During the offseason I enjoy pulling together the Special Events Calendar that you can find on Positively Racing, especially now with the new format where I can add new events as they are released in real time rather than sending an updated spreadsheet to the Webmistress for her to upload week to week. I know that a couple of you had told me last year that you did not like the new format, but it is nice now to keep the hard work of compiling the schedule to myself as it was too easy for other sites to simply copy and paste the uploaded spreadsheet.
While many of you, like my friend and colleague Danny Rosencrans, use the schedule to map out where you would like to be night to night in the season ahead, I take more of the "kid in the candy shop" stance where each event presents itself as an opportunity. Before the pandemic I would often use business travel as an opportunity to attend an event and likely even visit a new track for the first time, but with Zoom and Google Meetings now the norm, those days are in the past. Family life, including the addition of grandchildren also makes it hard to say long in advance that I will be attending a certain event because I will always jump at the chance to see my boys when it comes up. So now I use this schedule in a way where when I come into a week, and when I know that I have a night free, I will pull up the calendar view and see if there is something going on within driving distance. But during this time of year, as I enter each event, you know that I am still compiling my own "wish list"!
I have always believed that I live in one of the best places there is to be a race fan with so many tracks and race nights to choose from, and to illustrate that I will use the 2023 schedules for just two tracks located just on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River. If you only went to the Davenport Speedway and to 34 Raceway west of Burlington, you can go to 51 nights of racing (they have just four nights where they run on the same night) and you would see the following series in action:
Four nights of World of Outlaws Late Models
Four nights of the Sprint Invaders
Three nights of the MLRA Late Models
Three nights of the Hoker Trucking SLMR Late Models
Two nights of the Lucas Oil Late Model Series
Two nights of the IRA Sprint Cars
One Castrol FloRacing Night in America Late Model show
One UMP Summer Nationals show
One MARS Late Model show
One World of Outlaws Sprint Car show
One High Limits Sprint Car show
One All Stars Sprint Car show
And with all of those huge events, perhaps the most intriguing to me is the Stock Car Dirt Crown Series event that will be at Davenport on Friday May 12th. This series is based out of eastern Nebraska and this is by far the farthest east that they will venture in 2023 as promoter Ricky Kay introduces the class to the Quad Cities where the "voodoo wagon" UMP-type Street Stocks have been the norm for many years. I am going to try to make all of those special events listed above, but I am going to make a point of being there on May12th to see what the Stock Cars can do on the racy quarter-mile.
Is it any wonder why 34 Raceway promoters Brad Stevens and Jessi Mynatt are in the running for this year's Auto Racing Promoters of the Year honor? And that the Davenport Speedway is a now a regular entry in the Dirt On Dirt Race of the Year category?
And these are just two of the many great tracks that I live close to!
I haven't been up to the Independence Motor Speedway often over the past several years, but with Mike Van Genderen and Dana Benning taking over promotional duties and placing a few "Monday Night Madness" events on the schedule, you can bet that a couple of those will be one of those "opportunities" for me to attend a race. If you are a regular visitor to the Back Stretch you know that I am a big fan of MVG and Benning was one of the many great promoters that I worked with while running the NKF Tour from 1998 through 2001. It will be fun to see how they do at Indee.
The Lee County Speedway in Donnellson has another schedule chock full of fun events including my favorite Shiverfest on October 28th. I am also intrigued by the two-day show featuring the HART Limited Modified Series on Friday and Saturday September 22nd and 23rd. When Dewain Hulett debuted this concept where he mixes cars from UMP, IMCA and USRA into one class, only six cars showed up at 34 Raceway. However, just as we discussed during an interview that night, it was an idea that I thought would catch on and it did so nicely drawing more than forty cars at an event in Quincy later that season. The timing of the show, and the location of the track on the edge for all three sanctioning bodies should make for an interesting mix of cars in Donnellson. Plus we will run a full program for the Sprint Invaders during Friday's show!
Promoter Larry Richardson has built up the program in Columbus Junction during his reign there and while we haven't seen an official schedule as of yet for the CJ Speedway we do know that the Hoker Trucking SLMR Late Models and the MLRA Late Models will book end the month of June at the track. I am also a big fan of their annual Turkey Dash traditionally scheduled for the first Saturday in November.
Jimmy Lieurance and his friends and family did a spectacular job of bringing the track in Quincy back to life last season after a two year hiatus and he will look to continue the momentum in 2023 with a schedule that is peppered with special events including the MARS Late Models and Modifieds, a UMP Summer Nationals show, the MLRA Late Models and the Sprint Invaders.
Long-time Late Model competitor Chuck Hanna takes over the promotion of the East Moline Speedway and one of his first efforts was a re-shaping of the track using the Fairbury Speedway as a model. Smart move as I have noted in my one or two trips a year there recently that the top half of turns three and four is never used while drivers run from the bottom to the top in turns one and two. Back in the 1980's I considered East Moline to be one of my favorite tracks making the trip up there often on a Sunday night. Hopefully the rework will improve the racing at the high banked quarter mile.
The Southern Iowa Speedway in Oskaloosa will see the return of Late Models for the first time in a few years when the SLMR series visits on June 21st and I also look forward to again popping up to Vinton where you will find one of the most enjoyable weekly shows on a Sunday night, plus Rick and Corey Dripps will have some special events including not one, but two visits by the Sprint Invaders in 2023.
I could go on and on about all of the great tracks within my travel range, but instead I encourage you again to bookmark our Special Events Calendar as it continues to build for you to find your race night "opportunities" for the season ahead.
A few notes on events that I have peeked in on during their pay per view streams here in 2023:
Thank goodness I was not watching live when sixteen-year-old Ashton Torgerson was ejected from his midget as it flipped during the Chili Bowl. And thank God that Torgerson somehow escaped with just minor injuries in the horrific incident. My friend and colleague Barry Johnson summed it perfectly when he stated that teenagers "are more bendy than us older folks". Did his arm restraint somehow catch the release mechanism on his belts as he flipped? Either way I do hope that what happened can be identified to make sure that this never happens to any driver again.
While a lot of Chili Bowl fans had no idea who Hank Davis was when he won a preliminary night feature, I knew that he was the Oklahoma Points Sprint Car Champion in 2022. Keep an eye on this kid, he is going to be a good one!
The Saturday show at the Chili Bowl once again lasted into early Sunday causing even long time fans of the event to express their concerns.
I used to go to the Ice Bowl at the Talladega Short Track when it was the only race that you would find in January. Now I am content to check in on it with my Flo subscription and while Ray Cook did pass some cars using a line that was one width higher than the locked in one, it was restarts and flat tires that allowed him to complete a back-to-front run for the victory in front of a packed house.
Except for one night, the stands at Vado were pretty empty despite the great racing during the Wild West Shootout. But this is one of the many "made for streaming" events that now dot the schedule across the country and viewers got to see some great action, especially in the Late Model finale on Sunday with Bobby Pierce taking the win. Kudos to the announcing team of Dustin Jarrett, Ben Shelton and Trenton Berry for bringing this event to life and making you not want to cut away to something else during cautions.
Watching the highlights of the World of Outlaws Late Model openers from Volusia this past Thursday and Friday (Saturday was rained out), I thought that the racing was pretty good with Devin Moran visiting victory lane in his first two nights behind the wheel of the Double Down Motorsports #99. My focus of attention though was on two drivers who had announced their intentions to compete for the Rookie-of-the-Year title with the Outlaws. After his success in New Mexico, Bobby Pierce was a surprise announcement to join the Outlaws, but after a tough start he ranks fourteenth in the series points and if that doesn't improve considerably by mid-season it will likely be too tempting for Pierce to drop off the tour and dominate the Summer Nationals once again.
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| Todd Cooney from 2008 - Barry Johnson photo |
Perhaps drivers get a head start with points awarded for just announcing that you intend to run the full tour? Two-time feature winner Devin Moran sits behind those drivers with just 300 points after the weekend. Either way here's hoping that Cooney, Martin, Walker, Pierce and all of the other Tour "regulars" can stick it out as it is an impressive list of seventeen drivers with the Outlaws.
I just tried to Google search who will be running for the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series Rookie-of-the-Year in 2023, with no good results. Guess we will find out when they kickoff their 2023 season this Thursday night at the Golden Isles Speedway and on FloRacing.
That's it for now, back to playoff football and entering new special events into the schedule as they are released. Hope to see you on the Back Stretch again very soon!
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