Some Old Sprint Car Pics....

As we wait for the snow to melt my partner Barry Johnson took some time to scan in some more of the photos that I took back in the early 1990's. Here are a few Sprint Car shots from 34 Raceway and Quincy including a couple of drivers who are no longer with us. Hope you enjoy....
Danny Young

Scott Newman

Scott "Breezy" Whitworth

Randy Wagler

Daniel Coggeshell

Randy Smith

Skip Jackson

Tony Weyant

Jim Farmer & Danny Smith

Johnny Herrera

Dave Anderson

Move One Of The California Dates To Iowa....Or Anyhwere Else

I'll admit that I haven't even watched a few laps from a Sprint Cup race at the California Speedway the past several years. But after getting psyched up from an entertaining Daytona 500 and with another winter storm bearing down on southeast Iowa, I set up the DVR to record yesterday's race so that I could watch it at my own pace. (There was no way that I was going to watch it in "real time"!) I was shocked to see how many empty seats there were as the blimp shot showed the starting field beginning to pull off pit road! Is it always like that at Fontana? I've seen better crowds at a Cup race that gets pushed back to a Monday due to weather! It has to be an embarrassing situation for NASCAR as they try to market themselves to their corporate sponsors and if this is a consistent problem in California then the answer should be quite simple. Move one of the two California dates to a facility where the fans will appreciate the opportunity to see the world's top Stock Car series and will fill the stands to capacity.

Obviously my first suggestion would be to move a date to the Iowa Speedway as I could virtually guarantee you that if they kept adding grandstands in Newton, the fans would just keep filling them up for a Cup race. However the more likely option would be to put a second date in at the Kansas Speedway where they are now in the process of breaking ground on a new casino in the neighborhood as well. The time is now for NASCAR to let the fans of California know that if they don't sell the place out in October, they will only get one chance to do it in 2011.

For those of you who check in here on a regular basis you may notice that I did some editing on the next post down the line in regard to the 2010 racing season at the Bloomfield Speedway. When I first heard the news that R&J Promotions would be back for another year at the southeast Iowa facility I assumed that it meant that weekly Friday night racing would be back in place. However, when I took a couple of looks at the press release that came out I noticed that there was no mention of the word "weekly" in it, so until we see further info out of Ron & Jerry Potts we'll just stick with the comfort that there will be some racing in Bloomfield this year. Weekly or specials only, it remains to be seen.

I did see in a World of Outlaws Late Model press release that Brian Stuart will "organize" the weekly racing events at the track in Farmer City, Illinois, in 2010 while Don Hammer will continue to promote the special events there. Stuart has had recent stints at Aledo, Quad City Raceway and LaSalle.

You can see both of the press releases that I refer to above on the front page at www.HeartlandMotorsports.com. Danny Howk does a great job with that website so make sure that you have it bookmarked in your favorites.

Believe it or not there were a few dirt track races that were run over the weekend that would have been within driving distance for us Midwesterners.......if we could have avoided the snowstorms! The USMTS kicked off the Southern Series portion of their schedule with a Thursday, Friday, Saturday tripleheader in Baytown, Texas, that attracted a stout field of 70 cars for the finale. Kelly Shryock won the opener, Jeremy Payne was the fastest on Friday and the $5,000-to-win show on Saturday was won by Jason Hughes. Iowans Mike Hansen of Alton and Zack VanderBeek of New Sharon finished third and tenth respectively on Saturday.

"The Decatur Raider" Mark Mears of Decatur, Alabama, picked up the top prize in the Super Late Models at the Winter Meltdown event at Moulton Speedway in north central Alabama on Saturday and at the 1st Annual Ice Breaker event at Tennessee National Raceway in Hohenwald it was Anthony Burroughs taking the win over a field of twenty-two Super Late Models. Eric Hickerson was second with Michael Walker, who was a Rookie-of-the-Year competitor on the 2009 Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Tour, third. Billy Moyer Jr. finished fourth in the event that had one driver, Sammy Epling, pull all the way down from Michigan. Former Cup star Kenny Schrader won the Modified portion of the show.

Okay now, let's start melting some of this snow!

Potts Back At Bloomfield for 2010

You can tell that we are getting closer to the racing season as it seems that there is some kind of interesting news that comes out daily now. Yesterday it was the announcement that Ron & Jerry Potts would be back to promote racing at the Bloomfield Speedway for 2010. This came as somewhat of a surprise to me as it appeared that the facility might only host a couple of specials and a Fair race this year after the fairboard and Chris Eggers could not reach an agreement last Fall.

I caught a great night of racing on my one trip to Bloomfield last year and it is good to know that the Ottumwa area will still have some weekend dirt track action nearby this season as Eldon continues to sit idle. The same five classes (A-Mods, B-Mods, Stock Cars, Hobby Stocks and Four Cylinders) with the same rules as last year will return with the season opener set for April 23rd.

As I was scanning the United States Modified Touring Series (USMTS) website this morning to see who won in Houston last night I noted that the event scheduled for March 5th & 6th in McCool Junction Nebraska has been postponed until March 26th & 27th due to the snow cover that still lingers there and in most of the upper Midwest. We'll have to get that updated on our Specials schedule as it still sits up there right now as the first date. It needs to get McWarm here soon or we won't be racing until mid-May in this part of the country.

By the way it was Kelly Shryock taking the win over Terry Phillips last night as sixty-one Modifieds kicked off the 2010 USMTS season. Several drivers from our area including Mike Hansen, Michael Long, Zach VanderBeek and more were in the field and you can catch the full results by clicking on the USMTS logo to the left.

We would like to welcome the Buena Vista Raceway on board as a supporter of PositivelyRacing.com for the 2010 season. The northwest Iowa facility now known as "The Beaver" runs a quality show each and every Wednesday night and we appreciate the support from promoter Jeff Herrig. With the new artwork on their ad I am guessing that they are going to sell a bunch of t-shirts this year, especially for their season-ending special event. To find out more about BVR click on their ad on the home page at http://www.positivelyracing.com/.

That's all for now, enjoy your weekend!

And Now Some Modified Pics.....

I want to thank my friend Barry Johnson for taking the time to scan in some of my old photos from the early 1990's, I hope that you enjoy them as we count down the days to the 2010 racing season here in the Midwest!

Mike Weikert Jr.

Tom Charles

Randy Wages

Hershel Roberts

Scott Olson and Bruce Hanford

Kerry Davis

Bryan Behning and Jimmy Durbin

Larry Clawson

Ron Barker

Wilson To Bring Back Weekly Racing At Bethany?

If people thought that Jim Wilson was going to settle into retirement and no longer promote the sport of dirt track racing, they were wrong. Just a little more than a week after the surprising announcement came out that the WDRL would be closing up shop comes perhaps even a more surprising announcement that Wilson intends on presenting a weekly racing program on the grounds of the Northwest Missouri State Fair in Bethany. You can read the full press release on the front page at http://www.racinboys.com/ among other places.

Right now they are looking at Friday night racing with Late Models, B-Mods, Stock Cars and Four Cylinders, however nothing is set in stone as of yet and a meeting is scheduled for March 6th. Not sure where he would pull the Late Models from unless some Corning guys are looking to race a second night, but one thing is for sure. Jim Wilson has experience and if anybody can revive that facility with a weekly racing program it would be him. It will be interesting to see how things shake out.

It was also announced this week that someone currently only known as S&G Inc. has signed a lease agreement to reopen the dirt track at I-70 Speedway. There were no details as to who "S" and "G" are and no other plans beyond a statement that IMCA-type rules would be used but the track would not be sanctioned. Wow, is the Kansas City area the hotbed of racing or are promoters taking risks in an over saturated market? The area lost a Saturday night staple in the Adrian Speedway last year and one has to wonder if there are enough cars and fans to be spread around the remaining tracks. Personally, I'd love to see a track every thirty miles because I love to have choices, but we all know that is just not feasible in today's economic climate. Or at any time for that matter! Once again, it will be interesting to see how things shake out.

My partner Barry found some time to scan some of my old photos this week. I hope you enjoy these and keep an eye out on his blog at http://www.positivelyracing.com/ as he should have some of his own up soon as well.

Jeff Aikey and Rick Wendling at Oskaloosa

Larry Moore at Eldora

Kevin Pittman at Independence

Jeff Purvis at Eldora

Sonny Smyser, but not sure where! Let me know what you think......

Randle Chupp at Bulls Gap TN

Dave Birkhofer at West Liberty

Freddy Smith at Eldora

Jack Hewitt at Eldora

The Monday After....

Happy President's Day! I watched a lot of racing this weekend on TV, so now I am stoked up and ready to go for some live and in-person action. The problem is that just about the whole freakin' country is covered with snow right now so it may be a long time before we get to see anything around here.

http://www.intellicast.com/Travel/Weather/Snow/Cover.aspx

I was very entertained watching the Daytona 500 and the two hour and twenty-five minutes worth of delays for the pothole didn't bother me too much as I just jumped over to the two hours worth of coverage from the Chili Bowl that I had DVR'd when Speed aired it again at 2:00 p.m. on Sunday. This 500 saw more different race leaders than any other and with Dale Jr. making a frantic charge it made for quite an exciting finish. Watching Jamie McMurray's emotional victory lane interview put a nice finishing touch on the day and I really loved it when his wife stepped in and simply said "Hi". My son Kyle now lives in McMurray's hometown of Joplin, Missouri, but he did not report any dancing in the streets there last evening.

Every time I start to join the majority of racing fans by liking Mark Martin he goes and makes a statement that puts him back on my whiners list. In an interview that I saw on ESPN this morning Martin was stating that he didn't like the additional attempts at trying to finish the race under green because it causes more wrecks, "but that's what the fans want". No Mark, the fans don't want to see more wrecks, the fans want to see a race finish under a green flag. This is not the first time that Martin has painted the fans out as being blood-thirsty goons as it seems to be a regular observation of his after any restrictor-plate race where things didn't turn out so well for him. I have written on a couple of occasions here on the blog, and even more in my Hawkeye Racing News column that it amazes me how the Cup drivers seem to have no conscience when it comes to tearing up equipment while racing the final laps of the restrictor plate races, but on Sunday I thought they actually behaved themselves pretty good and the fans got what they wanted, and waited to see. A thrilling finish under green flag conditions. It was a great start to a very important year for NASCAR.

I thought Danica Patrick did pretty well for herself on Saturday during the Nationwide event. Anybody who expected her to be running up front and who are now bashing her for not doing so must have been delusional to begin with. I am interested to see how she does out in California this week and that is what people need to realize where the value of Danica-mania lies. Normally I would care less about the Nationwide race at California, heck I really haven't been that interested in the Cup race from there either, but now I am looking forward to watching both. One, because Danica is racing on Saturday, and two because I enjoyed watching the Daytona 500.

Sticking with Daytona, I almost turned off the Truck race after the first lap accident that wiped out the efforts of the two drivers I was most interested in, Landon Cassill and Jennifer Cobb. I'm glad I stuck with though! Yes, it was a demolition derby (that's not why I kept watching though Mark!), but when they were racing the action was furious including a thrilling finish (under green Mark) where ten trucks were within a half second of each other. Timothy Peters, a name that I wasn't really familiar with, took the win and yes, because of this race I will be paying more attention to the Truck Series.......at least for a little bit.

To the dirt now, Speedweeks wrapped for the Late Models on Saturday night as Brady Smith picked up the World of Outlaws main event at Volusia Speedway Park and he will leave Florida with the points lead over Josh Richards and Earl Person Jr. after the first two events. Actually they will all return to Florida for the next event on the schedule March 19th at Ocala Speedway. Brian Birkhofer bounced back with an 11th-place run on Saturday night that leaves him tied for 25th in the points. Not sure if that will be enough to convince him to follow the WoO series as a regular as he mentioned earlier in the week, but we'll see. Decorah's Tyler Bruening ran fifth in the second consi while Dubuque's Joel Callahan hit the wall just past the flagstand and tipped over onto his roof during the fourth heat race. Callahan escaped uninjured.

The UMP Modifieds were only able to get in one of their three scheduled nights of action at the North Florida Speedway in Lake City and it was St. Louis area driver Tommie Seets Jr. who picked up the win on Thursday night. Quincy regular Dave Wietholder ran fifth. The full feature results follow:


Thursday North Florida Speedway Results
1.#1s TOMMY SEETS JR 2.#182 RANDAL SWEENEY 3.#33 JEFF MATTHEWS 4.#72 RANDAL NEIHEISER 5.#05 DAVE WIETHOLDER 6.#1g DEVIN GILPIN 7.#18 DAVID MCWILLIAMS 8.#7 RICKY CULPEPPER 9.#115 ROBERT MOORE 10.#JEFF CULPEPPER 11.#25w RICKY WHITE 12.#25 HERB DONATH 13.#1b JOEY BRINSON 14.#94 JEFF BADGENT 15.#41d DORRAN SMITH 16.3l JEFF LEKA 17.#10X DAVE PONTON 18.#44 JOSH SANFORD 19.#5r DOUG RODGERS 20.#51 JEFF SWEENEY 21.40g JAMES SMITH 22.#12rRICK CLARK 23.#07 JEFF THOMAS 24.#12j JOE CARR

The coverage of the Chili Bowl was fantastic and I also enjoyed watching the delayed broadcasts of the Lucas Oil Late Model Series events from Bardstown and Portsmouth this weekend. One of the things I like to do is listen to the commentators to see if they slip up by saying something that reveals that they are more often than not adding in their comments in the production studio well after the event is over. Do they say something that they want to sound profound, like "keep your eye on so and so as he really likes to ride the cushion" of course already knowing that ol' so and so rides that cushion to the front to take the win? It cannot be an easy thing to do, trying to call a race as if you have no idea who is going to wreck and who is going to win. On the three shows that I saw this weekend, the only thing that I caught that would prove that the comments were laid in after the fact was when Ken Stout saw a car pulling into the infield in the background of the shot and said there's a another competitor pulling to the infield, but I'm not sure who that is right now. Of course if he would have been in a booth at the race calling it live, he would have had no trouble seeing who the car was that pulled into the infield. Not being critical here, like I said it cannot be an easy thing to do, but it's just another fun way to enjoy these delayed broadcasts of dirt track racing.

That's it for now, here are your All Florida Late Model points following Speedweeks

1 Scott Bloomquist Mooresburg TN 17
2 Josh Richards Shinnston WV 14
3 Earl Pearson Jr. Jacksonville FL 13
4 Dan Schlieper Sullivan WI 11
5 Billy Moyer Batesville AR 9
6 Don O'Neal Martinsville IN 9
7 Jimmy Owens Newport TN 9
8 Shannon Babb Mowequa IL 9
9 Tim McCreadie Watertown NY 9
10 Brady Smith Solon Springs WI 8
11 Dennis Erb Jr. Carpentersville IL 7
12 Darrell Lanigan Union KY 5
13 Mike Marlar Winfield TN 5
14 Dale McDowell Rossville GA 4
15 Ray Cook Brasstown NC 4
16 Brian Birkhofer Muscatine IA 3
17 Brad Neat Dunville KY 3
18 Eric Jacobsen Seacliff CA 3
19 Matt Miller Waterville OH 3
20 Tim Dohm Cross Lanes WV 2
21 Jimmy Mars Elk Mound WI 1
22 Rick Eckert York PA 1
23 Steve Francis Ashland KY 1

Another Win for Richards; Can We Please Have More Racing Like Thursday This Sunday??

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!

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.

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!

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!

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!