Over the past twenty-four hours the temperatures here in the Midwest have challenged and, in many areas, have gone below the lowest temperatures ever recorded. Here in southeast Iowa we pushed 22 below zero and in the Quad Cities Channel 8 was saying that it had reached 32 degrees below zero this morning. This is simply amazing and I know that it was even worse for those of you who read the Back Stretch from northern Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Fortunately a big bounce back is now predicted over the next four days with temperatures in the 50's possible, but I will believe it when I see it.
With all of this cold air in the Midwest it is hard to believe that we are just a handful of weeks away from trying to start the 2019 racing season in the region and when the Webmistress uploads the next update there will be over 1,000 special events listed on the Specials Calendar at Positively Racing with more to come as several tracks in our coverage area have not yet released their dates. The specials calendar is traditionally our most popular item on the website so if you like it and use it, please make sure that your friends know where to find it as well.
Speedweeks in Georgia and Florida kicks off in earnest this weekend, but in case you missed it one of the ageless veterans of Sprint Car racing picked up the win last Friday night when the USCS 360 Sprint Cars were at the Hendry County Motorsports Park in Florida. Danny Smith held off Davie Franek to take the win with Tony Stewart third and the talented young lady Morgan Turpen finishing in the fourth sport. Sprint Car action takes flight this weekend with the All Stars at Bubba Raceway Park and as always their will be an interesting mix of drivers on the roster.
The Modifieds were the headliners last weekend as East Bay Raceway kicked off its Winter Nationals schedule. Floridians dominated the first three nights as two-time defending track champion Bryan Bernhardt won the opener before Kyle Bronson took the checkers the next two nights. In the finale though it was Lucas Lee from Paris, Tennessee, celebrating in victory lane. Burlington, Iowa, driver Bill Roberts Jr. was in action all four nights with his best showing being an eighth place run on the second night and other northerners in action included Kevin Adams, Gordy Gundaker, Curt Myers, Steve Meyer Jr., Gary Bentley, Brad DeYoung and Jayson Good. It used to be that the northern invaders had the advantage during Speedweeks, but that has definitely changed in the Modifieds as the Florida boys now defend their home turf in style. Bronson was the point champion over the four nights with Adams in second and local star Devin Dixon in third.
So off topic for a moment, but when you saw the pictures or perhaps this video a couple of weeks ago were you wondering why in the world that guy was beating a drum in the face of Joey Logano? I don't care what your political beliefs are, it is terrible how that whole thing got blown out of proportion and is proof that you can't believe what our so called news media tells you these days. From both sides!
If Joey would have been wearing his Pennzoil hat that would have never even made news, except for with Truex and Kenseth fans.
There was another instance of "just because you can do it, doesn't mean you should" this past weekend when the Sunday marathon known as the National 100 from East Alabama Speedway was shown live on Facebook. I ducked in and out a few times over a seven hour period and usually found cars circling the track under caution, or no action on the track at all. When I did get lucky and see some green flag racing it was pretty much follow the leader since the fast cars started in front of course. When I see a situation like this I still just shake my head and wonder, "now just how is this benefiting our sport?" The standard argument is that by seeing a track online someone will be more likely to go and buy a ticket to attend an event there in the future. Umm, nope. And since this was being provided for free, who actually benefits from this? No revenue for the track and no revenue for the video provider since I didn't notice any advertising, so to me all this did was to train people to stay at home and watch for additional "free racing" in the future. I don't get it, can someone please explain?
Coming up this weekend the first two nights of racing for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series will be shown live on MavTV. Now that makes some sense because there will be commercials shown and I would assume that the track is going to get a cut of the revenue. What I am interested in seeing though is how the presence of live television effects the flow of the show for those fans who have purchased a ticket and are sitting in the stands. Let's just say that live TV has not been a friend when it comes to running an efficient show and the true barometer for me will come the following week when the Friday and Saturday shows at East Bay are shown live. In the past these races have been over as early as 9 p.m. Eastern time and rarely run past ten o'clock. And remember that later finish would be 9 p.m. for us here in the frozen north, so let's just see how it plays out.
The 2018 Awards Banquet for the Sprint Invaders was held this past Saturday night in Burlington and I was honored to serve as the emcee for the evening. Cody Wehrle celebrated his first series championship driving for Andy Huston and you couldn't ask for a kinder, more humble champion. I have known Cody's father Scott for nearly thirty years now as he raced in the old Pro Stock division at 34 Raceway when I announced there on a weekly basis and it has been a pleasure watching Cody grow up and become a champion. I have no doubt that he will continue to improve and don't be surprised if he defends his Sprint Invaders title and finds victory lane for the first time at Knoxville as well in 2019.
I enjoy working with the Sprint Invaders Association because it is like being a part of a big family that wants to go out each race night and put on the best Sprint Car racing possible. That family spirit was evidenced by the standing ovation given to John Greenwood as he was announced as a new inductee to the Sprint Invaders Hall of Fame. The veteran driver has been making the long pull from Woodward, Iowa, since the series started in the early 2000's and while the former IMCA Sprint Car Champion never won an Invaders race, he was often competitive and showed that family spirit throughout. Greenwood announced his retirement from driving at the end of the 2018 campaign, but you will still find him around the race tracks this coming season as he gets his son behind the wheel of a 305.
As of now the preliminary schedule for the Sprint Invaders looks pretty similar to 2018 except for the following. The Quincy event will move from September to Sunday April 14th and Lee County Speedway promoters Brian and Marcie Gaylord will add a third event to the schedule in Donnellson with an appearance during the oldest County Fair west of the Mississippi.
While at the banquet Saturday night I had an interesting conversation with an area promoter who has struggled to build his car count in one of his budget classes. We talked about the purse structure that the Fairbury American Legion Speedway uses for its Hobby Mod class, where all drivers are paid the same purse amount regardless of where they finish, and the theories behind it and he just might be motivated to give it a try in 2019. If it happens I told him that he can take all the credit if it works and his car count grows, or he can blame me if it bombs. Let's put it this way, the average car count would have to drop from six or seven in order to "bomb" so my chances of taking the blame are pretty small.
As I was working on the Special Events calendar this past weekend I noticed that the schedule for the Park Jefferson Speedway ended on July 27th. Now going through all of these tracks over the past few years I have seen a few occasions where for some reason the rest of the season's schedule had been truncated at a certain point and on all of those it was the same software that the track uses for their website. So, I sent an email to the track and sure enough they confirmed that the Season Championship event to be held on July 27th is the final race on the schedule for 2019 at this point. For you Sioux City area fans that are concerned about this, surely you noticed just how many races that they do have on the schedule between the opening weekend on April 12th and 13th and that final Saturday in July. Nineteen events are on the schedule including several special events so there will be no shortage of racing at Park Jeff.
AtoZ Promotions, the group that runs Park Jefferson, also announced recently that they will operate the Interstate Speedway that is literally just across the road from Park Jeff and they have yet to release a schedule for 2019. Who knows, maybe they will focus on August and September at the little bullring?
That's all for now, make sure that you check out Dirt On Dirt for full coverage of the Late Models during Speedweeks and check back here from time to time for more comments from the Back Stretch.
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