Speedweeks

Christine and I spent three nights in Florida last week just thirty six miles from one of my favorite tracks East Bay Raceway, but other than seeing a few fans in their racing shirts it was another vacation where I chose to stay on Clearwater Beach rather than fighting the Tampa traffic that usually makes that nearly a two hour trip at times. Besides, with a subscription to Dirt On Dirt I can still watch all of the heats and the feature from each night for the Late Models only program that was on the schedule that weekend. Nine years from now, hopefully, when I am retired I will actually go to the track during Speedweeks when we can stay in the sunshine state for more than just three nights.

Our return trip was an adventure with an ice storm going on at home so rather than taking the last leg of our canceled flight to Moline we instead rented a car and drove eleven hours overnight from Detroit in order to be at work on Tuesday morning. If we had stuck with the flight that we had been re-booked on we would not have made it home until Wednesday evening. When we did make it home I noticed that our Tivo box had been knocked out by an attempted update from Mediacom and I am thrilled to report that the earliest that it can be replaced is March 5th. Now that is customer service at its finest! Don't even get me started on their automated text service that is absolutely useless. Molli, I hate you!

Yes, I was still able to watch television by by-passing the Tivo box, but that means that I had no DVR service. Believe me you don't realize how much you hate watching commercials until you lose your DVR! And, even worse, you realize how boring it is to watch NASCAR from Daytona without a DVR as usually I can just speed through the single-file parade around the top until the drivers get all stupid and start wrecking each other like money grows on trees.

I will admit that I watched only the end of the truck race and I obviously missed the majority of this demolition derby as there were only ten trucks still on the track for the final restart. That could not have been good on the budgets of the other twenty-two teams. The Xfinity race was a yawner as they all lined up single file for the majority of the final stage with only drivers who were fifth on back even making an effort to make a pass over the final forty laps. It worked out well for Des Moines native Michael Annett though who picked up his first career win in NASCAR and his second victory at Daytona as he won the ARCA race here in 2008.

The win continued a successful weekend for the Annett family. Michael's father is Harrold Annett the CEO of TMC Transportation the sponsor on the hood of young Sammy Smith's Pro Late Model who won the Friday night main event during the World Series of Asphalt Racing at the New Smyrna Speedway just down the road from Daytona. Smith, who is from Johnston, Iowa, has been running Legend Cars on pavement prior to hopping into the Pro Late Model for Speedweeks.

The racing in the 500 was actually much better than expected only going single file around the top with twenty laps remaining before a caution bunched them all back up. After that all hell broke loose as first Paul Menard spun a surprisingly strong Matthew DiBendetto then Clint Bowyer and Ricky Stenhouse Jr. triggered big incidents making those last twenty laps take nearly two hours to complete. During the first red flag I received a call from Mediacom with a recorded message telling me that all I had to do now was to unplug my Tivo box and let it recycle and, just like that, I was able to watch the end of the race in glorious high definition!

Daytona it seems has a way of having a storybook ending and in the past I have heard NASCAR accused of putting in the fix to achieve that. I sure as heck hope that nobody tries to make that claim this time as Joe Gibbs Racing finished one, two and three with Denny Hamlin taking the win while racing in memory of J.D. Gibbs who passed away just a month ago. I would never consider myself to be a fan of Hamlin, but I was happy to see him in victory lane on this day and to listen to the Coach as he was interviewed while making his way to victory lane. Truly inspirational.

Taking a look around the short tracks.....

In Late Model action it was all Tyler Erb to start Speedweeks winning three of the first four events as the new driver for the Best Motorsports team. Then Jonathan Davenport got hot winning three times, including both of the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series point races at East Bay, although Erb was the runner-up in all three of those features. And then it was Brandon Sheppard who closed out the sixteen day run by winning all four of the World of Outlaws series point races at Volusia. Only two of them counted toward the series point standings though as drivers were allowed to "throw out" their worst two finishes of the week, so B-Shepp throws out two wins.

Watching video affirms my belief that if you can only spend one week in Florida to watch Late Models you have a very clear choice. If you like speed you go to Volusia. If you like close racing you go to East Bay.

Daryn Pittman opened the World of Outlaws Sprint Car season in style driving the Roth Motorsports #83 to victory lane in both races at Volusia with the Sunday finale falling to rain. Christopher Bell showed his versatility by leaving Voluisa second in Outlaw points, although his focus then turned to his Xfinity Series ride, while Brad Sweet and Donny Schatz are tied for third. The Outlaws are back in action next weekend with two events in Texas.

The 360's closed out the Winter Nationals at East Bay Raceway on Saturday with twelve-time All Iowa Points champion Terry McCarl winning the Ronald Laney Memorial in his first week out with Destiny Motorsports. McCarl used a late restart to get past Mark Smith for the win and the $10,000 top prize as McCarl defended his title and won the race for the fourth time overall. One name that was new to me kept popping up near the top of the standings and that was New Jersey driver Dave Franek who won a USCS sanctioned race at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala ahead of Tony Stewart and Sam Hafertepe Jr.

There were no repeat winners in USAC Sprint Car action at Bubba as Chris Windowm, Justin Grant and C.J. Leary were each winners while in the Midgets it was all Sunshine in Florida as Tyler Courtney edged out Kevin Thomas Jr. in both events at Ocala.

Quincy, Illinois, hot shoe Michael Long won the UMP Modified opener at Voluisa as he switches over to a Rage Chassis in 2019, but he was then involved in a dust up between two other drivers the following night and his week was over. After that it was mostly Kyle Strickler and Nick Hoffman at the front with Hoffman once again winning the point title.

Back at New Smyrna in the Super Late Models Bubba Pollard won three times, but the finale, the Orange Blossom 100 went to New Hampshire's Derek Griffith. Open wheel star Logan Seavey used the week to train for his potential move to NASCAR posting a pair of top-five finishes along the way.

The Specials Calendar at Positively Racing will be updated soon and will now have over 1,100 events listed with the first one coming up next weekend at the Old No. 1 Speedway in northeast Arkansas. Our own Ed Reichert is planning on making the trip so if the weather cooperates you will be able to get Positively Racing coverage in One Fan's Travels. While working on the calendar this weekend I entered an event called the "Winter Nationals" that is scheduled for the final weekend in October. That would be the same thing as holding the "Fall Spectacular" during the final week of July.

As of right now my first race for 2019 will not be until mid-March and that is only if Mother Nature makes a big turnaround, something that I am not very optimistic about as I head out to clear off another round of snow.

The post Speedweeks Back Stretch Late Model Top 25 follows. Stay warm, racing is not too far away!

		The "Back Stretch"
		Dirt Late Model Points		Poll
Pos.		Driver	Hometown	Points
1	.	Brandon Sheppard	New Berlin IL	32.7
2	.	Tyler Erb	Magnolia TX	23.4
3	.	Jonathan Davenport	Blairsville GA	17.4
4	.	Scott Bloomquist	Mooresburg TN	16.3
5	.	Earl Pearson Jr.	Jacksonville FL	14.9
6	.	Josh Richards	Shinnston WV	10.8
7	.	Brandon Overton	Appling GA	10.4
8	.	Don O'Neal	Martinsville IN	10.2
9	.	Ricky Weiss	Winnipeg MAN	9.5
10	.	Chase Junghans	Manhattan KS	8.5
11	.	Bobby Pierce	Oakwood IL	8.0
12	.	Chris Madden	Gray Court SC	7.2
13	.	Shane Clanton	Locust Grove GA	6.6
14	.	Brian Shirley	Chatham IL	6.0
15	.	Hudson O'Neal	Martinsville IN	6.0
16	.	Mike Marlar	Winfield TN	6.0
17	.	Darrell Lanigan	Union KY	5.4
18	.	Devin Moran	Dresden OH	4.8
19	.	Cade Dillard	Robeline LA	4.5
20	.	Dennis Erb Jr.	Carpentersville IL	4.2
21	.	Jason Hiett	Lincoln AL	3.3
22	.	Mark Whitener	Middleburg FL	3.0
23	.	Michael Page	Douglasville GA	3.0
24	.	Kyle Hardy	Stephens City VA	3.0
25	.	Tanner English	Benton KY	2.8