Christine has other plans once again this weekend giving me the opportunity to go racing. The problem is that another woman with slightly more power might have other plans with rain and even snow in the forecast. I just knew that when we had six straight days of record high temperatures in February that we would have to pay for it in March and April.
If you don't already know it by now, it is probably too late, but the Spring Nationals in Beatrice have been moved up by one day in an effort to beat the weather. Practice and the Race of Champions was last night, the first night of racing will take place tonight (Thursday) and the final night will be held on Friday. As I look at the hourly forecast for Friday, as of now, the snow is not supposed to arrive until 3 a.m. on Saturday so that it is my primary target with the Battle of the Bullring B-Mod Nationals at Humboldt, Kansas, as a worthy backup plan.
Humboldt would be my first option for Saturday with other solid possibilities at the Crawford County Speedway in Van Buren, Arkansas, and the USMTS show at the Southern Oklahoma Speedway in Ardmore. Each would involve a bit of a road trip though so if the forecast plays out as predicted I will likely end up back in Des Moines for the final night of the boys State Basketball tournament. Either way I should have some fun!
Last week's road trip did not turn out so well and let's just hope that I have nowhere to go but up for the rest of the 2017 season. Not once did I question my decision to come back home on Saturday and it was confirmed to be a good one after reading Ed Reichert's account of Saturday night's show. I have seen other people put the blame directly on track preparation, but I still say that the format has more to do with the lack of action. Many of my driver friends might disagree, but the average point invert method used by IMCA gives the fans the best show on a consistent basis and I genuinely feel sorry for fans from other areas of the country who do not get to experience. If I lived in an area where all tracks qualified and started the fast cars in front I honestly doubt that I would even be a race fan and the fact that I drove seven hours to get away from it proved that. Quick question, name the two most talked about and anticipated Lucas Oil Dirt Late Model Series shows of the season. The Silver Dollar Nationals and the Knoxville Nationals both of which use a format that makes the fast guys start somewhere other than up front in the qualifying events.
I see that the ASCS National Tour race that was scheduled for Sunday March 26th at the Missouri State Fair Speedway in Sedalia has been moved to the Randolph County Speedway in Moberly due to construction work on the concession stands that will not be completed in time. Guess that shows just how important concession sales are to the success of an event! Works for me though as not only is Moberly a better track, in my opinion, but it is also more than an hour closer to home for me so put that one on my list. Racing is scheduled at 4 p.m. and will also include the ULMA Late Models.
As someone who tracks the results for the All Iowa Points as well as at the other tracks here in the Midwest I am concerned about the changes with Speednet, the location where I would estimate that I found two-thirds of my results last year. Hopefully ALL race tracks will do a good job of making sure that their results are posted somewhere that is relatively easy to find in 2017.
I just sent the latest update of the Specials schedule to the Webmistress that now has 1,241 events on it. You may have noticed that I have added Arkansas, Michigan and North Dakota to the mix this year, but that will probably do it in regard to "expansion". There are still a few tracks who do not have their schedules finalized and I will keep an eye out for those over the next few weeks.
The weekly schedule for the All Iowa Points tracks will also be completed soon after the Kossuth County Speedway in Algona came through with theirs on Wednesday. The Boone Speedway is the only track in Iowa still missing, but after the addition of their anniversary race you can pretty much fill in the rest from there.
I have to give credit to Dirt On Dirt for this find. Kind of says it all, doesn't it?
Several of the Dirt Late Model shows scheduled for this weekend have already been called so these points will not change much this week.
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