall it has been since the NKF Tour event in 2001 that I have been to a race at Stuart. You can count on that streak ending in 2019 and hopefully I can tie it in to my first ever Zipp's Pizzaria experience in Adair as well.
Plenty of movement as far as rides are concerned and let's start off with the Sprint Cars with credit given to my son Morgan for keeping me up to date. Of course that also means that I will blame him if any of this info is wrong!
Cory Eliason is out of the Roth Racing #83 and will move to the Rudeen Racing #26 car, the seat that Joey Saldana filled during the 2018 Nationals. Daryn Pittman will now drive the Roth #83 and will run the full World of Outlaws schedule in '19. Pittman's move came after he was dropped from his long time seat in the Kasey Kahne Racing #9 in favor for the team owner himself as Kahne plans to return to his roots next season after retiring from his NASCAR Cup racing career. Greg Wilson will not return to the World of Outlaws full time next season, but will instead run an "outlaw" type schedule picking and choosing his races. And finally Morgan says that we are all still waiting to see if All Star Champion Aaron Reutzel decides to make the move to the Outlaws for 2019 or not.
Speaking of the All Stars, Blake Anderson will have to push "Arctic Cat" out of his vocabulary for 2019 as the Tony Stewart owned series will now be the Ollie's Bargain Outlets All Star Circuit of Champions presented by Mobil 1. The series will come west a couple of times once again landing in Jacksonville, Illinois, on June 28th before coming back in late July for the popular three race swing through Jackson, Knoxville and 34 Raceway July 26th, 27th and 28th.
Moving to the Late Models, or better yet, movement within the Late Models for 2019....
- Josh Richards will replace Darrell Lanigan in the Clint Bowyer owned #14
- With Richards out the Best Performance Motorsports Team turns to the young Texan Tyler Erb
- Chris Madden will drive for Decorah, Iowa's, Greg Bruening with Madden also serving as a mentor to Greg's son Tyler who is a budding star in the division. The duo will drive Capital Race Cars.
- Tanner English gets his first chance to do some more traveling as he slides into the Stone-Weaver Racing #116
- World of Outlaws champion Mike Marlar was looking for a ride when his championship car owner Ronnie Delk decided to step back and Marlar landed a good one with the return of the K&L Rumley Enterprises #6. This is the same team that Jonathan Davenport dominated with a couple of years ago.
- Brandon Overton replaces Joey Coulter in the Rum Runner Racing #2 car
In other Late Model news, IMCA announced yesterday that the 604 Chevy Performance Crate engine will be an option for 2019 and, for the first time ever, they are considering a varying set of rules for the Deery Brothers Summer Series. More to come on that.
The annual National 100 at the East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City has been rescheduled for January 26th and 27th just in case you want to add it to your SpeedWeek trip. I attended this traditional November event once and spent what seemed like an eternity in the stands. The Super Late Models pay $20,000-to-win and there will be nine other divisions in action.
Tony Jackson Jr. will return to his roots for at least five nights behind the wheel of a pavement Pro Late Model at his hometown's I-44 Speedway in Lebanon, Missouri, next year. This track is the raciest pavement track that I have ever been to and hopefully they can continue to build their car counts.
Speaking of southwest Missouri, the announcement that the Springfield Raceway will switch its A-Mods over from USRA to IMCA in 2019 was unexpected, but should not be a surprise. The car count in the division has steadily dropped to where they had less than ten on several race nights in 2018. Keep in mind though that the track introduced a third division of Modifieds a couple of years ago, the Midwest Modifieds to go along with the B-Mods as well and from this distance one could assume that this was the starting point of the demise of the top class. So we will now see if switching to IMCA breathes life back into it. Either way you must remember that track owner Jerry Hoffman is also in the business of building Modifieds so if anybody has a reason to have three different classes of them it would be him!
The ten or so USRA drivers at Springfield can now make the decision, do they make the change or do they make the short trip up the road to race at the Lucas Oil Speedway instead on Saturday night. Hopefully the IMCA Modified will be an easier step for the Midwest Mod and B-Mod drivers to make and I can almost guarantee you one thing, the fans at Springfield will enjoy the inverted starts in the IMCA division next season!
So here's an interesting story outside of racing, the Iowa Hawkeye broadcast team of Gary Dolphin and Bobby Hansen probably didn't sleep well last night after some of their comments that were not intended for broadcast went out over the air by mistake. I was at last night's game against Pitt and heard them apologizing during the post game show so of course I had to find out what was said. It has been a couple of years since the last one, but I have done several basketball games on the radio in the past and I know just how easy it is to have this happen. I'm sure that a few listeners were not too thrilled with my colorful language when I thought that we had lost our phone connection for the third time during a tournament game at WACO that was now tied up in the final seconds, but that was only saying the word "s$!t", nothing like this. It will be interesting to see how Athletic Director Gary Barta will handle this and to see if Coach McCaffrey will let it slide since the comments take a direct shot at his recruiting efforts. By the way, I know the play that they were referring to and it is likely that about 10,000 other people had similar thoughts as well. I would hate to think that Dolph would have to stop and consider his words any more than he already does when doing a play-by-play. Wednesday night update, the "off-air" comments have resulted in a two game suspension for Dolphin. Even more interesting to me though is the mention of "ongoing tensions".
Tonight I am headed to Burlington to watch the Southeastern Community College Blackhawks take on the Moberly Grayhounds and the Hounds have the newest member of my "All Name Squad" in 6'5" forward Tahl Small. Wednesday night update, so now I'm bummed, this was a mis-print in the local paper. The young man's name is actually Thaj Small which makes much more sense, but is nowhere near as catchy. By the way the Blackhawks won with Wapello's Tenton Massner leading the way with 22 points off the bench.
Despite the fact that 73 caution flags tested my patience last year, I am going to return to the Dome for Friday night's portion of the Gateway Dirt Nationals as the reduction of the Modified entry list and the addition of the Midgets are just to tempting to pass up. Check back in on the Back Stretch this weekend to see how that goes.
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