Saturday Notebook: January 23, 2016

Happy Birthday Mom!

In addition to my normal Saturday morning routine of listening to the Racin' Boys online I also have the Weather Channel on just to see how crazy things are out east with winter storm Jonas. Hard to believe that here in southeast Iowa we have had less than 10 inches of snow overall for the entire winter so far while these major population centers are getting two or three times that in just one shot. What a mess!

The storm wiped out the one scheduled racing event east of the Rockies this weekend as the Cabin Fever event for Super Late Models at Boyd's Raceway in north Georgia has been pushed back to next weekend where temperatures are expected to rebound back into the 60's. Road trip?

The most recent update of the Midwest special events schedule that you can find on the Calendar page at Positively Racing has more than 900 shows on it now and when Webmistress Sue has time to upload it you will now find the Deery Brothers Summer Series and Hawkeye Dirt Tour dates for 2016.

It is good to see Davenport back on the Deery schedule and they will open the series in grand fashion on Friday April 8th with the Rebel 5K paying $5,000 to the winner. The abnormal calendar in 2015 when Labor Day was as late as it could be piled up the Fall Specials and caused some frustration for promoter Bob Wagener with IMCA and the Rebel debuted as a non-sanctioned event last year. It is good to now see that everybody is back on the same page and that the long running series is back at one of the sanctioning body's most successful weekly tracks.

It is also good to see the Iowa State Fair Speedway back on the schedule after a on year absence. No, the July 29th date is not during the Iowa State Fair, but this will be an opportunity for drivers and fans to show the Fair just how much they would support a show in Des Moines. Another subtle change is the annual stop at the IMCA Super Nationals in Boone as instead of the traditional Labor Day Monday date, the Late Models will now run a full show on Thursday September 8th. Taking the place of the Late Models will be the Southern Sport Mods as they will now get their one night to shine at the Super Nationals on Monday.

Sandwiched around the Boone stop the Deery series will conclude in fine fashion with a pair of two-day shows during the Yankee Dirt Classic at Farley and the Liberty 100 in West Liberty. With a restructured purse and a points payout mid-season it is obvious that IMCA is listening to those who have said that the series has been "stale" the last couple of years, a claim that frankly I don't understand. The IMCA Late Model rules are such that "outsiders" cannot just pull in for an event and it makes no sense to try to make the series drivers travel outside of their general area. The Deery series is made to give weekly racers an opportunity to race for some bigger purses and do some minimal traveling and they have been doing it right for nearly thirty years now. Given the goals of the series, perhaps "stale" is a compliment.

There are nine dates on the 2016 Hawkeye Dirt Tour for IMCA Modifieds with a few interesting items to note. The Benton County Speedway in Vinton has traditionally hosted the opener and that will happen once again, but instead of a Tuesday night in mid-May it will now be on Memorial Day Monday May 30th. The West Liberty Raceway has one of the strongest weekly roster of IMCA Modifieds in the Midwest right now and they will be a tough bunch to beat when the HDT makes its first ever visit to the historic half-mile oval on Tuesday June 14th making for one heck of a doubleheader with the Deery Brothers Summer Series. The Iowa State Fair Speedway in Des Moines is another new venue for the Tour with a Tuesday July 19th showing and on the following night it moves to the Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa. Then, to make it a mid-week tripleheader, the Tour returns to the Knoxville Raceway on Thursday June 21st and while in the past this has been during the Harris Clash, in 2016 this date will be on its own merit as the Clash has been scheduled for Tuesday August 9th at the Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City. The Clash is not on the HDT schedule.

The Hawkeye Dirt Tour will join the Deery Series for another big doubleheader at the Cedar County Raceway in Tipton on Tuesday August 2nd before heading west eight days later to close out the schedule at the Buena Vista Raceway in Alta.

It is interesting though that as of right now the USMTS is showing a Southern Iowa Speedway date on Tuesday July 19th, the same night as the HDT stop in Des Moines and just one night before the HDT event at the same track in Oskaloosa.

One of the things that I love about Scott and Kirk (Racin' Boys) is that they enthusiastically support the dirt track drivers who move on to the NASCAR ranks and they have been predicting Kyle Larson's first Cup win almost weekly for two years now. With Rico Abreu stepping into a full-time Truck series ride for 2016 maybe that will take some of their focus off of Larson as today they were already asking NASCAR journalist supreme Lee Spencer whether or not Rico will get his first win in 2016.

Well, with not much else going on this weekend, maybe I will get more of Gary Lee's Pit Pictures uploaded to the Positively Racing Facebook page. Take a look if you get a chance, after all you don't have any shoveling to do!