Josh Richards is making a habit of winning the season debut for the World of Outlaws Late Model series. He did it for the fourth year in a row at Volusia County Speedway Thursday night coming all the way from the 17th starting spot to pass Earl Pearson Jr. for the lead on lap 27 of the 50 lap headliner. EPJ held on for second followed by Brady Smith and Tim McCreadie.
Dale McDowell started on the pole for the main event, but spun the car in turn one on the first lap. The Georgia native in the Clint Bowyer Racing Cheerios sponsored #17m restarted at the back of the 29-car lineup and raced his way all the way back up to sixth.
Iowans Tyler Bruening and Jill George were 7th and 10th respectively in the first consolation event.
A couple of days ago Brian Birkhofer indicated that he might chase the Outlaw series this year if he got off to a good start this week. Well, night one didn't go so well as Birky qualified 50th, pulled out of the second heat race and then did not run a consolation event.
The weather does not look too good for tonight's $10,000-to-win UMP sanctioned event at Volusia and it will be a bit on the chilly side for Saturday's WoO points race. I was pretty disappointed that I wasn't able to go to the Orange Bowl last month until I saw that it was the coldest Orange Bowl ever and I was pretty bummed about not heading down to Florida this week until I saw what the weather was like :)
How about the Duel 150's at Daytona Thursday? Great racing, cars passing each other without have to be lined up in a tight drafting formation, and two extremely close finishes. Hopefully this will translate over to Sunday and we will have a great Daytona 500!
It is nice to see that the powers that be at NASCAR felt the same way as the fans did when the Budweiser Shootout ended with a thud when the caution came out in turn three as the field was coming to the white flag. It was announced yesterday that all NASCAR events (Sprint Cup, Nationwide and Trucks) will make up to three attempts at a green-white-checkered finish with the goal to have the race leader take the white flag under green light racing conditions. Now if they would just add in the suggestion that I made a couple of days ago, they would really have this wrapped up!
Here are the Georgia Late Model points following the Super Bowl of Racing events at Golden Isles Speedway. Check back in on Monday for the Florida standings following Speedweeks.
1 Scott Bloomquist Mooresburg TN 12
2 Austin Hubbard Seaford DE 8
3 Josh Richards Shinnston WV 8
4 Dennis Erb Jr. Carpentersville IL 5
5 Brad Neat Dunville KY 4
6 Jonathan Davenport Blairsville 4
7 Dan Schlieper Sullivan WI 2
8 Jimmy Owens Newport TN 1
9 Randy Weaver Crossville TN 1
Don't forget that the delayed broadcast of the Chili Bowl will be on Speed Channel Saturday night. Have a great racing weekend!
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Babb Dominates Volusia; Tough Couple of Weeks for Friends of Racing Around Here....
Shannon Babb dominated the second night of UMP Late Model racing at Volusia County Speedway in Florida Wednesday night running away with the first heat win, starting on the pole of the main event and walking away with that as well for the $7,000 top prize. Young Jordan Bland out of Kentucky looked like he might earn a runner-up finish before he spun in lapped traffic handing over the second spot to Dale McDowell in the Cheerios sponsored #17m. Looks like the track dried out in the cool and windy conditions following Tuesday's rainout and was much more one-grooved than on Monday night.
Brian Birkhofer qualified fifth quick in the second group of twelve cars, but was disqualified after not scaling the car. Iowa drivers Joel Callahan and Tyler Bruening finished fifth and seventh respectively in the third consolation race.
Thursday's event will be the season opener for the World of Outlaw Late Model Series.
We have lost several friends of racing here in the Midwest over the last two weeks. My favorite driver of all time Mel Morris passed away last week. While Stacy Ervin remembers him in a #39 car he was always #32 to me and that was the reason that I wore the number in basketball as did both of my boys. They of course had no idea who Mel Morris was though, but the tradition lived on.
I have a great old black & white photo of Mel standing next to his #32 convertible sponsored by Rohner Machine, but I am still not computer savvy enough to get it scanned and on to here. Looks like I'll have to see if Barry can do that for me the next time that I am up in Pella.
This past week we lost former Late Model driver and recent owner of Race Mart Art Jeffries, former promoter at Donnellson and a fixture at many area racetracks Deo Loney, and former ARTGO series owner John McKarns. May all all of them rest in peace and have a bird's eye view of any race they want to see from now on.
Brian Birkhofer qualified fifth quick in the second group of twelve cars, but was disqualified after not scaling the car. Iowa drivers Joel Callahan and Tyler Bruening finished fifth and seventh respectively in the third consolation race.
Thursday's event will be the season opener for the World of Outlaw Late Model Series.
We have lost several friends of racing here in the Midwest over the last two weeks. My favorite driver of all time Mel Morris passed away last week. While Stacy Ervin remembers him in a #39 car he was always #32 to me and that was the reason that I wore the number in basketball as did both of my boys. They of course had no idea who Mel Morris was though, but the tradition lived on.
I have a great old black & white photo of Mel standing next to his #32 convertible sponsored by Rohner Machine, but I am still not computer savvy enough to get it scanned and on to here. Looks like I'll have to see if Barry can do that for me the next time that I am up in Pella.
This past week we lost former Late Model driver and recent owner of Race Mart Art Jeffries, former promoter at Donnellson and a fixture at many area racetracks Deo Loney, and former ARTGO series owner John McKarns. May all all of them rest in peace and have a bird's eye view of any race they want to see from now on.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Birky An Outlaw in 2010?
In a pre-race interview with DirtonDirt.com Monday Brian Birkhofer indicated that he just might run the 2010 World of Outlaws Late Model schedule, possibly making a decision after this week's events at Volusia County Speedway in Barbersville, Florida. Birkhofer held the lead for the first half of Monday night's UMP-sanctioned main event before Darrell Lanigan moved by him for the lead and the eventual victory. Jimmy Owens sneaked past Birkhofer late to finish second on the first of six straight nights of Late Model racing about twenty miles west of Daytona.
The events on Thursday night and Saturday night will be the first two races on the 2010 World of Outlaw Late Model schedule and Birky's performance in these two races may just make his decision for him.
Iowa was pretty well represented among the 67-car roster Monday night at Volusia with Birkhofer in third and Des Moines native Billy Moyer taking fourth. Decorah's Tyler Bruening finished seventh in the third consolation while Dubuque's Joel Callahan was ninth in that same race.
Jared Landers came from the back to win the $5,000 top prize in Monday's headliner "The Gator" for the UMP Modifieds.
As of today two racing events a little closer to home than Florida are still on for this weekend, but the weather forecasts for Hohenwald, Tennessee, and Meridian, Mississippi, are not looking real favorable for racing.....or for getting there from around here for that matter!
The events on Thursday night and Saturday night will be the first two races on the 2010 World of Outlaw Late Model schedule and Birky's performance in these two races may just make his decision for him.
Iowa was pretty well represented among the 67-car roster Monday night at Volusia with Birkhofer in third and Des Moines native Billy Moyer taking fourth. Decorah's Tyler Bruening finished seventh in the third consolation while Dubuque's Joel Callahan was ninth in that same race.
Jared Landers came from the back to win the $5,000 top prize in Monday's headliner "The Gator" for the UMP Modifieds.
As of today two racing events a little closer to home than Florida are still on for this weekend, but the weather forecasts for Hohenwald, Tennessee, and Meridian, Mississippi, are not looking real favorable for racing.....or for getting there from around here for that matter!
Monday, February 8, 2010
Notes On ANOTHER Snowy Day.....
This weather is getting old....
"Racing like it used to be" or "going back to our roots" are some of the lines that we have been hearing coming out of NASCAR as we head into the 2010 season and if they are serious about that I have a suggestion for them. During Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout we once again saw a race finish abruptly when Jeff Gordon turned Greg Biffle and everybody went scrambling. The first thing that the announcers said was "that's it, the race is over and they will finish where they were running when the caution came out". Remember how it used to be? They used to race back to the start-finish line when the caution came out and so you still had some drama as to who would actually win the race. For some very good safety reasons they don't do that anymore, but as long as these guys keep wrecking each other in the final laps the fans, both the ticket-buyers and the TV viewers, are being robbed of a race to the finish seemingly more often then not. How about we try this.....
If your car is ahead of the wreck in relation to the start-finish line then you will continue to race back to the caution just like the good old days (racing like it used to be.....going back to our roots) while if you are behind the wreck you will be scored where you were at when the caution came out. Maintains the safety while improving the racing, seems pretty reasonable to me.
Watching the ARCA race at Daytona anymore is like watching a slasher movie with a boring plot. There was little if any racing during the green flag segments and it was once again peppered with some scary looking wrecks. One of those involved Iowa's own "First Lady of Late Model Racing" Jill George who wound up smacking the wall while rolling over in a frightening looking accident. Thank goodness Jill climbed out of her mangled racecar under her own power!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGEur0hEsbg
This incident has sparked a pretty active discussion as to whether or not Jill should have even been competing at Daytona given her level of experience/success in racing. My thought is this, there have been plenty of drivers, both male and female, who have had their first effort at Daytona end in spectacular fashion. If you want to go racing on a superspeedway the ARCA race is the place to do it and to get that "first time" under your belt. Where else are you going to be able to have that first superspeedway "racing" experience? You can rent track time or go to one of those "Driving Experience" programs, but neither of those provide somebody with true racing conditions. Jill George wanted to race at Daytona. She did, she crashed, she walked away. If she wants to do it again, you can bet that she learned a lot from her first experience. I don't see a lot of people debating whether or not Josh Richards should have been able to avoid that first muli-car pileup.
I am a bit surprised that Danica Patrick announced today that she will try to run in this Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Daytona. Yes, she finished the ARCA race in sixth this past weekend and made some nice moves around much slower cars to get back into contention at the end after being forced into a spin by Nelson Piquet Jr., BUT......I just never got the sense that she was comfortable as far as drafting was concerned. Not once did I see her tuck right up to the back bumper of the car in front of her almost always lagging back by a full car-length or more. Commentators Darrell Waltrip and Phil Parsons both stated that she was actually hurting the efforts of the driver in front of her by not pulling up closer. Then again part of that discomfort might have come from the fact that the car in front of her late in the race was Patrick Sheltra who on at least three occasions hung the back end out more in the corners than he likely did when running a dirt Late Model on the red clay ovals of the southeast. Danica was probably back there saying "no thanks, I don't want any part of that at 180 miles per hour". We'll see how she does this weekend running against MUCH better competition.
Speaking of Danica, while watching the Super Bowl last evening and seeing the GoDaddy ads, a couple of my non-racefan friends asked me about her sexual orientation. I said that she was married, why? And they said that they just wondered why in every one of these ads the sight of Danica seems to make some other attractive young woman start ripping her clothes off. It was a good question, especially on the strength of a few beers and two big glasses of Hurricane Punch.
Back to the dirt, the Dart Winternationals at East Bay Raceway produced a surprising opening night winner in Mike Marlar, who never finished better than 20th the rest of the week, and then saw Don O'Neal take the finale on Saturday night. While it was not necessarily a "surprise" to find O'Neal in victory lane, he probably wasn't one of the names that most dirt Late Model fans would have put on their short list when it came to predictions.
Over at Volusia the two winners of the World of Outlaw sprint events were definitely no surprise as Donny Schatz and Steve Kinser picked up checkered flags. It was a disappointing start for 20-year-old Cody Darrah who was more than ready to climb aboard a Kasey Kahne Racing car for a run at the WoO title this year. Cody and his father Joe were on their way to Daytona to watch qualifying for the 500 on Saturday when they were involved in a traffic accident. Cody suffered a broken left leg that required surgery and will likely put him on the sidelines for the next couple of months. He was replaced in the KKR ride for the weekend by Brad Sweet.
Two of our newest bloggers at http://www.positivelyracing.com/, Stacy Ervin and Danny Rosencrans, have put up their first efforts and we encourage you to check them out.
And on a note away from racing.....I get a kick out of watching how biased the media coverage is of politics these days. We all know who Fox News Channel is rooting for just as we know in which corner MSNBC is in. They no longer even attempt to give the impression that their reporting is balanced and unbiased. Today's evidence of this involves what was written on the hand of Sarah Palin during her speech at a Tea Party gathering this past weekend. Apparently those same media types who made fun of Palin's manual crib notes had no problem with President Obama's use of dual teleprompters when he was speaking to sixth graders in their classroom recently and vice versa. I think that is why I enjoy watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart so much. He readily admits that he leans to the left, but he will make fun of both sides when it is warranted. Check it out sometime.
That's it for now, time to go shovel the driveway again!
"Racing like it used to be" or "going back to our roots" are some of the lines that we have been hearing coming out of NASCAR as we head into the 2010 season and if they are serious about that I have a suggestion for them. During Saturday night's Budweiser Shootout we once again saw a race finish abruptly when Jeff Gordon turned Greg Biffle and everybody went scrambling. The first thing that the announcers said was "that's it, the race is over and they will finish where they were running when the caution came out". Remember how it used to be? They used to race back to the start-finish line when the caution came out and so you still had some drama as to who would actually win the race. For some very good safety reasons they don't do that anymore, but as long as these guys keep wrecking each other in the final laps the fans, both the ticket-buyers and the TV viewers, are being robbed of a race to the finish seemingly more often then not. How about we try this.....
If your car is ahead of the wreck in relation to the start-finish line then you will continue to race back to the caution just like the good old days (racing like it used to be.....going back to our roots) while if you are behind the wreck you will be scored where you were at when the caution came out. Maintains the safety while improving the racing, seems pretty reasonable to me.
Watching the ARCA race at Daytona anymore is like watching a slasher movie with a boring plot. There was little if any racing during the green flag segments and it was once again peppered with some scary looking wrecks. One of those involved Iowa's own "First Lady of Late Model Racing" Jill George who wound up smacking the wall while rolling over in a frightening looking accident. Thank goodness Jill climbed out of her mangled racecar under her own power!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGEur0hEsbg
This incident has sparked a pretty active discussion as to whether or not Jill should have even been competing at Daytona given her level of experience/success in racing. My thought is this, there have been plenty of drivers, both male and female, who have had their first effort at Daytona end in spectacular fashion. If you want to go racing on a superspeedway the ARCA race is the place to do it and to get that "first time" under your belt. Where else are you going to be able to have that first superspeedway "racing" experience? You can rent track time or go to one of those "Driving Experience" programs, but neither of those provide somebody with true racing conditions. Jill George wanted to race at Daytona. She did, she crashed, she walked away. If she wants to do it again, you can bet that she learned a lot from her first experience. I don't see a lot of people debating whether or not Josh Richards should have been able to avoid that first muli-car pileup.
I am a bit surprised that Danica Patrick announced today that she will try to run in this Saturday's Nationwide Series race at Daytona. Yes, she finished the ARCA race in sixth this past weekend and made some nice moves around much slower cars to get back into contention at the end after being forced into a spin by Nelson Piquet Jr., BUT......I just never got the sense that she was comfortable as far as drafting was concerned. Not once did I see her tuck right up to the back bumper of the car in front of her almost always lagging back by a full car-length or more. Commentators Darrell Waltrip and Phil Parsons both stated that she was actually hurting the efforts of the driver in front of her by not pulling up closer. Then again part of that discomfort might have come from the fact that the car in front of her late in the race was Patrick Sheltra who on at least three occasions hung the back end out more in the corners than he likely did when running a dirt Late Model on the red clay ovals of the southeast. Danica was probably back there saying "no thanks, I don't want any part of that at 180 miles per hour". We'll see how she does this weekend running against MUCH better competition.
Speaking of Danica, while watching the Super Bowl last evening and seeing the GoDaddy ads, a couple of my non-racefan friends asked me about her sexual orientation. I said that she was married, why? And they said that they just wondered why in every one of these ads the sight of Danica seems to make some other attractive young woman start ripping her clothes off. It was a good question, especially on the strength of a few beers and two big glasses of Hurricane Punch.
Back to the dirt, the Dart Winternationals at East Bay Raceway produced a surprising opening night winner in Mike Marlar, who never finished better than 20th the rest of the week, and then saw Don O'Neal take the finale on Saturday night. While it was not necessarily a "surprise" to find O'Neal in victory lane, he probably wasn't one of the names that most dirt Late Model fans would have put on their short list when it came to predictions.
Over at Volusia the two winners of the World of Outlaw sprint events were definitely no surprise as Donny Schatz and Steve Kinser picked up checkered flags. It was a disappointing start for 20-year-old Cody Darrah who was more than ready to climb aboard a Kasey Kahne Racing car for a run at the WoO title this year. Cody and his father Joe were on their way to Daytona to watch qualifying for the 500 on Saturday when they were involved in a traffic accident. Cody suffered a broken left leg that required surgery and will likely put him on the sidelines for the next couple of months. He was replaced in the KKR ride for the weekend by Brad Sweet.
Two of our newest bloggers at http://www.positivelyracing.com/, Stacy Ervin and Danny Rosencrans, have put up their first efforts and we encourage you to check them out.
And on a note away from racing.....I get a kick out of watching how biased the media coverage is of politics these days. We all know who Fox News Channel is rooting for just as we know in which corner MSNBC is in. They no longer even attempt to give the impression that their reporting is balanced and unbiased. Today's evidence of this involves what was written on the hand of Sarah Palin during her speech at a Tea Party gathering this past weekend. Apparently those same media types who made fun of Palin's manual crib notes had no problem with President Obama's use of dual teleprompters when he was speaking to sixth graders in their classroom recently and vice versa. I think that is why I enjoy watching The Daily Show with Jon Stewart so much. He readily admits that he leans to the left, but he will make fun of both sides when it is warranted. Check it out sometime.
That's it for now, time to go shovel the driveway again!
Friday, February 5, 2010
Snowy Day Notes....
I need to write here more often during the offseason as it might keep me from getting in trouble! I spent a couple of days last week going back and forth on a message board with a gentleman who I actually think knows a great deal about the sport, but his problem is that he has developed this online persona that makes him the equivalent of a lightning rod......no matter what he writes somebody is going to take the other side against him and argue.....and argue....and argue....and sadly on the subject of whether the MARS series making a couple of stops in Iowa this year would hurt weekly Late Model racing or not, I ended up being that person arguing with him. The funny thing about it is that there will never be a cut and dried way to decide who was right and who was wrong and I knew that before I made my first post, but with each one of his replies I found myself getting sucked into it further and further until I was bound and determine to "win"......but that never happens in the world of internet message boards does it? I made myself look like a jerk and I'll chalk it up to a lesson learned. So now it is back to reporting on racing (and a few other things) in a Positive manner here on the Back Stretch. Ah, it is nice to be back in my comfort zone!
Sad to have seen this e-mail this afternoon:
WORLD Dirt Racing League Closes Series
Gilman City Missouri
For Immediate Release:
The WORLD Dirt Racing League (WDRL) is sorry to announce that it will no longer have the Touring Series WDRL and is discontinuing business as such immediately.
We hated to have to make this announcement because of the loyalty of the race fans, race teams, and several racetracks that we have been fortunate to have races at each year.
With fewer and fewer tracks running open Late Model cars in the region that the WDRL (formerly the ol' Busch Tour) runs in you had to figure it was going to be a tough go for the veteran race director Jim Wilson and it looks like he is picking the right time to get out. I hope that Late Model fans and drivers have appreciated the many years that he has committed to the sport.
I am looking forward to Saturday's ARCA race at Daytona due to the interesting cast of characters that have qualified for the forty-three car starting field. Of course a great deal of attention will be given to the Stock Car debut of Danica Patrick, but she is joined in the lineup by five other racing ladies including Iowa's own Jill George. Throw in other dirt trackers such as Steve Arpin, Patrick Sheltra and Josh Richards and that is enough to grab my attention on a Saturday afternoon.
Speaking of Jill George, she is listed, along with Chas Shellanbarger of Winfield PA, as a 2010 Rookie of the Year contender for the World of Outlaw Late Model Series. The Outlaws will have a new "Young Gun" to deal with this year in 17-year-old Austin Hubbard of Seaford, Delaware. Hubbard will take over the driving duties for Dale Beitler's team in 2010, the car that was driven by the 2009 series runner-up Steve Francis. Hubbard showed that he is ready for the big time when he captured the $12,000 top prize in the finale of the Super Bowl of racing at Golden Isles Speedway in Brunswick, Georgia, on January 30th holding back persistent challenges from Scott Bloomquist.
As I have been watching the results roll in from Speedweeks so far it seemed to me that everybody was winning from the front row. But when I went back and researched it in more detail I did discover that there have been some winners who have had to race their way to the front. The winners so far and their starting position follows:
East Bay Modifieds
Jeff Mathews (4)
Brady Short (1)
Rodney Wing (1)
Don O'Neal (4)
Rodney Wing (1)
Golden Isles Late Models
Scott Bloomquist (8)
Josh Richards (2)
Austin Hubbard (1)
East Bay Late Models
Mike Marlar (2)
Scott Bloomquist (2)
Billy Moyer (Front Row)
Earl Pearson Jr. (5)
Volusia Sprints
Craig Dollansky (1)
Joey Saldana (5)
Volusia Mods
Dave Hess Jr. (Front Row)
David McWilliams (Front Row)
Don't get me wrong, a guy can win from the front row and have it still be a great race. The Wednesday night duel between Moyer and Richards is evidence of that as the pair started side-by-side at the front and waged a great battle throughout.
Earl Pearson Jr. made the pass of Scott Bloomquist coming to the white flag to take the win at East Bay Thursday night. Pearson's new teammate for 2010 at Bobby Labonte Racing Brad Neat started 14th and raced his way up to third at the finish.
PR.com area drivers making the Modified feature at Volusia the first two nights are Tommie Seets who finished second to Pennsylvania's Hess on Wednesday night and then was 14th on Thursday. Former All Iowa Points Champ Ron Barker of Dubuque has made the feature from the 70+ car field each night and has finished 25th both nights.
Closer to home I see that Burlington's Andy Krieger has indicated that he will start out following the new Hawkeye Dirt Tour for IMCA Modifieds and will stick with it for the full season if he has some early success.
If you want stay up to date on Modified racing throughout the country take a look at this site http://www.dirtmodifiedracer.com/
And finally, stepping away from racing and over to college basketball, if you want to work up a smile you have to check out this blog by Ohio State benchwarmer Mark Titus http://clubtrillion.blogspot.com/
Have a great weekend and check in again soon!
Sad to have seen this e-mail this afternoon:
WORLD Dirt Racing League Closes Series
Gilman City Missouri
For Immediate Release:
The WORLD Dirt Racing League (WDRL) is sorry to announce that it will no longer have the Touring Series WDRL and is discontinuing business as such immediately.
We hated to have to make this announcement because of the loyalty of the race fans, race teams, and several racetracks that we have been fortunate to have races at each year.
With fewer and fewer tracks running open Late Model cars in the region that the WDRL (formerly the ol' Busch Tour) runs in you had to figure it was going to be a tough go for the veteran race director Jim Wilson and it looks like he is picking the right time to get out. I hope that Late Model fans and drivers have appreciated the many years that he has committed to the sport.
I am looking forward to Saturday's ARCA race at Daytona due to the interesting cast of characters that have qualified for the forty-three car starting field. Of course a great deal of attention will be given to the Stock Car debut of Danica Patrick, but she is joined in the lineup by five other racing ladies including Iowa's own Jill George. Throw in other dirt trackers such as Steve Arpin, Patrick Sheltra and Josh Richards and that is enough to grab my attention on a Saturday afternoon.
Speaking of Jill George, she is listed, along with Chas Shellanbarger of Winfield PA, as a 2010 Rookie of the Year contender for the World of Outlaw Late Model Series. The Outlaws will have a new "Young Gun" to deal with this year in 17-year-old Austin Hubbard of Seaford, Delaware. Hubbard will take over the driving duties for Dale Beitler's team in 2010, the car that was driven by the 2009 series runner-up Steve Francis. Hubbard showed that he is ready for the big time when he captured the $12,000 top prize in the finale of the Super Bowl of racing at Golden Isles Speedway in Brunswick, Georgia, on January 30th holding back persistent challenges from Scott Bloomquist.
As I have been watching the results roll in from Speedweeks so far it seemed to me that everybody was winning from the front row. But when I went back and researched it in more detail I did discover that there have been some winners who have had to race their way to the front. The winners so far and their starting position follows:
East Bay Modifieds
Jeff Mathews (4)
Brady Short (1)
Rodney Wing (1)
Don O'Neal (4)
Rodney Wing (1)
Golden Isles Late Models
Scott Bloomquist (8)
Josh Richards (2)
Austin Hubbard (1)
East Bay Late Models
Mike Marlar (2)
Scott Bloomquist (2)
Billy Moyer (Front Row)
Earl Pearson Jr. (5)
Volusia Sprints
Craig Dollansky (1)
Joey Saldana (5)
Volusia Mods
Dave Hess Jr. (Front Row)
David McWilliams (Front Row)
Don't get me wrong, a guy can win from the front row and have it still be a great race. The Wednesday night duel between Moyer and Richards is evidence of that as the pair started side-by-side at the front and waged a great battle throughout.
Earl Pearson Jr. made the pass of Scott Bloomquist coming to the white flag to take the win at East Bay Thursday night. Pearson's new teammate for 2010 at Bobby Labonte Racing Brad Neat started 14th and raced his way up to third at the finish.
PR.com area drivers making the Modified feature at Volusia the first two nights are Tommie Seets who finished second to Pennsylvania's Hess on Wednesday night and then was 14th on Thursday. Former All Iowa Points Champ Ron Barker of Dubuque has made the feature from the 70+ car field each night and has finished 25th both nights.
Closer to home I see that Burlington's Andy Krieger has indicated that he will start out following the new Hawkeye Dirt Tour for IMCA Modifieds and will stick with it for the full season if he has some early success.
If you want stay up to date on Modified racing throughout the country take a look at this site http://www.dirtmodifiedracer.com/
And finally, stepping away from racing and over to college basketball, if you want to work up a smile you have to check out this blog by Ohio State benchwarmer Mark Titus http://clubtrillion.blogspot.com/
Have a great weekend and check in again soon!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)