Yes, I know that this is a blog about short track racing, but I would be remiss if I didn't first offer up my opinion on what has become a nationwide controversy following the NCAA Women's National Basketball Championship game. As a Hawkeye fan, yes I was at first offended by the obvious taunting of Caitlin Clark by Angel Reese during the closing seconds of LSU's victory and I even commented on a couple of Facebook posts that tried justify it by saying that Clark had done the same thing against Louisville. The difference, I felt, was that Caitlin had not done it directly to the face of an opposing player whereby Reese had tracked her down to rub it in.
But as time went on my objectivity started to kick in and I tried to see how I would have felt about it if I was not a huge Hawkeye fan. I also questioned whether I would have had the same initial reaction if this would have been a men's game. I had already backed down from my original feelings when Caitlin sealed the deal with her comments on the incident essentially saying that it didn't bother her one bit, while congratulating Reese and her LSU teammates on winning the title.
Now that is true class and while the argument still rages on five days later it is my hope that those who are sadly making this a race issue will realize just how low they have gone. That is our society now and it again proves just what a stain that social media is on our fabric of decency. And while all of this discussion continues in regard to the taunt, I hate the fact that it quickly ended the discussion of what the true problem was with Sunday's game.
I enjoy watching the show Get Up each weekday morning on ESPN and on Monday, as the show started, host Mike Greenberg hyped the upcoming coverage of the LSU-Iowa game first stating that the officiating was atrocious. It was bad both ways and I could cite several different examples, but if you were not one of the approximate 9.9 million viewers who watched, an all-time record for a women's basketball game, then you wouldn't have the context. In our society where half of the people land on one side of an issue, and the other half take the other side, the quality of officiating seems to be the one thing that everybody could agree on and it is too bad that it came on the women's biggest stage.
Surely you have noticed that there has been more talk this week about the women's title game than the men's, and that's not just because you are in or around Iowa. Caitlyn Clark is a shooting star and this Hawkeye fan hopes that she knows that she can earn more money as a collegiate superstar over the next two years through NIL than she can by playing in the WNBA and you can bet that I will be clamoring for some more tickets to Carver Hawkeye Arena for both the men and the women when the next basketball season rolls around. Run it back!
Proud Dad moment here. My son, Kyle Wick, is the President of the DFW I-Club so while he worked his butt off arranging some events for Hawkeye fans who made the trip to Dallas and other duties, he also had some nice perks as well, including getting his picture taken with the team shortly after their arrival in Big D.
Sandwiched between the Final Four fun we made the trip to the Lucas Oil Speedway for the second week in a row for night two of the opening weekend for the Lucas Oil MLRA Late Models. Danny has the story of what we saw in person in Racin' Down The Road as we decided to leave after Jonathan Davenport's dominating performance in the non-stop Late Model feature that ended sometime after 10:30. This decision was made easier knowing that we could watch the Stock Car and B-Mod features online during the one hour trip to our hotel in Osage Beach.
Turns out that was a smart move as even with a stop at McDonalds along the way, we were back in the hotel before the show struggled to a controversial ending. To get the full details you have to read Ed Reichert's blow by blow description in One Fan's Travels as tempers flared in both classes. Hard to believe that this crap is already happening this early in the season.
On Tuesday the track and the USRA sanctioning body issued this announcement of fines and sanctions against two of the drivers involved prompting me to go back and watch the replay on Flo to see how this all transpired. From the comments made by the Stock Car winner David Hendrix during his victory lane interview, there is apparently some history of rough driving from the other driver involved. But even though he won the race, it was Hendrix that initiated the post race activities so I was surprised that he was not sanctioned as well.
B-Mod winner Kris Jackson, who was involved in a three car incident while racing for the lead late in the race, had a victory lane interview that was more reminiscent of one that would take place after a WWE match. It seemed like most of his "suspension worthy" comments came off microphone as he was being heckled by fans prior to the actual interview where he then made it clear that he had just vanquished one of his long time rivals in J.C. Morton.
Entertaining or disappointing? I guess that it is all how you look at it, but I was thankful that we had missed all the fun.
With the early cancellation of the World of Outlaws weekend at Farmer City, the car count at Lucas Oil was at 48 on a cold and windy Friday before swelling to 50 on Saturday night making the first two MLRA point races more of a "national" show rather than regional. That was a huge plus for the hearty few who were there on Friday and for the nice-sized crowd that showed up on Saturday, but I have to wonder if it was good for the health of the MLRA.
This series has struggled over the last few years to maintain a good roster of regulars who are following the entire schedule. Last year it looked to me like they tried to reign in their travel some by no longer scheduling events at some more far off venues than where they had been in previous years, but that still resulted in just four drivers completing the entire schedule. Champion Chad Simpson and three Rookie-of-the-Year contenders Kolby Vandenbergh, Daniel Hilsabeck and Steve Stultz.
With National Tour regulars like Davenport, Alberson, Pierce, Martin, Hughes, Scott, Gundaker, English, Pearson, Shirley, Thornton, Gustin and Sheppard there to gobble up purse money and, more importantly MLRA points in the first two events, that does not bode well for some of the drivers who had it in their plans to run for the MLRA title in 2023. And, with this weekend's doubleheader at the Tri-City Speedway already canceled for wet conditions, this will be exacerbated next week when the series runs a tripleheader that will likely attract another star-studded field with a Thursday April 13th stop at the Davenport Speedway followed by the big Slocum 50 weekend at 34 Raceway on Friday and Saturday April 14th and 15th.
Pick through the current point standings after two events and find the drivers who are likely to be MLRA regulars for 2023. Defending champion Chad Simpson held his own in the stellar field at Wheatland and currently ranks third, in effect being the actual series leader and he already holds a stout seventy point advantage over Rookie-of-the-Year contender Dillon McCowan. It will be fun to see the young southwest Missouri driver make his first ever appearances at Davenport and Burlington next weekend along with Arkansas driver Tyler Stevens who is effectively third in series points despite being fourteenth in the current rundown. Hilsabeck is 20th, Vandenbergh is 23rd with other RoY contenders Trevor Gundaker, Dustin Hodges, Jonathan Huston and Kayden Clatt further down the list and all of them will be hard pressed to race their way into the feature fields next weekend. And, with two point races now in the books, provisional starters will be determined by these current point standings since everybody ahead of them has perfect attendance thus far on the 2023 season.
If you go through the first five races of the year, perhaps watching four or five of the features from your hauler and see yourself mired deep in the point standings, it is not hard to come to the conclusion that perhaps a full schedule is not in your best interest. I love the MLRA and the quality of racing that it brings to tracks near me, especially early in the season. I just hope that it is able to maintain a solid roster for the remainder of the season when those national stars are off running their own schedules.
One series that is not expected to have a roster problem is the United States Modified Touring Series, or the USMTS. Todd Staley's series that features the best of the best when it comes to the Modified division has gone with a unique style of scheduling for 2023 where nearly all of the events will be weekend tripleheaders at the same track. They started the season at Rocket Raceway Park in Texas where weather was the winner on opening night before fields of 87 and 77 were in competition with Rookie-of-the-Year contender Tom Berry Jr. and Jake Timm taking wins. Weather also picked off one night of the King of America event at the Humboldt Speedway where Terry Phillips and Dan Ebert were winners over a car count that topped sixty each night and this past weekend all three nights were able to go at the Ark-La-Tex Speedway in Vivian, Louisiana, where Cade Dillard topped a field of 59 on Thursday night, Iowa's own Cayden Carter who was the 2022 USMTS Rookie-of-the-Year was the best of 56 competitors on Friday night while Tyler Wolff added his name to the list of winners on Saturday with 51 cars in action.
A whopping thirty-five drivers have been in competition at all seven USMTS events thus far and while there is no chance that this pace will be maintained, don't be surprised if Todd still has twelve or more with perfect attendance at the end of 2023. I know that I am going to make a point of traveling to at least one night of USMTS action this season, perhaps to also get a look at the all new short track in Mason City.
I love it when the IRA comes to town as there will be at least twenty 410 c.i. Sprint Car drivers that will be on hand that I will not see for the rest of 2023 plus there will be a mix of MOWA drivers and Knoxville regulars that should give us a field that swells well over thirty for the Friday-Saturday doubleheader that WILL be able to run this weekend under sunny and then starry skies. One driver who has announced his intentions to run for the Rookie-of-the-Year title with the IRA is West Burlington's own Josh Schneiderman so you know that he is hoping to get off to a great start with two shows at his hometown track.
If you know me, you know that I am not a big fan of seeing the same cars for two consecutive nights, so while I know that I could see a great show close to home at 34 on both nights this weekend, I am going to catch the 410 Sprints there on Saturday after seeing the Malvern Bank 360 Sprint Cars and the Malvern Bank SLMR Late Models on Friday night at the Shelby County Speedway. It has been a long, long time since I have made the trip over to Harlan and I am excited to see how the new shorter track configuration races in what will be the opening night of its second season. Word is that at least one of our Sprint Invaders regulars is making the trip out west as well so that also factored into my destination decision.
With the closing of I-80 Speedway, I was watching to see if any tracks in that region would make any changes to try to pick up the slack and, outside of the IMCA Late Models being added to the roster at the Crawford County Speedway in Denison, only Harlan made significant changes in their schedule for 2023. Check out how aggressive this calendar is with several special events for Late Models, Sprint Cars and Stock Cars. I have noted though that the September 8th and 9th event that will feature three divisions of Sprint Cars was originally titled the "Push Truck Nationals" as you will see in the current Special Events Calendar at Positively Racing. I think that I will wait a few days before I change it there as well to the "Cyclone Classic".
The Darkside Springfling at Tipton, IMCA Frostbusters at Marshalltown and Boone, several events on that calendar, as well as weekly racing in Missouri for you to make your way to this weekend, It is finally time to go racing in 2023, thanks for visiting the Back Stretch!
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