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