Florida Open Wheel
By Richard Golardi
Shane Butler:
Seasons of Change
Story and Photos
by Richard Golardi

February 11,
2021
Thirty-nine-year-old Florida
businessman and sprint car driver Shane Butler, a three-time
Florida state pavement sprint car champion (TBARA champion in
2002, ’10 and ’14), has undergone some changes in his chosen
career and also his racing career in the last couple of race
seasons. In early 2019, he made the change to concentrate on
Florida dirt sprint car racing, after a late-season battle for
the all-pavement 2018 Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series point
title, which it appeared he would win, saw the point lead slip
out of his grasp late in the season. The point title that year
went to another driver, and Shane was second. The changes
continued in 2020, a year that brought a change to how Shane
spent the hours of nine-to-five during the workweek. With the
new year, 2021 will be another season of change for Shane, with
his entry into national 410 dirt sprint car racing, beginning
this week with Bubba Raceway Park’s races on Thursday through
Saturday with the USAC National Sprint Car Series.
Shane has spent part of the fall
and winter preparing a chassis and 410-cubic-inch engine for the
arrival of non-wing national dirt sprint car racing,
specifically with USAC, beginning today. Shane has dabbled in
national series dirt sprint car racing previously. This year
brings a bigger commitment and effort into this type of sprint
car racing, now with his own team.

Shane was primarily a Florida
pavement sprint car racer for most of his racing career, at
least up until the end of the 2018 race season. “Yeah,” Shane
remarked. “Around 2008 … I think I ran maybe 10 dirt races. We
put a car together and started out at East Bay during Speedweeks
and broke a motor. Before that, I got the opportunity to drive a
car for Kenny Mulligan and we went and ran two shows in Alabama
with USCS. I might have run one or two shows before then with
the dirt car and probably had 10 races on dirt. I was still
learnin’ it and we didn’t put a Top Gun motor [limited
360-cubic-inch] together. My wife, Katrina, was pregnant with
Landon when I first got the dirt car. We ran it a little bit in
’08, didn’t want to spend money on a Top Gun motor, so we sold
the dirt car and then stuck with pavement up until 2018. I think
the race with Wayne Davis [Southeastern Sprint Car Series] at
All-Tech Raceway was our first race in a dirt non-wing sprint
car. I took my ‘asphalt buddies’ with me, LJ and Devin McLeod,
and my dad, and we were like a bunch of pavement racers who
didn’t know what the hell to do, and just kinda winged it.”
This was going to be a major
change for Shane, a pavement racer, who now was taken by the
dirt and wanted to inhale some fine dirt particles along with
his usual race day fix of methanol fumes and burnt rubber. This
was not unusual for the majority of Florida’s most talented
sprint car champions, to race on both dirt and pavement and even
in fendered race cars. Shane was merely following a tradition of
Florida racers, going back to the late ’40s and early ’50s, who
regularly raced sprint cars and stock cars on both asphalt and
dirt. The dirt racing and pavement racing “specialist” is a
modern invention, mostly seen in Florida in the ’90s and later.
It didn’t use to be that way. “If it had a steering wheel, they
drove it” was an often-heard refrain in Florida in prior years.
Shane
Butler and his son, Landon.
Wayne Davis’ idea for a regional
non-wing dirt sprint car series, based in the South, with an
“open motor rule,” is what at first attracted Shane to commit to
concentrate on dirt sprint car racing in 2019. He wouldn’t have
to travel outside of Florida and nearby states, and wouldn’t
need a limited 360 engine, required for Florida’s Top Gun sprint
car series. He liked this plan and decided he’d race in this
series. It lasted for a short time, and the at-first promising
plans for a regional non-wing dirt series later fell apart and
the series failed.
“It was gonna be a good deal –
open motors, and we had a 410 sittin’ here. I’m like, ‘Man
that’s perfect.’ I can go get a dirt car, I can put a 410 in it,
because Jimmy Brown owned it, and he’s like, ‘Whatever you wanna
do, go for it!’ ” Shane decided to sit out the first series
races in Hendry County, which he wanted to compete in but
decided against after a job loss in the family – which was
Katrina’s job. He then planned for his first race with the
Southeastern Sprint Car Series at North Florida’s All-Tech
Raceway on March 16, 2019. He nearly won it, or had thought he
won it until a ruling by the series that he was not the winner.
It would have been his first career sprint car feature win on
dirt.
“We had a blast,” Shane said,
“and we were set to run more of his stuff, and we did. What
attracted me was that I always wanted to run non-wing dirt
sprint cars. I loved non-wing, period, whether it’s dirt or
asphalt. I’ll still always love my pavement, but I really love
the dirt too. The things I’ve learned, and the challenges that
go with running a dirt car, with keeping up with the race track,
and lane changes, it’s made it more enjoyable to try to figure
out what to do next. It’s kind of a challenge, and it’s been an
enjoyable challenge.”
Shane’s third place finish with
the Southeastern Sprint Car Series at Southern Raceway in the
Florida panhandle, a race that included some of the Midwest dirt
hotshots, fed his desire to keep up his effort in non-wing dirt
racing. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” Shane recalled. “It
was something I’ve always wanted to do, and we’re doin’ it, and
we’re runnin’ good at it. The non-wing deal is pushed so much
more in the driver’s hands.”
The first dirt sprint car feature
win was not long in coming. It occurred at the Don Rehm Classic
on November 30, 2019, a race honoring the long-time Florida
sprint car driver and promoter. It’s a non-wing Top Gun sprint
car series race held annually at East Bay Raceway Park. Shane’s
feature win, like the previous dirt feature that he initially
was told he had won, came with some controversy. A failure of
the transponder scoring system left officials to eyeball a close
finish, and without a camera or official at the finish line,
that eyeballing of the side-by-side finish with AJ Maddox was
the subject of debate. Shane was awarded the feature win. He had
his first career dirt sprint car feature win after 31 sprint car
feature wins on Florida pavement tracks.
A deal was made with Taylor
Andrews in late 2019 to trade one of Shane’s pavement sprint
cars for a dirt chassis for Top Gun winged sprint car racing in
2020, and Shane added three more dirt sprint car feature wins in
Florida last year. Shane’s 2020 wins also included his first
winged sprint car feature win on dirt. It was at East Bay
Raceway in Gibsonton. Shane now sits in 18th place on
the All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win List with 35 career sprint
car wins in Florida, four of them on dirt.
“Some people were mad at me,”
Shane said of that first dirt sprint car win, “and I wasn’t
scoring the race. The track was, and I’m not going to give it
back. There were some pictures and some videos, and some
questioned it. They made the call, not me! We took that one, and
we came back this past year, 2020, started out at East Bay, and
wasn’t going to run points, was just going to kinda
hit-and-miss.” Another change was ahead for 2020, a career
change.
Steele Performance Parts, started
by the late Florida racing legend Dave Steele, was going out of
business in early 2020 and was going to sell its inventory of
parts and other items in their Tampa race shop. The Butlers,
Shane and his wife, negotiated to buy the parts inventory, and
the shelving that held the parts, from the Steele family in
January 2020. Shane then left his regular day job, and an
employer he was with for 15 years, to concentrate full-time on
building his speed shop business. They would not be purchasing
the business name – “They didn’t want to sell the name,” Shane
explained – and would also not be purchasing any race cars,
engines, or business equipment. They did not purchase the Tampa
building that housed the shop, as they planned to locate their
speed shop in their Bushnell race shop in North Florida. They
also had the advantage of being well-known in the Florida short
track racing community and having many friends in the community.
Many racers stop by for advice, as well as to make a purchase.
Shane and his father, Stan, share their knowledge with these
Florida racers, some of them young and inexperienced but willing
to listen and learn.
One of the sprint cars inside the
race shop holds a clipboard with a neatly printed list of items
needed to get the car race-ready. “Disassemble … fix nose wing
mount … build new lower panels … paint Troy’s colors, etc.” That
last item reveals the car’s future owner/driver – it’s retired
sprint car/USAC champ car driver Troy Thompson. He’s about to
get back into racing, with the help of the Butlers. Their speed
shop, originally called TCB Speed South, has now been renamed
Butler Speed & Supply as of January 1, 2021. “We wanted our name
on it,” Shane explained. He and his wife, Katrina, are the sole
owners of the company. The company logo uses red and black,
familiar colors used by the Butler race team.
Nearby sits another sprint car.
It’s the black number 18, displaying Shane’s name as the driver
and also the Butler Speed & Supply sticker. It’s the Maxim dirt
car chassis Shane will use this week for USAC dirt racing, and
its engine is installed, sponsor stickers are applied (Keene
Services Inc., Cobb Glass Co. Inc., and others), and it is only
in need of Shane’s hands to take the wheel, a track, some
competition, and a push to get started. That happens on
Thursday.
For 2021, Shane has a desire to
build his speed shop business – “The number one goal is to
concentrate on the business,” he said – and that may involve a
plan to “slow down racing a little bit.” He is undecided if he
will race the complete 2021 Top Gun series schedule, but will be
at the track for every one of the Top Gun series races with his
speed shop trailer to make parts sales in the pits. His shop is
also frequently open on weekends, when the weekend racers are
often working on their cars and in need of parts and advice. The
shop has opened its garage doors late at night for that
last-minute, gotta-have-it part that a racer could not do
without. Orders come in by phone and from in-person visitors to
their race shop. Cars come in for maintenance and repairs. New
racers have requested a car and engine be built for them to
race.
Next in 2021 is “what I’m really
excited about,” as Shane stated. This week in Ocala will not be
his first attempt to qualify for a USAC National Sprint Car
Series race. That first attempt came in 2004, a pavement USAC
sprint car race at Toledo, Ohio. Since he didn’t advance to the
feature, Shane will be looking to qualify for his first USAC
sprint car feature this week. He has two previous USAC national
race starts, both in the USAC Silver Crown champ car series.
Shane has a new 2020 Maxim dirt sprint car chassis with a
Claxton 410-cubic-inch engine under the hood, and a sponsor
group in place. The engine is the same one used by Shane in the
2020 Little 500 in Anderson, Indiana, and has not been used
since then.
Then, there’s the future of the
Butler racing family, the 12-year-old son of Shane and Katrina,
Landon Butler, who got his start in go-kart racing. “We’re gonna
keep practicing [a dirt sprint car],” Shane replied when asked
what was next for Landon. “His most recent practice was at The
Bullring [one-quarter mile dirt oval in Ocala]. It’s perfect for
him.” The small, flat dirt track gives a new driver a place to
learn throttle control and the feel of a sprint car without any
big banking or high speeds. It’s a tight, little track that fits
Landon’s needs for now, while he’s learning. He’s already put in
dirt laps both with and without a wing. “It’s perfect for what
we’re trying to get him to learn. I can stop him on the race
track and tell him some things that he can do a little
differently, or ask him if he feels something wrong with the car
or whatnot. I can stop him, talk to him for a second, and we can
push him off, and he can go again,” Shane said. Landon’s sprint
car practice laps have all been on dirt. Shane estimates he
already has between 100 and 150 practice laps completed in four
practice sessions at two tracks, and has had no throttle
restriction after the first session. His first sprint car race
will be at a smaller track, no Florida half-miles yet. “He’s
smooth,” the proud papa said.
Look out, Florida short track
racing, as another Butler appears to be closing in on his
Florida sprint car racing debut (maybe this summer) and the
seemingly inevitable trip to the winner’s circle and eventually
into the Florida record books. He’s Landon Butler … remember
that name.

Q & A with Carson Macedo at Volusia Speedway Park
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
February 9, 2021
Q. What was the highlight of your 2020 racing
season?
A. We won the CBS race there at Haubstadt [World of Outlaws
sprint car race broadcast live on CBS Sports Network on June 20,
2020, at Tri-State Speedway, Indiana, a race which was
considered a thriller], really big race, obviously being on TV.
That was pretty special. I feel that I learned a lot last year.
I feel like I’m bringing that into 2021 here with JJR [Jason
Johnson Racing]. Nice to have a fresh start with a new team
[Carson has already won once during Florida Speedweeks, at
Volusia Speedway Park with the All Star Circuit of Champions on
Thursday].
Q. So that’s the biggest change for you in 2021,
with transitioning to a new sprint car race team?
A. Yeah. Last year, I raced with Kyle Larson Racing in the
number 2 car [a team that has been disbanded]. This year, I’m
racing the Jason Johnson Racing number 41. I’m happy to get
things rolling here with [crew chief] Phil Dietz and Nate and
Clyde. We have some really good sponsors on board, and I’m
really excited for 2021.
Q. What is your primary racing goal in 2021?
A. I just wanna win races, be our best. Our team – our very
best, night in and night out. I don’t really have a whole lot of
expectations for this year; I wanna win as much as I can. I
wanna compete in the points championship in a respectable manner
and just be our best every single night. That’s my goal, that’s
what I’m looking forward to.
Q. Are you competing in any other races other
than the full World of Outlaws schedule for the rest of 2021?
A. No, just the World of Outlaws series.
Q. Are there any big World of Outlaws races that
you haven’t won yet that you are especially determined to go out
and win this year?
A. We always wanna win those marquee events that pay big money.
Eldora, the Kings Royal, there’s two of them this year, the
Knoxville Nationals – these are all really big marquee events
that pay really good money. There’ll all important to us.
Q. How do you feel things have gone for you so
far at Volusia Speedway Park?
A. Not bad. We ran seventh on the first night [Wednesday with
the All Star Circuit of Champions], and we were able to pick up
a win on the second night at the All Star show, and then fifth
at the first Outlaw show of the year [on Friday]. I think that’s
three pretty respectable positions, and we’ll keep building on
that and keep looking forward to the future [Carson had a
sixth-place finish in Sunday night’s World of Outlaws feature
after this interview was completed].
Q. The World of Outlaws is heading for the Deep
South states next, so I’m curious if you have ever raced at any
tracks in these states in the Deep South – like Alabama,
Mississippi, or Louisiana, for example?
A. Never. No, that’ll be some new race tracks. We’ll try and
tackle it the best we can.
Q. So, it’ll be your first trip to race at a
track in the Deep South. It should be fun.
A. Yeah.
Q. Thank you, Carson.

Joey Saldana: The Full-Time Retired Racer Who
Still Races
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
Monday, February 08, 2021
“Last year? Huh!” Indiana sprint car driver Joey
Saldana replied when asked about his year in racing in 2020. It
was almost as if he was somewhat shocked by the question. He
hadn’t disappeared from dirt sprint car racing. Not hardly. He
was there at Volusia Speedway Park for sprint car racing with
both the All Star Circuit of Champions and the World of Outlaws.
He just isn’t seen in the cockpit of a winged sprint car as
frequently anymore.
When interviewed on Sunday afternoon, he spoke
of his son’s racing exploits in 2020, not his own. His 2020
racing highlight: “Probably watching my son win the first race
he ran at Macon, Illinois in a micro. Then we went to the POWRi
show a couple of weeks later and he ran third, so that was
definitely the highlight of my year last year.” For himself: “I
only dabble in it five times a year, so probably the coolest
part for me is going to all the big races, making the shows, and
at least being competitive for not racing but five, six times a
year.”
What about 2021 for Joey? “Actually, I wasn’t
even going to come down here, but the times I have run this car
for Charlie and James Fisher, we’ve had some engine failures,
and they tried some different things, and wanted to come down
here. This is always a good place to check your motor package to
see how good you are. So far, we’ve been competitive all three
nights. We had brake issues the first night, which took us out.
For not racing in five months [the car and himself], to come
down here with the quality of the cars and run eighth and tenth
and be competitive, I’d say your motor program is pretty good.”
Joey expressed some slight remorse that his team “could have
maybe got a win,” if they had a top-notch, full-time driver in
the seat. His Sunday night feature finish was 25th place.
Despite completing his fourth race at Volusia
Speedway Park in one week as a part-time, semi-retired racer, he
felt like a retired racer. “I consider myself full-time
retired,” Joey said. “People like yourself talk about it in
weird ways. For me, I was a full-time World of Outlaws driver
for 18 years.” Now, in 2021: “When you’re running five to ten
times a year, that’s pretty much full-time retired when you’re
accustomed to making a living and racing a hundred times a year.
Yeah, I am really retired. I’m just out here having fun and it’s
cool to get your adrenaline pumped up. These cars are the
baddest cars to watch, to witness, to drive, so when you get an
opportunity to drive one, I enjoy it because I know how lucky I
was to do it at a high level for a long time. But, I consider
myself retired. I guess I’m not ‘officially helmet on the shelf’
yet. But to me, I am.”
This was Joey’s first time in Florida to race in
three years. He has enjoyed racing here and recalled his
previous Florida Speedweeks wins with a smile. Getting out of
the Indiana winter weather for a brief Florida respite also is a
perk, whether it comes with wins or satisfying finishes. “You
may not see me again this year …,” Joey added, “or you might see
me at the Kings Royal or the Nationals. But, I’d say if that’s
the case, that’d probably be it [for his five or six annual
races].”
Aside from those races that his son enters, and
limited racing in sprint cars, Joey has spent time building his
own business as a part supplier to race teams, including many in
the World of Outlaws. “I have an oil tank business [Saldana
Racing Oil Tanks] I bought last year, and I do probably 80
percent of these guys out here, so they keep me busy. That’s
kind of cool to have my name on Donny Schatz’s car, or Brad
Sweet’s. There’s a little piece of me still out here, so I enjoy
that. We do all the manufacturing and welding of the oil tanks.
It’s a little part of a big piece, but you’ve got to have it to
make that big piece function.”
Joey’s father had a similar business, Saldana
Racing Products. “It was a company my dad started a long time
ago and then sold it,” Joey said. That put him in a situation
that was “kinda weird,” as he previously found himself in
competition with his father, but “my dad’s no longer involved in
that.” Joey went ahead at speed to get as many teams as possible
to use his oil tanks on their race cars and has found success.
“The Saldana name continues,” Joey stated
proudly. It can be found on the oil tanks of the World of
Outlaws cars, and even in block letters on a World of Outlaws
driver’s firesuit … but that’s something you’ll see only every
once in a while in 2021. After all, he’s “full-time retired,”
and he’s on a Florida racing vacation of the high-speed variety,
enjoying how “it’s cool to see the Saldana name out on a race
car.”
Florida Pavement
Sprint Car Racing Heading Toward Split in 2021
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
January 14, 2021
It last happened at the end of 2014. The Tampa
Bay Area Racing Association (TBARA) had become disorganized and
unable to put together a race schedule for 2015 and eventually
dissolved. The conditions led to a season without a traveling
Florida pavement sprint car series in 2015, the first time this
had happened in Florida since 1980. Several tracks stepped in to
have their own non-sanctioned sprint car races, including
Showtime Speedway. By the end of 2015, the Southern Sprint Car
Shootout Series was formed, an ambitious effort by several Tampa
area racing concerns to keep the tradition of a Florida
traveling series going for the state’s pavement sprint car
teams. Overall, it has been a success, but is still bedeviled by
low car counts.
The continued success of the series will
therefore be mostly dependent on keeping the car counts from
falling any further, since there is already in place competent
management, about 15 active race teams, a primary sponsor, and a
small collection of pavement tracks that are happy with the
racing provided by the series. In addition to keeping most of
the management team from 2020, the BG Products Southern Sprint
Car Shootout Series has also planned a 13-race schedule for 2021
across four Florida tracks stretching from North Florida’s
Citrus County Speedway to 4-17 Southern Speedway in the state’s
southwest corner. Although it lacks the high-speed punch offered
by the bigger tracks like New Smyrna Speedway and the defunct
Desoto Speedway, the series has managed to build their brand
with name drivers, controversies, and races that sometimes
become wheel-banging brawls that lack nothing but the pit
fistfights.
The limited racing and scramble for resources
and sponsor dollars that emerged in 2020 may be partly
responsible for what is coming in 2021: a split in Florida
pavement sprint car racing. A glance at the 2021 schedule for
the Southern Sprint Car series shows no races at their anchor
track, Showtime Speedway in Pinellas Park. Track management
there has decided to run separately in 2021 by having their own
non-sanctioned sprint car races, both with and without wings. So
far, three races have been announced (the first race is next
week), although there were prior plans being discussed for
twice-a-month sprint car races. Robert Yoho, leaseholder at
Showtime Speedway, apparently is no longer associated with the
Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series.
The man with the unenviable duty to keep the car
counts up for the Southern Sprint Car series in 2021 is series
manager Rick Day, and I spoke to him at a recent race in
Inverness. “We’ve got 13 dates already booked for 2021,” Day
told me. “We’ll be at 4-17 Southern Speedway, Auburndale
Speedway, back at Citrus County Speedway, and we are announcing
that for the first time since 2013, the sprint cars will return
to Orlando SpeedWorld in 2021 for two dates. We’re going
full-bore, everything’s looking good, we’ve just got to work out
a few details on some sponsorship stuff. 2021 should be pretty
good.”
At the time of this interview in November, it
was known that BG Products would return as the series title
sponsor, and Rick Day stated that there was still a desire to
have some series races at Showtime Speedway “because of our
sponsor, BG Products. That is their main market area, so we need
to be there. Taylor Andrews is trying to work out with Robert
[Yoho] to secure some dates there for 2021, but at this time, we
don’t know for sure. Through this partnership with Dayton
Andrews Dodge, that’s how we got the BG Products sponsorship to
start with. That relationship is a long-standing relationship.
The marketing partnership [both Dayton Andrews Dodge and BG
Products] will continue in 2021.”
The 2021 schedule has a sizable mid-season break
that will last a little over four months, from May 15 to
September 18. Winter season races now include the first 2021
race this Saturday at Punta Gorda’s 4-17 Southern Speedway, a
return trip there in mid-February, and two December races that
include a season finale at Orlando SpeedWorld planned for one
week before Christmas Day. “We want to take the summer months
off, that way, we’re not fighting the heat and the rain. It just
makes sense, it’s better for the teams, and they won’t waste
money on travel only to get there and we rain out. We’re just
electing not to book anything in those four months.”
Regarding the option of having a non-wing
“Little 500 Warm-Up” race, as was considered recently, Rick Day
stated, “We’re open to a non-wing race. We tried to do it a
couple of years ago, but to be honest, with the sponsor
commitments, they like having that great, big BG logo up there
on that sideboard. They like the bigger decals. We’re not
opposed to a non-wing race. Actually, I would welcome some
non-wing races, especially before the Little 500, like a tune-up
race that TBARA used to do back in the day. We’ve just got to
work out some of the details with sponsorship and the race
track.”
If the non-wing Little 500 Warm-Up race is a
possibility for 2021, the May 15 race date at Auburndale
Speedway seems to be a perfect fit, maybe even make it the “BG
Products Classic” to placate the primary sponsor. The pavement
sprint car racing media members are already onboard as far as
their support for such a race.
Rick Day continued, “He [Robert Yoho] has
indicated that he wants to do a Showtime sprint car class, but
he’s only wanting to do 25-lap races. It might work for him, but
I’m not sure what his plans are. He’s wanting to do a 25-lap,
twice-a-month type deal over there. He’s wanting to run the
second and fourth Saturday of the month, as to where we’re
trying to work with him. We’ve tried to book most of our races
on the first and third Saturdays of the month, to kind of stay
off of those dates, to work with him just in case we do end up
getting some Showtime Speedway dates.”
A schedule of Florida pavement sprint car racing
this ambitious (races on the first through fourth Saturday each
month) would likely see high attrition of teams participating
and the inevitable low car counts getting even lower. Whether
this will happen during any month in 2021 is unknown as of
today.
“Unfortunately, there could be some months that
sprint cars would be racing every weekend of the month. It’s
actually probably too much,” Rick Day admitted. Weekly sprint
car racing was successful at several Florida tracks in the past
(Golden Gate Speedway in the ’70s, the Florida State Fairgrounds
Speedway in the ’80s), but there isn’t much of a possibility
that it could be successfully resurrected in modern times. There
aren’t enough active teams to sustain it. “We’re going forward
with our deal,” Rick Day stated. “This is our sixth year.
There’s still a possibility of some Showtime Speedway dates.”
Remembering Those in
Florida’s Pavement Sprint Car Community Who Have Passed,
2019-2020
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
Another superlative was needed … because calling
Ralph Liguori a legend just wasn’t enough, it just didn’t
describe the level of accomplishment seen in his auto racing
resume, which covered the entire second half of the 20th
century. Ralph’s “membership” in the Florida pavement sprint car
racing community was also cemented by his one “official Florida
sprint car feature win” in a pavement sprint car (supposedly
there was a second win, according to Ralph, but I couldn’t
confirm this), at Sunshine Speedway in 1979. Add more wins in
NASCAR Short Track stock car racing, sprint cars, midgets,
modifieds, late model stock cars, and even sports cars, which
was in NASCAR’s SCODA division. They raced sports cars on
NASCAR’s oval tracks.
Ralph
Liguori and his grandson, Joe Liguori
In Raleigh, North Carolina, Ralph was given the
name “the Fayetteville Yankee” during his NASCAR years. They
even listed him as coming from Fayetteville, getting rid of his
heritage as a New Yorker from the Bronx who later moved to
Tampa. He set a Raleigh Speedway track record by winning six
stock car features in a row and then earned the track’s stock
car championship in 1954.
Then there was “that race,” the one that Ralph
loved to talk about. It was the 1970 Hoosier Hundred, a USAC
Indy car dirt race in which Ralph had a late-race battle with
A.J. Foyt for second place. It was all-so-memorable because
Ralph saw A.J.’s car wiggle a little at the end of the back
straight with two laps left, dove to the inside of him going
into the third turn, and made the pass to take second place away
from Foyt.
“He finally did it!” exclaimed the network TV
announcer. He knew what a big achievement it was, and how it was
going to be a big deal to Ralph. There was one racer who
received the biggest, most raucous greeting from the crowd after
the race concluded. It wasn’t A.J. It wasn’t Al Unser, the race
winner. It was Ralph. Although he never won an Indy car race,
Ralph enjoyed that day as much as a win.
Ralph said that he led a comfortable life after
driving in his last race in 2000, a midget race in Ohio. He made
a lot more money from his businesses and prudent investments in
real estate than he ever did in auto racing. But when it came
time to tell stories, his racing stories and those about his
family that he loved dominated his memories. He was especially
proud of mentoring and supporting the racing career of his
grandson, Joe Liguori. He’d spend his summers up north to follow
Joe on the circuit and be involved in his racing, right up to a
few years before he died at age 93 on July 21, 2020. He and his
wife, Jane, had four sons: Ralph Jr., Michael, Frank, and
Nicholas.
Upon learning that he had earned the 2013 TBARA
Rookie of the Year title, Matt Alfonso remarked, “Special thanks
to Jimmy Alvis and Sharon Riddle for letting me drive the car
this year. I would also like to thank J.R.E. Racing Engines. To
all that have helped me out this year, thank you.” I personally
remembered Matt as having a quick smile and being easy to talk
to at the track. A friend remembered, “He was a great guy.
Always in a good mood, very funny, and never asked for a single
thing. RIP Matt Alfonso, and thanks for the wild times we had
growing up.”

Matt
Alfonso
Matt undoubtedly had his best two years in
sprint car competition during 2013 and ’14. In addition to the
TBARA Rookie award, he had several top three finishes during
that time. During our talks in the pits during this time, Matt
spoke of the change in his appearance, as he had lost a lot of
weight after the cancer diagnosis. He continued racing a sprint
car until he was gone from the Florida sprint car circuit for a
while, and then passed away due to cancer on December 11, 2020.
He was 52 years old. On his Facebook page, Matt posted a
background picture of tiny, colorful birds, as if he was finding
great enjoyment from the little things in life during his last
months. He also decided to give himself a nickname. It seemed
like it fit him, as he never seemed to have another nickname at
the track. Beneath his name, he wrote: “The Quiet One.”

Steven
Bradley
Since he died on December 31, 2019, I have
decided to include Steven Bradley in this remembrance, and to
include him with others who passed away from December 31, 2019,
to December 31, 2020. Steven won the non-wing sprint car feature
at Citrus County Speedway on April 5, 2014. He also was a
feature winner in the Checkered Flag Sprint Series in November
2009. He was 34 years old when he died suddenly last year, and
is survived by his wife Amanda and four children.
When he got his 2014 sprint car win, Steven told
me that he had been out of racing for most of the past three
years. It was the second race in his new car, and he already had
a third place finish to go with the win. “I’m excited,” he
stated, as the win came on his birthday. “I had some family
problems and some stuff I had to take care of, and I ended up
having a baby, a little boy. I had to help out at home, and
didn’t really have the time to put in at the garage. We took a
couple of years break, and now he’s old enough, and it’s not as
hard on my wife. We’re back in the garage again, back at it. We
stuck together a new car.” Steven thanked Jerry Stuckey for
putting together the Hurricane chassis that he wheeled to the
winner’s circle that night. “We’re real happy with it,” he
added, smiling broadly.
Danny
Smith at Hendry County Motorsports Park, 11-21-2020
A Dirt King’s
Reign Concludes
Story and Photo
by Richard Golardi
November 23,
2020
Hendry County Motorsports Park,
Clewiston, Florida, Saturday, November 21, 2020.
If 63-year-old Ohio dirt sprint
car racer Danny Smith won the Top Gun Sprint Series feature
race, then he would extend his streak of getting a sprint car
feature win into a 46th consecutive year. He could
return to his Ohio home, satisfied with his accomplishment and
feeling happy. What if he didn’t win? “Then I’d still go home
feeling happy,” Danny Smith replied.
And why shouldn’t he feel happy?
He would head home knowing that his feat, 45 consecutive years
with a sprint car feature win, was in the uppermost levels of
difficulty during decades when names like Kinser, Swindell, and
Wolfgang racked up countless wins, all during a time when sprint
cars were far more dangerous and sometimes killed or crippled
their occupants. A serious enough injury could have broken
Danny’s win streak long ago. But it didn’t.
Danny had a habit of steering
around trouble, frequently winning, and garnering fans and
friends, especially in the Midwest and Florida, and … don’t
forget Australia. Along that long, winding trail came a big win
on pavement, as a relief driver in the 1979 Little 500 (infamous
for having a wild, unpredictable finish), a plethora of track
championships (Ohio mostly), a status as an “honorary Floridian”
due to his winning ways on Florida tracks and close friendship
with legendary Gibsonton car owner Jack Nowling, and induction
into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2015.
Hendry County Motorsports Park,
Clewiston, Florida, Friday, November 6, 2020.
A last weekend of racing, that
was Danny’s original plan. That Friday and Saturday, the 6th
and 7th, were going to be his last two nights of
racing for 2020. But he could stick around Florida for a little
longer, I said convincingly (or so I thought). There were two
more dirt sprint car races coming up in Florida through early
December, I mentioned. But … he probably wouldn’t be interested.
I couldn’t recall Danny entering a Top Gun series race
previously. Plus, he’d need a limited 360 c.i. engine, which he
didn’t have. He probably wouldn’t be interested. Danny shook his
head slightly. That meant no.
Funny thing though, mention more
racing to a race car driver, and he’ll scheme to borrow, buy, or
cajole his way into that extra racing. A phone call or two was
made. Florida car owner Andy Cobb had a Racesaver 305 c.i.
engine, an engine eligible to compete along with the limited
360s in Top Gun. If Danny Smith could arrange to borrow it, he’d
have another chance to extend that amazing win streak into a 46th
year. If not, Danny’s streak would end at 45 consecutive years,
as his last win was in 2019. Andy Cobb gladly loaned the 305
engine to Danny. He’d make a last stand, one last effort to
extend that streak into a 46th year, and it was
planned for Saturday, November 21 at Hendry County.
Danny was smiling and looking
confident before buckling in and heading out onto the third-mile
dirt oval in Clewiston. He was going to head home to Ohio after
this race, win or lose, he stated. It was his last race of 2020.
Passing rain clouds had mostly missed the track, drenching other
parts of South Florida. Three-inch-long frogs were romping
through the spectator stands, startling race fans as they sought
out popcorn kernels and discarded hot dog rolls and providing
entertainment by jumping into the laps of unsuspecting fans. If
you heard a sudden “AHH!” then you knew what just happened.
After the green flag flew, Danny
fell back to somewhere close to mid-field shortly after the
start of the 30-lap Top Gun sprint car feature race. With the
flips and crashes that plagued the early laps, it was a smart
move. He missed the spinning and crashing cars, including one
that spun directly across his nose in the fourth turn. Then came
the methodical stalking, passing, and trying different grooves
until he came upon a couple of Top Gun dirt aces, AJ Maddox and
Garrett Green. He passed them too. He was up to third place.
Ahead were Tyler Clem and Danny Martin Jr.
He stalked, he powered ahead, but
those last two passes were a bit too far off. Clem and Martin
both headed for the bottom groove as the track slicked up, and
that’s the way they finished, taking first and second. It was
Tyler Clem’s first win in two years, and he was smiling and
thankful in his return to winning. Danny Smith was third.
Danny Smith was through with
racing, but just for this year. He’ll be back for 2021, he said.
He’ll be 64 years old and he’ll still be a full-time race car
driver. That’s what he liked doing, so he was going to continue
doing it … at least for one more year. He knows that question
about retirement will come up again, but not for another 12
months.
You’ll just have to imagine
Danny’s smile on the long trip home to Ohio. It was one of those
smiles of satisfaction upon setting a goal, and then completing
it, a well-earned, deep-seated satisfaction that you feel deep
down inside of you. Then you reach your destination, pull into
your driveway, and you’re back home, back with your family. It
doesn’t get any better.
Congratulations to Danny Smith on
one hell of a 45-year run of success … and welcome home.
Feature Race Highlights Video,
Top Gun Sprint Series at Hendry County Motorsports Park,
Saturday, November 21, 2020:
https://youtu.be/OJXGSGDjG7g
Sunshine State
Invitational at Hendry County Featured 360 Sprint Cars
Story and Photos
by Richard Golardi
November 11,
2020
When plans for two nights of USCS
sprint car racing at Hendry County Motorsports Park, just south
of Lake Okeechobee in South Florida, were scuttled by wind,
rain, and a changing USCS schedule, promoter Ken Kinney moved
swiftly to change last weekend’s plans. He replaced the USCS
races with his own Sunshine State Invitational, an open 360
sprint car two-day event, with hopes of drawing some Midwest and
Deep South teams along with the Florida teams that had raced
with USCS in the past. The result was impressive racing, less
than adequate numbers of paid race fans, and one race win each
for the old (middle-aged?) pros and the teenage Florida dirt
racing contingent.
Andy
Cobb at Hendry County Motorsports Park, 11-6-2020.
That teenage contingent, the
Young Guns of Florida, has seen past success with both USCS
mini-sprint and 360 sprint car racing. One of their members,
16-year-old Conner Morrell, took to Hendry County’s dirt on the
first night, Friday, to battle Danny Martin Jr. for the lead
early in the race, only to drop back some when Martin put on his
usual dirt racing clinic, deftly handling the slower traffic and
the track’s sandy surface. Saturday night held greater success
for Conner Morrell, and he won the feature for one of his most
remarkable Florida wins yet.
Garrett Green seems to have
completely shrugged off the effects of a frightening flip in a
wingless show at East Bay Raceway seven weeks ago, and the
concussion and black eyes he suffered when the right rear corner
of his sprint car’s roll cage was pounded down into the dirt by
almost a foot. He pointed out the depth of the penetration on
his car’s roll cage, which occurred on the packed dirt of East
Bay’s fourth turn groove. He is foregoing the next weekend of
Florida dirt racing, this Friday and Saturday in the panhandle
at Southern Raceway’s two-day USCS season finale, to concentrate
on the remaining Top Gun Sprint Series races. He is still in the
running for the Top Gun series point title with two races
remaining. The next series race takes him back to the Hendry
County dirt on November 21.
Danny
Martin Jr. wins at Hendry County Motorsports Park, 11-6-2020
Car owner Andy Cobb had a
multi-car team at Hendry County last weekend. He had the number
18 car for teammate Shane Butler, and for himself, he had the 1
(Eleven) car, with an “Eleven” placed inside the numeral one.
The number was a throwback to his family’s racing legacy and his
own admiration for Jimmy Riddle, and the number 111 sprint car
that he drove and the number 11 later fielded at the 2000 Little
500 for Jim Childers, who won the race. Andy told me that he has
been gone from auto racing for the past seven years while he
took a foray into drag boat racing during that time. “I came
back to auto racing in the middle of this year,” Andy said. He
is also back in sprint cars, with plans for 2021 that include
racing in both ASCS and USCS 360 racing with a number 1C car,
since the 1 (Eleven) doesn’t seem feasible, and there are other
number 1 cars.
Andy’s grandfather passed away
this summer, so the family’s racing legacy has been on his mind
lately. The family’s business, Cobb Glass Company Inc., is
celebrating 50 years in business this year, and was involved in
sponsorship at Golden Gate Speedway during the 1960s and ’70s.
The Cobb Brothers Auto Glass cleanup crew was an iconic group at
Golden Gate, running the push trucks, crash trucks, and
sponsoring the race cars of various owners. They also sponsored
Jim Childers’ first bomber stock car at “the Gate.”
In the developing trend of
grandsons of Florida sprint car legends getting involved in
Florida short track auto racing, the latest addition is likely
going to be 11-year-old Landon Butler, son of Shane Butler and
grandson of Stan Butler. Landon has taken some practice laps on
dirt in the family racing team’s sprint car at both The Bullring
(Marion County Speedway, Ocala) and at Hendry County Motorsports
Park. His grandfather told me that he looked smooth and had no
problems during his practice sessions. His previous racing
experience is in go kart racing. Landon joins Stephen Hartley,
son of Bo Hartley and grandson of Sonny Hartley; and also Bryton
Horner, who is Frank Riddle’s great-grandson. Both are currently
racing Legend cars, recently at Auburndale Speedway and Citrus
County Speedway.
Danny Smith looked calm and
confident, almost serene, prior to taking to the track at Hendry
County Motorsports Park on Friday. The Friday and Saturday
sprint car features were going to be his next-to-last chance to
continue his current consecutive year sprint car feature race
win streak into 2020. His last feature wins came in 2019, which
marked his 45th consecutive year with a sprint car
win. He plans one last weekend of 2020 sprint car racing at
Southern Raceway, near Pensacola, this weekend with the USCS
Outlaw Thunder Tour. That will be his last chance to get a win
and mark his 46th consecutive winning year. If he
doesn’t get a win during his November tour in Florida, and with
no 2020 races planned beyond Florida, his win streak would end
at 45 years.
Danny has had some second and
third place finishes this year, and his 410 cubic inch engine
has gotten so well-worn from this year’s All Star Circuit of
Champions and Ohio 410 racing that he just “shoved it under a
bench” in his race shop for the present time. He has been
concentrating on 360 racing for several months. He has missed
more races this year at his usual Ohio home track, Atomic
Speedway, than in the past several years, but has still competed
in most of the races there. This year included more races with
his 360 engine, in which he has gotten higher finishes.
At Hendry County last year, Danny
Smith won two feature races, in January and November. That last
win included one comedic moment when he slipped and fell off the
top wing while celebrating, fortunately avoiding injury in spite
of the hard fall. Often the USCS 360 wins required defeating
other “Northern Invaders” and nationally-known stars such as
Tony Stewart and Mark Smith, who have also grown fond of USCS
360 racing in the past five years.
Video: feature race highlights
from Hendry County Motorsports Park, Clewiston, FL, Friday,
November 6, 2020, from the Florida Open Wheel channel:
https://youtu.be/xGY30sjVD-c
Don Heckman: A
Florida Pavement Sprint Car Racing Icon
Story by Richard
Golardi
October 21, 2020
Don
Heckman
Our story begins at one of those
race tracks that used to attract Florida open wheel racing fans,
but has been long gone. You might assume that it was one of
those tracks somewhere in the Tampa Bay area, one of many tracks
that used to host sprint car, midget, or even USAC Silver Crown
races, as did the Florida State Fairgrounds Speedway. But it’s
not.
The track was in Southeast
Florida – the Florida City Speedway, in Florida City, near
Homestead. It became known as a haven for TQ midget racing, a
class still popular in Florida today. One of the racers who
could be seen taking a victory lap of the high-banked, asphalt
speedway in one of the toy-like, little TQ midgets was Gary
Smith. His entire upper body seemed to extend beyond the tiny
car’s body, with a small roll bar that seemed more for
decoration than protection in his number 88 TQ midget. Smith
would bravely climb into the little race car, clothed in grimy,
grease-covered pants, short-sleeve shirt, and bubble-faced
helmet. He was a “hard-charging winner who deeply loved the
sport … [who] raced in an era before roll cages and adequate
driver protection. As a result …” Then the day of tragedy
arrived at the tiny, one-eighth mile Florida City Speedway.
Twenty-two-year-old Gary Smith
was killed in a wreck at the track in 1969, just two weeks after
his last victory lap at the track he loved. “As a result, Gary
was the only fatality at the Florida City Speedway. After his
accident, the track closed for a year, but when it reopened, his
dad, ‘Smitty,’ stayed on as the starter.” Florida City’s
reputation as a small track with reduced speeds, thereby
supposedly making it a safer track, was damaged permanently. The
track made a comeback in 1970 under the auspices of the SMRA
(Southern Mini-Stock Racing Association). The club racers even
cut the grass and maintained the track facility, and TQ midget
racing was part of the comeback until ’74. Then the club closed
it, and the racing was gone for good in ’76. Another asphalt
race track, Homestead-Miami Speedway, was built about five miles
away in the ’90s. NASCAR now ruled the roost in Southeast
Florida auto racing, bringing their season-ending Cup Series
race to their track in Homestead up until 2019.
But Florida City Speedway was not
gone and forgotten, thanks to those who helped keep the memories
alive, such as racer Rex Hollinger. A Speedway reunion in 2002
leads us to the present day and news from October 2020. “I have
just acquired my most prized materialistic possession,” wrote
Gary Smith Jr., son of racer Gary Smith. Don Heckman’s family
had reached out to Gary.
Gary
Smith after a TQ midget win.
Don Heckman had a long and fabled
career in Florida short track auto racing, both as a racer and
sprint car owner. The local newspaper headlines in
Miami/Homestead from 1971 would often read: “Heckman Wins Auto
Feature (3-14-1971) … Heckman’s victory in the three-quarter
midget 20 lapper was his second …” A third, and then fourth
victory followed. Often, he was “the man to beat” in the TQ
midgets, and also was a friend of Gary Smith at Florida City.
Sprint car racer and TBARA Rookie
of the Year Rex Hollinger went to Florida City Speedway as a
boy. After the TQ midget racers bolted roll cages onto their
cars, he did witness one shocking wreck there involving Don
Heckman. “Don was very aggressive,” Rex recalled, “and very
impatient. He was wild. In 1973, he went barrel-rolling on the
back straightaway in a TQ midget, all the way to the wall in
turns three and four, up and over the fence, and landed on top
of a truck in the pits. They took him to the hospital, and he
was back at the track later that night. He was kinda pissed-off
because the EMTs had cut up his firesuit. He’s old-school tough
as nails!” The two racers later became friends after Don helped
Rex get his mini-stock car set up, and then they had a shared
involvement in Florida sprint car racing and enjoyed reliving
the good ole days back in Florida City.
Heckman’s most successful period
came while partnering with legendary Florida sprint car driver
Wayne Reutimann. They racked up dozens of wins on Florida’s
short pavement ovals, including winning multiple TBARA sprint
car championships together.
When Don Heckman first asked
Wayne to drive his car in Anderson Speedway’s Little 500 in ’92,
Wayne was somewhat surprised, but took him up on the offer. He
was impressed with Heckman’s enthusiasm to win the race, and
knew that he had a quality car. Still, he couldn’t understand
why a car owner would take on the costs of driving to Indiana,
and all the other costs, for a race where “the wear and tear on
a car in a 500-lap race is unbelievable. And the chances of
winning are almost as high as they are for winning the lottery.”
The car owner from Miami was pumped to go to Anderson, wanted
Wayne Reutimann as his driver, and wanted to win. That was
enough to convince Wayne to say yes to his offer.
Gary
Smith Memorial Trophy, TQ midget at Florida City Speedway.
Although that highly talented
Florida duo of Heckman and Reutimann never won at Anderson’s
“Lil’ Five” together, Heckman had one of his most enjoyable
years at the Little 500 in 2008. That’s when Doug Heveron, then
a Floridian, won the pole position in the number 22 Heckman
Motorsports car. Even though they didn’t win the race, Don was
still beaming with pride. Heveron had said that he was going to
retire as a driver after the race, so Heckman decided that he
would join him in retiring from racing.
“He was as good as there is,” Don
Heckman said of Wayne Reutimann’s racing expertise. “Wayne would
very seldom mess up, he always raced a lap ahead of where he
was. I had three TBARA championships through Wayne, I have five
altogether.” Heckman praised Reutimann as a great person, a
great family man, and “just a super driver.” What Heckman most
admired about Wayne was his expertise at protecting his car,
while still being fast enough to get to the front and win, which
he did 97 times in Florida sprint car competition. That’s second
on the All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win List, with only Dave
Steele having more sprint car wins (101) in Florida. Lots of
Wayne’s wins came in Don Heckman’s number 22 sprint car
beginning in 1992.
The reason that Don Heckman’s
family was reaching out to Gary Smith Jr. was because Don had
requested that Gary come to see him. They also revealed that Don
was feeling under the weather. Florida City Speedway had begun a
Gary Smith Memorial race after Gary’s tragic death, and a trophy
went to the winner, inscribed “Gary Smith Memorial T.Q. Midget.”
Don Heckman had the trophy. He won the inaugural Gary Smith
Memorial race during his time as a racer at Florida City
Speedway. Gary remembered that Don was “one of the six that
walked my dad to his final resting place.” Don Heckman was
special to Gary and the Smith family, and many other Florida
racers who Don helped achieve success on and off the race track.
The news about Don is disheartening. He is dealing with illness,
and has not been feeling well lately.
Gary Smith Jr. added his
thoughts: “Don also told me he is right with the Lord, his
family, and friends. The world needs more people like Don
Heckman … #CANCERSUCKS.” Gary went to visit Don, calling it an
“honor and a humbling experience that a person not feeling very
well at all … would think of me.” Don presented the Gary Smith
Memorial trophy to Gary as a gift. He wanted Gary to have it and
keep it. Gary admitted that he was speechless and greatly
honored by the gift. He also heard some stories about his father
that he’d never heard before. Don Heckman had remembered the
tragedy of that crash more than 50 years ago, the sadness of
burying one of his competitors, and the fatherless little boy
who was left behind, but not forgotten.
The gift said a lot about the
giver, Don Heckman. It said that he was worth remembering too.
Thanks to Rex Hollinger (credit
for the story idea), Don Heckman, and Gary Smith Jr.
Rex Hollinger’s Florida City
Speedway web page is here:
http://floridacityspeedway.homestead.com/
Tim
George and his dirt sprint car at East Bay Raceway, Sept. 5,
2020
Tim George: The King
of the East Bay Raceway Limited Sprint Cars
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
September 30, 2020
Even if one says that Tim George has dominated
the 360-cubic-inch limited sprint car class at East Bay Raceway
Park in Gibsonton, it’s still an understatement. You need a more
powerful word or phrase, like “ruled,” “made a mockery of,” or
maybe just say: Tim George is the King of the East Bay Raceway
360 Limited Sprint Cars.
Tim George was at East Bay Raceway with his
family and family-owned race team. Tim George was home. As he
moved around the two winged sprint cars, stacks of tires, the
race car hauler, various members of the race team, and other
observers (along with one journalist), he seemed at ease. The
sky seemed to be troubled, seemed to be threatening another
summer downpour. The cars were pulled out of the hauler after he
took a last look at the skies above East Bay and declared that
he was ready for that night’s racing, which included the 360
limited sprint cars. The evening’s one interview was complete,
and now it was time to go racing.
A few drivers can be classified as one of the
legends of East Bay Raceway, and Tim George is certainly one of
them. A plaque just inside his race car hauler lists the years
that Tim earned the title of East Bay Raceway Park limited
sprint car track champion. Those years are: 2000, ’02, ’03, ’04,
’06, ’08, ’10, and ’11. That makes him an eight-time East Bay
Raceway champion. He also earned the 2005 USA (United Sprintcar
Alliance) Sprints series championship. “We were running asphalt
with ’em. That was all-asphalt that year,” Tim said regarding
that USA Sprints title. “And I won a championship with Top Gun,
too.” That was 2010, when he earned the championship with the
Top Gun Sprint Series, a Florida traveling dirt sprint car
series.
“My father did it [auto racing] when I was real
young,” Tim explained earlier this month. “And I just picked it
up from there. Everybody’s got to have bad habits! He was
running down here then. Basically, SaraMana Speedway track, late
models. Never did much good with ’em, never really put forth the
effort. It was asphalt. That was all we had back then around
here was asphalt. You had SaraMana, the old Punta Gorda track,
right off of 41, and you had St. Pete. That was the first track
I ran was the old Punta Gorda track, when I was 13, in a ’57
Chevrolet bomber. What year? I’m 61 now – do the math!” It was
1972. Tim classified his result in that first feature, in a
bomber, as “not good. I only ran one late model race, and that
was in Okeechobee. I started out in the Super Sixes here, at
East Bay.”
Tim
George and his family racing team at East Bay Raceway Park,
Sept. 5, 2020
His transition to improved
race results: “Around 1985.” The transition to being a winner:
“Probably somewhere around 1990. The first win was around 1989
or ’90, that was in Southern Modifieds.” The Southern Modifieds
became popular in Florida in the late 1980s and early ’90s, and
looked remarkably similar to the sprint cars of that time. The
series later evolved and morphed into the limited sprint car
class at East Bay Raceway, and for some years, some still
believed them to be modifieds. The statistician keeping the
All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win List didn’t include the limited
sprint cars in his sprint car win totals, considering them to be
modifieds.
Although his father helped him get into racing,
another member of Tim’s immediate family was less enthusiastic
about him moving into sprint cars. “My wife, Robin, told me if I
got a sprint car, she’d divorce me. She lied! We’ve been married
for 37 years. The first night she came, she called it ‘the
stupidest thing she ever saw.’ She still comes to every one she
can, she’ll work on the car, and she can change the gears in
’em, she’ll change tires.”
Tim’s favorite track (a question with an obvious
answer) is East Bay, of course. “I like this track. I like
Volusia [his second-favorite track], but I like this track,
too.” Tim believes his sprint car feature win total “is probably
somewhere between 20 and 30. Other than in the sprints, I won
one other feature race in the late model. I’ve won at probably
two-thirds of the tracks in Florida.” Tim’s nine-to-five job: “I
drive a tow truck. I’ve got six of ’em, which makes it hard to
get away.” His company, Venice Wrecker Service, based in Venice,
Florida, has a problem experienced by many employers: “People
don’t like to work too much anymore.” He hopped behind the wheel
of a tow truck to head to the site of a wreck by himself for the
first time at age 13. The driver that he admired more than any
other: “Probably Steve Kinser.”
Tim would have liked to have headed out onto the
World of Outlaws tour, as many legendary sprint car drivers did
when Tim was a young man. “It might have been nice when I was
younger, but when you get older, you just gotta take what you
got and go on and try to be happy with what you got.” Going
wheel-to-wheel with Steve Kinser, well, that “would have been
fun to try.”
“For 21 consecutive years, until I hurt my back,
I was in the top three in points in that [class], the East Bay
limited sprints. The worst I finished was in third, up to 2017.
It ended two years ago when I had my back surgery. I kinda tried
to go out of the park here. I’ve got nine screws, three cages,
and two rods in my back. I caught the gate post about 15 feet in
the air, and it stopped me. I came back onto the track. I
flipped one a month later, and it got to where I could hardly
walk. I was out of racing for about a year. I was still fielding
a car with Billy [Bridges], my son-in-law. I came back at the
end of 2018, when I ran two races. The first race I ran here in
2019, I won it. Last year, I ended up upside down on the front
chute again while lapping somebody and took a left knee out. Now
I have a ‘fake knee.’ It chipped a bone when I hit the steering
box.”
He had been avoiding the knee replacement
surgery, but after the chipped bone, “I couldn’t put it off no
more.” That surgery caused him to miss the first two races of
this year at East Bay during the February Winternationals. Danny
Sams took over a backup for the number 1* car for those two
races. Another surgery is looming in December, this time the
other knee is due for replacement surgery. It’s becoming one of
the most common orthopedic surgeries, and Tim will soon have
contributed to the statistics on two occasions.
“This year’s been ‘up and down.’ I got the new
car, it takes a little bit to figure ’em out and I had a few
motor problems. We ran third the first night here, fourth last
time we were here, that was the second race this year. They’re
not getting the cars up here [for East Bay limited sprints], but
they’re not wanting to pay no more money either. Money’s a big
deal, there’s more of ’em runnin’ the Top Gun because Top Gun
pays better. That’s just the way it works out. With the track
being sold, and it’s not gonna be around, there’s not too many
people for our class of sprint cars in Florida, which is
basically a ‘bastard class.’ You can’t go really nowhere else
and run that motor combination. You can run 305s just about
anywhere, or the 360s, you can run them – ASCS or USCS. But with
the motor rules that we have, basically they’re all on their
own.
“I mean, it’s a dying sport. Now, most kids
would rather sit at home and play on their video games than do
anything that takes manual labor – hot, sweaty work. When I was
a kid, you didn’t have air conditioning, you had maybe three TV
channels, if you were lucky. You went to the races on Saturday
night somewhere. Now, there’s just so many things to do. The
local racing, there’s just not much money in it.”
Some cars were wrecked during the time that Tim
sat out a year while recovering, and now Billy Bridges is
driving what amounts to something like a “team car,” which
travels to the track in Tim’s hauler, but which is owned by the
Bridges family. The car driven by Tim is easy to spot, it’s the
“one-star,” 1*. “We started out with a number 10, and we kinda
crinkled the tank one time and my father just cut a star to
cover the spot and it lost the zero. The star covered where the
paint was gone and it stayed. Generally, the cars were yellow.
This one ain’t, it’s white.”
Tim recited the names of his family members, in
addition to his wife, Robin: “I have four daughters: Brandi,
Susanne, Rebecca (Becky), and then Cheyanne, the youngest. She’s
19 now. We basically adopted her, she’s my wife’s niece’s
daughter, but we’ve had her since she was like two years old.
I’ve raised her. Susie and Becky have run sprint cars with me.
Brandi was into beauty pageants. Susie works for me, runs the
office for me. Rebecca quit racing to show cows. She’s loved
cows her whole life. It’s been a family affair with us. My
mother’s here, my wife’s here, my daughter’s here.” Brandi may
be most familiar to Florida racing fans as a trophy queen at
Florida short track races, often at East Bay, and is a
professional model, now doing marketing for a group of lawyers.
There’s also one grandchild, a four-year-old girl.
What’s the future for the East Bay limited
sprints, and what about Tim’s future? “The series will [return];
me, I don’t know yet. I’ve done it a long time. I’m getting
tired. My body obviously won’t handle me getting wiped out, and
it’s got nothing to do with me, it’s just ‘right place, wrong
time.’ When you run one of them, it happens. It can get violent
– quick. And you gotta know that. I mean, it’s gotta be
something you can’t get mad about. It keeps really workin’ on my
body. I mean, my back, my knee. Ya just don’t heal the way ya
used to – or at least I don’t. I don’t know what would be next.
I’ve run this track basically since it opened in 1977, in one
class or another. I still enjoy it. It’s cost me a lot of money,
but it’s been a lot of fun. If I was bad at it, it’d be real
easy to quit. When you’re not bad at it, it’s hard to quit when
you still enjoy it,” he said with a laugh. “It’s kind of a
catch-22.”
Tim George had been thinking about making this
year his last driving sprint cars. “Yeah,” he said, “back when I
had my back surgery done, there when I was out for the year. My
wife says I’m unbearable when I don’t go racing.” So, he went
back and became “bearable” again. “I guess! So much that she can
put up with me anyway, but you know how that goes.” When that
question about retiring from driving race cars comes up, he
responds: “I don’t know. I keep saying it over and over and
every time I seem to come back, so I don’t know. It’s hard to
quit. I always said when it quits being fun, I’d quit. And it’s
still fun. It’s gotta be something you do for the love of the
sport.”
As he posed for a photo with his car at East
Bay, a structure in the background loomed over the iconic
Florida dirt track, the racer, and his race car. It was an
ever-growing mound of phosphate waste from the nearby phosphate
mines. Soon, like time itself, it would take over. The mining
company had profits to spend and had contracted to buy the track
by 2024. They needed the land for another mound of waste. Racing
at East Bay, and Tim George’s time there as a racing legend,
would both be coming to an end. The racer and his track had
grown old together, but you can’t hold back time. It always
moves on.
2020 Florida Sprint Car Mid-Season
Review
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
July 21, 2020
Kyle
Larson, winner, All Star Circuit of Champions, East Bay Raceway
Park, Feb. 11, 2020
Florida sprint car racing has had its most
difficult year in recent memory, with Florida now being
identified by numerous media organizations as one of the “latest
coronavirus epicenters.” In addition to putting a damper on
fans’ enthusiasm to attend crowded sports events, the situation
in Florida has seen a record number of new infections in recent
weeks. The only bright spot has been that all February
Speedweeks sprint car events were completed before the lockdown
began in March. Some of the February feature race winners
included Kyle Larson, Donny Schatz, Kody Swanson, Brad Sweet and
Aaron Reutzel, and the racing was excellent. Larson’s Tuesday
night All Star dominance at East Bay Raceway was especially
impressive.
The Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series had held
two races since Memorial Day, and has canceled two races planned
for Showtime Speedway in Pinellas Park, due to restrictions
imposed by the coronavirus. Surprisingly, Troy DeCaire, who
dominated in early season action, has not won a series feature
race since early March, when the last race was held before the
lockdown and restrictions on sports events by the State of
Florida. Up to that time, DeCaire had won the first three points
races in the 2020 season, with Kody Swanson winning the Dave
Steele Non Wing World Finals (non-points race) in February.
After his win at Punta Gorda’s 4-17 Southern Speedway last
Saturday, John Inman needs one more feature win to equal
DeCaire’s win total for the year. Inman, with top five finishes
in all six series races this year, leads the current standings
by 52 points over second place Troy DeCaire. The only other
driver with a series win this year is Daniel Miller, winner at
Punta Gorda in early June.
Yesterday, Showtime Speedway leaseholder Robert
Yoho stated that, “There will be no sprint cars at Showtime this
week. Showtime is electing not to race again,” regarding the
race planned for this coming Saturday, July 25 at Showtime. The
next scheduled race is a return trip to 4-17 Southern Speedway
set for August 15. The remaining races through early December
are all at the two tracks already mentioned, save for one race
at Citrus County Speedway in November. Races at Auburndale
Speedway were canceled, and no races were planned for New Smyrna
Speedway.
That mirrors a similar situation for the Florida
dirt series, the Top Gun Sprint Series. They also have found
that their racing has been limited to a reduced number of
tracks, as compared to previous years. After two races at East
Bay Raceway Park in January and February, both won by Garrett
Green (who got married during the lockdown), the only other
track to hold a Top Gun race this year has been Hendry County
Motorsports Park in Clewiston, the advertised “Southernmost Dirt
Track in the USA.” A.J. Maddox has won two of the races held
there in the vicinity of the Everglades, in March and May, and
Shane Butler won the most recent race, on June 13. The track’s
next race on September 12 has an advertised first place prize of
a minimum $2,000. It is also being recognized by the series as
the planned “biggest Top Gun Sprints payout ever.”
In August, the Top Gun Sprints intend to resume
racing at both East Bay Raceway (August 1) and Volusia Speedway
Park (August 29). There are additional races scheduled at these
two tracks through early December, when the season concludes at
East Bay Raceway on December 5. Another notable event in Top Gun
racing has been the “comeback tour” of Florida sprint car legend
Stan Butler, who has raced with the series this year, in
addition to his steady participation in DAARA and classic sprint
car competition. Garrett Green, A.J. Maddox, and Shane Butler
currently hold the top three places, in that order, in series
points for 2020. Green is the only one of the three who is
looking for his first sprint car series championship in Florida.
Pavement Sprint Cars Highlight
2020 Indy Race Week, Plus Indy 500 and Little 500 Race Week
Schedules
Story by Richard Golardi
May 22, 2020
With the 2020 Indianapolis 500 scheduled for
Sunday, August 23, and the usual races at Terre Haute and the
one or two USAC Silver Crown races in Indianapolis and
Brownsburg now off the schedule, the 2020 Indy Race Week takes
on a new look. A major part of that new look is the prominence
that pavement sprint car racing takes this year. They will be in
the national spotlight for three consecutive days.
Pavement sprint car racing will take place on
the three nights prior to the Sunday, August 23 race date for
the Indy 500. The Must See Racing Sprint Series visits the
Indianapolis Speedrome on both Thursday, 8/20 (winged speed
trials only) and Friday, 8/21 (winged speed trials and feature
races). Then, the wings are off for both non-wing sprint car and
midget races for the Night Before the 500 at Lucas Oil Raceway
at Indianapolis on Saturday, 8/22. The sprint car race will
likely interest several Florida pavement sprint car teams, as it
serves as an Indiana warm-up race for the Little 500, set for
two weeks later on Saturday, 9/5.
Here’s some news that definitely fits into the
category of: "I didn't see that coming, but I'm not shocked at
the development." USAC has quietly, without a press release,
gotten back into sanctioning pavement sprint car racing, and
pavement midget racing too. As of today, the pavement sprint car
and pavement midget races at Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis
on Saturday, August 22 are now USAC sanctioned races. They
silently slipped them onto the national sprint car and national
midget race schedules, listed as "SE," a special event with no
points awarded.
“New Look” Indy 500 Race Week Schedule:
Pavement Sprint Car Races Scheduled, Indiana
races only:
• Indianapolis Speedrome: Thursday, August 20,
Indyana Shootout, Must See Racing Midgets, TQ midgets, Ford
oval,
Figure 8, speed trials with winged sprint cars
• Indianapolis Speedrome, Friday, August 21,
Indyana Shootout, Must See Racing sprint cars (winged, Twin
50s),
Must See Racing midgets, TQ midgets, Factory FWD, speed
trials with winged sprint cars
• Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis, Saturday, August 22,
Night Before the 500, Pavement sprint cars and pavement
midgets (both non-wing)
Dirt Sprint Car Races Scheduled, Indiana only:
• Bloomington Speedway, Bloomington, IN, Friday,
August 21,
Non-wing 410 sprint cars
• Gas City I-69 Speedway, Gas City, IN, Friday, August 21, Twin
20s, Non-wing 410 sprint cars
• Lawrenceburg Speedway, Lawrenceburg, IN, Saturday,
August 22, Dick Gaines Memorial, Non-wing 410 sprint cars
• Lincoln Park Speedway, Putnamville, IN, Saturday, August 22,
Midwest Sprint Car Series, Non-wing 410 sprint cars
• Plymouth Speedway, Plymouth, IN, Saturday, August 22, All
Star Circuit of Champions, Winged 410 sprint cars
USAC Silver Crown Races Scheduled:
• Illinois State Fairgrounds, Springfield,
Illinois, Bettenhausen
100, Saturday, August 22
Little 500 Race Week Schedule:
There are currently two USAC national series
events on the same weekend (but a different date) as the current
date for the 2020 Pay Less Little 500 Presented by UAW, which is
Saturday, September 5:
• USAC National Midget Series: Sept 4, Sweet
Springs Motorsports Complex, Sweet Springs, MO
• USAC Silver Crown Champ Car Series: Sept 6, Du Quoin State
Fairgrounds, Du Quoin, IL
Indiana sprint car races that same weekend, not
including 9/5 (as of 5-22-2020):
• Friday, 9/4: Bloomington Speedway, Midwest
Sprint Car Series, Josh Burton Memorial
• Friday, 9/4: Gas City I-69 Speedway, Non-wing 410 sprint cars
• Sunday, 9/6: Kokomo Speedway, Non-wing 410 sprint cars
• Sunday, 9/6: Tri-State Speedway, Midwest Sprint Car Series,
Labor Day Weekend Challenge
April’s Mixed Bag of (No) Racing
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
April 10, 2020
April’s usual mixed bag of sprint car racing in
the Midwest and Florida has brought no racing in either locale
this year. News about the immediate future of racing is another
mixed bag of both good and bad news. I’ll get some of the worst
bad news out of the way first, leaving the good news until a
little later. Speaking of little, the Little 500 seems to be
holding fast to its intended Memorial Day weekend race date of
Saturday, May 23 (at least as of today, 4/10). This commitment
has meant that an excellent alternative race day, Saturday,
August 22, has already gone to Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis
and their revival of “The Night Before the 500,” now with both
pavement sprint cars and midgets. A decent purse structure seems
likely to draw most of the major pavement sprint car teams. It
remains to be seen if there will be enough midget teams to take
their cars out of storage to race, but the date is a good choice
for such a doubleheader. Crowds drawn to Indy for the next day’s
Indy 500 make it so.
A recent University of Chicago study reported by
Scientific American (see link below) has detailed a fascinating
find: numerous coronavirus “hidden hotspots” across the country.
The reason that they are hidden is because they have not
received much of any exposure in the press (that may change now
with the study’s release). These are areas that are
“disproportionally affected by COVID-19.” The researchers looked
at infections per county, then made their adjustments. It
revealed a significant number of locations in the South where
the proportion of people who have COVID-19 is quite a bit
higher.
These hidden hotspots also show another
disturbing trend, especially for those Florida sprint car teams
intending to head north to Indiana in a little over a month for
Indy race week and the Little 500. These hidden hotspots are
concentrated right along the route almost always taken by
Central Florida race teams to travel from the Tampa Bay area to
Indianapolis and Anderson, Indiana, which is I-75, to I-24, and
then to I-65. They include Albany, GA (bordering I-75), Atlanta
(on I-75), Nashville, TN (on I-24), and then Indiana (I-65
bisects the state right up to Indianapolis). That “route most
taken” from Tampa now leads through four of the nation’s
COVID-19 hidden hotspots and puts those Florida race teams at
increased risk of exposure to the virus twice, going north, and
then heading home.
2018
Little 500 Florida Driver Group Photo
In addition, a just-released survey conducted by
Seton Hall University on April 6–8 has found that a majority of
Americans (72%) would not feel safe attending a sports event
unless a vaccine for COVID-19 had been developed. Among those
persons who identified as sports fans, 61% stated that they
would not feel safe. Most Americans are not at the point where
they feel safe and without fear of illness while at a crowded
sports event.
A readily available alternative for the Little
500, in fact probably the best alternative as of today, is to
postpone the date of the race, and not just for the benefit of
the Florida teams, but also for the benefit of the race fans who
attend the Little 500, a group that includes a large percentage
of over-65 seniors, a group identified by the CDC as “at higher
risk for developing more serious complications from COVID-19
illness” (CDC.gov, 4-10-2020).
There is one alternative date for the Little 500
that stands out, and it is the only date providing all these
advantages: there are no competing USAC national races on this
date, Kokomo Speedway has no race planned (but probably will
have one soon), Lucas Oil Raceway has no oval race planned,
there is a major daytime race being held in Indianapolis the
same day (Brickyard 400), and Anderson Speedway will benefit
from the fans already in Central Indiana looking for another
race. That date, with all these advantages, is Sunday, July 5.
Why this day? Because there are already races
planned for July 4 for USAC and for the Indianapolis Motor
Speedway (which has two races) in Central Indiana. That date
won’t work. The “speedway” will probably run late into the day
with their two races, and many families will have BBQ and
firework parties, and will not be inclined to leave the beer and
BBQ they plan to consume to go to a race. Little 500 qualifying
could be held on Thursday and Friday, July 2 and 3, and the race
on July 5. There’s another benefit: owners, drivers, and crew
members that have non-essential jobs, and are now out of work
and cutting back on all their expenses, have a greater
likelihood of being back to work by July, and can therefore
afford the costs of running a race team once again. In April and
May, many teams have no way to gather funds to afford the cost
of racing in the Little 500, which is estimated to cost several
thousand dollars.
A July race date for the Little 500 would also
align the race with scheduling decisions made by the
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, IndyCar Series, and MLB pro
baseball, all of whom have no plans to hold events in occupied
stadiums during April or May. The IndyCar Series will not hold
their season-opening race until June. The speedway will not race
until July. Other auto races planned for April and May are being
canceled and postponed. That makes sense.
Now, on to that promised good news: Both of
Florida’s sprint car series, the Southern Sprint Car Shootout
Series and the Top Gun Sprint series, have both expressed their
intention to return to racing when stay-at-home orders have been
called off and race fans may once again safely gather at
Florida’s short tracks, both dirt and paved. Two of Florida’s
legendary sprint car team owners, Jack Nowling and George
Rudolph, have both recently celebrated their 80th birthdays,
with George the most recent to turn 80 on March 30. Nowling and
fellow Florida car owner Bob Gratton were also the Grand
Marshals for the February running of the Dave Steele World
Non-Wing Championship at Showtime Speedway in Pinellas Park.
George Rudolph can still be seen in the pits, wrench in hand, in
Florida and at the Little 500 to this day. Wrench on, George!
Two early favorites for 2020 championships in Florida’s sprint
car racing have already emerged, even though both Florida series
have shut down since early March. Troy DeCaire has won three
features with the Southern Sprint Car series, and seemed poised
to resume that dominance when the season resumes. On the dark
(dirt) side, Garrett Green, driving the No. 82 Hardy Maddox car,
has taken the checkered flag in two of the three Top Gun series
races this year, and is one of the few Florida racers to have
multiple sprint cars wins on both dirt and pavement. He’s one of
the early favorites to take his first sprint car championship
this year with the Top Gun dirt racers, and would be a popular
champion. On the pavement side, the next Florida race is
tentatively planned for Saturday, June 27 at Showtime Speedway.
Top Gun does not have a confirmed date to resume racing.
Here’s the link to the Scientific American
article on “hidden hotspots”:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/map-reveals-hidden-u-s-hotspots-of-coronavirus-infection/
Jeff Walker –
The Master Mentor of the Champions
Story and Photo
by Richard Golardi
February 15,
2020

The names and places were rolling
off his tongue. Stories of sprint car races and sprint car
places, all told by legendary sprint car team owner Jeff Walker,
owner of Jeff’s Jam-It-In Storage in Noblesville, Indiana. Then
there are the names – all those young hot-shots that he tutored
and molded and made into consistent winners and racing
champions. You can start with Dave Steele, a racer who he moved
right into his office at his storage facility, and made it into
a bedroom for the 22-year-old in May 1996. Then, add the
following names to his list of drivers: Tony Elliott (for almost
10 years), Levi Jones, Dave Darland, Ricky Stenhouse Jr., Kyle
Larson, Brad Sweet, and “I can’t even think of all of them,”
Jeff remarked.
Jeff Walker has experienced loss,
too. If you have been around short track auto racing as long as
Jeff Walker, it has happened. He was close to Robbie Stanley, a
USAC sprint car champion, who died in a sprint car at Winchester
Speedway on May 26, 1994. “He was good at a young age,” Jeff
said. “Him and I were pretty good friends. We had a pretty long
talk, that day that he got killed. That was a pretty sad day for
me. We sat in the parking lot there and talked. He wasn’t very
happy with that car there at Anderson. We ran [Little 500]
qualifying at Anderson that day, and then ran Winchester that
night, and that’s when he got killed. I’ve been close to a
couple of guys that got killed – and it’s hard. Luckily enough,
it wasn’t in my car, so I’m glad of that. I haven’t had anybody
really hurt in any of my cars, and we’ve run a lot of races.”
Levi Jones, present at Bubba
Raceway Park last night in his current position as USAC
executive vice president, was another of those protégés of Jeff
Walker who had success and multiple championships in a sprint
car. He also won his last feature race, at Gas City Speedway,
driving a sprint car owned by Jeff Walker. “Levi ran for me a
lot too. He ran for me before [car owner Tony] Stewart, that was
his first ride out of his family car, and he drove for me for a
while. It was at the same time I was fielding two cars then,
with Tony Elliott.”
When Levi Jones made a decision
about his future, a decision to leave race car driving, he came
to Jeff Walker, and let him know, “Jeff, I’ve got three kids
that rely on me.” It was when Jeff had just built a whole new
race team. “I get it,” Jeff said to him. “If you want to throw
in the towel, I understand.” Levi was concerned: “I don’t want
you mad at me!”
“I’m not mad at you!” Jeff
responded. “I understand.”
Jeff believes that the reason his
cars have won so many races is because of the high level of
talent possessed by his drivers. “Hire the right driver, and
you’ll be a winning team,” he proclaimed. Of course, he is
downplaying his mechanical genius at preparing his cars, and his
ability to pick the future champions – those drivers that he
could mold, mentor, and develop into champions, as he has done
for decades. Frequently, they were USAC racing champions, who
often went on to win their championships in later years, such as
Dave Steele’s USAC Silver Crown titles in 2004 and 2005 driving
Bob East’s champ car.
“I’ve probably helped a few of
them!” Jeff Walker said of his drivers over the decades. “And
today, I’m here in Florida with a rookie out of Arizona,
Sterling Cling.” Jeff’s rookie driver, competing for the USAC
Rookie of the Year title, is considered one of the favorites for
the 2020 sprint car division rookie title along with Anton
Hernandez and Anthony D’Alessio.
“I just started working for them
[Cling family] last June,” Jeff said, “and they’re out of
Arizona, so I’ve been out there all winter, building cars. Now
we’re here, and we’re going to give it a go, and see how he
does.” Jeff revealed that Sterling Cling is an off-road racing
champion, and is an experienced race winner. Of course, learning
sprint car racing “is way different: 800 horsepower in a 1,200
pound car. In 410 sprint cars, he’s had maybe 10–12 races. We
ran last year. He’s got a 360, they call it Challenge Cup. We
won one of those, a Challenge Cup race in Arizona a few weeks
ago, and a third place last week.
“They’ve hired me to run the
whole team. They said, ‘We want you to do it all.’ That’s the
only way I probably would have done it, because I didn’t really
want the job. We’re going to run up until June with USAC,
through Pennsylvania, and just see how we’re doing. Then, we’re
going to reevaluate how we’re doing. If we’re not running well,
and not staying up with them, then we’re going to run local
races, and get some more experience, and then come back for USAC
the next year. If we’re doing alright, we’ll keep running the
USAC stuff.”
Greg Wilson –
The Long-Time Visitor
Story and Photos
by Richard Golardi
February 13,
2020
Ohio sprint car racer Greg
Wilson, driver of the No. w20 car, has been a long-time visitor
to Captain Jack’s place, the name often used for the home of
Jack Nowling. It’s down at the end of a dead-end road in
Gibsonton, Florida. It’s a location that becomes a gathering
place for dirt sprint car racers during February Speedweeks, and
especially during those three days of racing at East Bay Raceway
Park for the 360 Winternationals, which begins today through
Saturday. In fact, Greg has been coming to Captain Jack’s and
his iconic “Cracker House” for 29 years, about as long as
Captain Jack has been living in Gibsonton.

Greg may just be the racer who is
not only a long-time visitor, he may have been visiting for
longer than any other racer. He recommended to fellow dirt
sprint car racer Danny Smith that he should join him at Captain
Jack’s during those weeks of racing during February. Danny
joined him, as did many other racers, and has also been a
regular visitor there for as long as many can remember. Of
course, a highlight of their stay is visiting with that iconic,
rough, tough, gruff, but extremely lovable, Florida sprint car
team owner and owner of Jack’s Place: Jack Nowling. If you have
been one of the visitors there, then you know there is one
overwhelming emotion that everyone experiences. It’s that
everyone loves Jack Nowling.
Jack opens up his property, his
home, and the social gathering place, The Cracker House, to this
diverse group of racers from the Northeast, Midwest, and the
rest of the country. Also, there is the bunkhouse, like
something out of the Old West, and a fire pit, where racers can
be found telling stories and spinning tales (sometimes truthful)
of racing from decades gone by, and at race tracks that have met
the developer’s bulldozers (Boo!). Sometimes, the story telling
and the card games go on until the sun comes up. Greg Wilson has
been there to greet the sun after the all-night games and
stories have wound down, and believe it or not, that happened on
days that the racers then headed over to East Bay Raceway to
drive their sprint cars.

For 2020, Greg Wilson told me
that his main goal is to compete for the driver’s championship
with the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions.
“And win some races,” Greg told me at Volusia Speedway Park. “We
had a decent year last year, didn’t win some races that we felt
like we should have. Kinda changed some things around over the
winter time. Got a really good mechanic [Dean “Bonzai” Bruns]
starting in April that will take some pressure off me, and
hopefully that equals out to be some wins. He’s going to do the
full All Star schedule for our points season. We changed some
stuff around, worked on the motors a little bit, and just tried
to fine-tune some things that we felt like we were starting to
learn at the end of last year. So, maybe we won’t start so far
behind this year.
“You always do this to win
races,” Greg added. “We do a lot of stuff for our partners, so
we’ll be really busy doing stuff for Hercules Tire and all the
people that are involved with our team.” Regarding the highlight
of his 2019 racing season, Greg remarked, “I don’t know if there
was one real highlight. I just felt like there was a lot of
times that we started showing signs that we could win some races
again. You know, we kind of went through “a low” being out on
the road with the World of Outlaws, and not really having our
ducks in a row. And we felt like, last year, we needed to work
toward getting things simplified, and trying to figure out what
it was going to take to get back to being competitive. We felt
like there was times that we showed that, but we couldn’t quite
get over that hump. Hopefully this year, we can get some wins.”
In addition to running the full
All Star Circuit of Champions schedule, Greg plans to race in
about 20–25 World of Outlaws races, and another 10–15 weekly or
360 shows somewhere. This week, “If we’re ready, we’ll be at
East Bay for the 360s, if not, we’ll be in Alabama the following
weekend.” Greg revealed that he’s got his 360 engine with him,
meaning that he’ll race, if that is the final decision this week
to enter the 360 Winternationals. “We’re ready. Oh, yeah!” he
remarked.
“We like East Bay Raceway. It’s a
cool place,” he said. “It appears it ain’t gonna be around
forever, and we’d like to get us a big win there. But, we also
have to do what’s right for our team.” Greg plans to reevaluate
the teams’ status on Wednesday, a day without racing, and then
make his plans for the rest of the week of racing in Florida.
“And then we’ll go from there.”
This happens, all while his
anticipation grows about the coming reunion of racers over at
Captain Jack’s place in Gibsonton. “We’re excited to be over at
Captain Jack’s,” Greg stated. “I’ve been going there probably
longer than any of “the clan” has been goin’ there. I started
going there when I was 15 years old, and I’m 44 years old. So,
he’s like a father. Jack’s been a huge part of my life, and we
love the man, and he’s struggling right now with some health
issues. We’re excited to get back there and spend some time with
him this week. I actually started coming around right when “the
move” [Jack’s move from Brandon to Gibsonton] happened. Right
when he moved to Gibsonton, like the first or second year, I met
him at the race track at East Bay. I was there.”
And, that is what makes Greg
Wilson “The Long-Time Visitor.”
Terry McCarl –
East Bay Time is Happy Time for This King of the 360s
Story and Photo
by Richard Golardi
February 12,
2020

In February 2019, Terry McCarl
won another East Bay 360 Winternational Saturday finale, the Ronald
Laney Memorial race. That’s the race with the biggest payday in 360
sprint car racing during February Speedweeks in Florida. It was the
fourth time winning that race for the 55-year-old Iowa racer, which
includes one race with a 410 engine, and the other three during the
360 Winternationals. His main competition for that Saturday finale
this year may be another two experts on Florida dirt, Aaron Reutzel
and Mark Smith. They have both won two feature races so far during
2020 February Speedweeks, Reutzel in 410 racing, and Smith in 360
racing.
“Man, I just love East Bay
Raceway Park,” “T-MAC” had said previously about the small, racy
West Coast Florida dirt track. “We had our ups and downs,” Terry
said about his 2019 season, “but [Knoxville] Nationals is always our
biggest goal, and we had a bad Nationals, had some mechanical
problems. We won six features in six different states. We won one at
Texas Motor Speedway, one of the finales with the ASCS national
group. Picked up our 59th win at Knoxville, we’re only
one behind [Doug] Wolfgang on the all-time list. We’re inching up
there, slowly but surely. East Bay was our highlight last year, that
was our fourth one, the third with 360s, we won one with a 410. That
was also our second in a row, only person to do that. Pretty proud,
I love East Bay, I love comin’ down here, I love Florida, we’ve got
a lot of great friends and have been comin’ down here for so many
years. And of course, you can’t beat the weather, compared to Iowa.
I’ve said this story a lot, but as a little boy, I used to listen to
my dad’s stories about comin’ to Tampa, and racing at the Tampa
Fairgrounds and all those places that you see in the history books.
My dad was there for quite a few of those and it means a lot to me
to come down here and put my name into the record books. I’m into
the history of sprint car racing quite a bit.
“We teamed up with Rick and Barb
Rogers at Destiny Motorsports last year, it’s T-MAC Motorsports and
Destiny Motorsports, it’s a ‘combo deal.’ They’re good folks, we’ve
been friends a long time. They sponsored me for years with Destiny
Motorsports on the front wing, and this last year, we combined more,
we got their truck and trailer and all their goodies and put a deal
together. We’re going to get bigger and better every year, I think,
with Dick and Barb. I’m looking forward to being with them, they’re
great people. And Mondak Portables, and that really helped us out to
get back on track. We had a good year for our first year teaming up
with those guys, and I’m looking forward to this year. Florida’s
kinda tough, and it’s always been that way. Gary Wright and I always
used to joke about it: ‘If you win every night in Florida, or lose
every night, you still get to the Georgia line on your way out of
town, and throw away all your notes, because they don’t work
anywhere else.’ ”
On Sunday at Volusia Speedway
Park, Terry remarked, “I’ve dominated down here, and I’ve run bad
down here, like this week. Florida’s a tricky, tricky place for
everybody. I really enjoy it, I’m looking forward to being at East
Bay this week.” Terry intends to race at all five sprint car races
at East Bay Raceway this week, the two All Star series races, Monday
and Tuesday; followed by the three nights of the East Bay 360
Winternationals, Thursday–Saturday. Then he heads home, with the
possibility of getting in a USCS sprint car race on the way. The
World of Outlaws sprint car dates through the beginning of April are
also in his plans. Beyond April, it’s “kind of pick and choose,” and
after speaking to Rick and Barb, “we might be at Knoxville weekly,
I’m not sure. I live 30 minutes from ‘the best track in the world.’
I think we ran 60-some races last year, but we were there for all
the weekly shows. What’s nice about where we live, and about
Knoxville, is that it pays really well, their point fund is really
good, but their season is very short. It lets us race with the
Outlaws up until April, and it lets us race with the Outlaws after
that [late August end of Knoxville’s sprint car season]. You never
know where you’re going to see us, or where we’re going to be –
360s, 410s, we could be just about anywhere.”
Terry mentioned that his son,
Carson, we be racing at East Bay this year, and that he’s “excited
about that. Hopefully, next year we can get Austin down here too,
and have a ‘McCarl – Fest.’ Carson, my youngest, was the 360
champion at Knoxville last year, and will be racing a 360 at East
Bay. Austin is kinda ‘crew-chiefing’ for us. He’s putting his own
team, his own ride together with Brandon Ikenberry, they’re looking
at doing some racing together. He’s a long-time friend of Austin’s
and he’s worked for me for years and years, a great crew guy.”
Daryn Pittman:
Back with Roth Motorsports, Building on Last Year
Story and photoo by Richard Golardi

February 10,
2020
Daryn Pittman, the 41-year old
racer from Owasso, Oklahoma, has already won a World of Outlaws NOS
Energy Drink Sprint Car Series championship. That happened in 2013.
He has a career win total of 85 feature wins with the Outlaws. But
Daryn Pittman is looking to improve on his first season with Roth
Motorsports last year, when he won four World of Outlaws races, half
of which occurred during the February Speedweeks visit by the
Outlaws to Volusia Speedway Park. Although he leaves Volusia without
any feature wins this year, his speed and impressive car-handling on
the last night, Sunday, when he was in contention for the win with
Brad Sweet and Logan Schuchart, is a great start to more wins and
improved consistency for 2020.
Later in 2019, Daryn added
another win in the Gold Cup Race of Champions at California’s Silver
Dollar Speedway in September, and that put him on the way to a
fourth place in the final 2019 point standings with the World of
Outlaws. Back in the No. 83 Roth Motorsports sprint car this year in
his 23rd year of racing, Daryn remarked that he was “glad
to be back again. Definitely would like to get to victory lane a few
more times than what we did last year, but obviously excited to be
back and try to build on what we started last year.”
Highlight of the year in racing
for Daryn in 2019: “We started off awfully good,” he said. “But,
honestly, I’d say the highlight for me, especially with how much
I’ve struggled there, was running third at the [Knoxville]
Nationals. Ran well, we started 10th and got to 2nd
and contended for the lead for a few laps, and weren’t quite good
enough. But that was really a pretty big step for me, and I think
that was a really good effort by the team, and big improvement by
myself, as far as performance-wise at that race. So, I actually
think that might have been one of my highlights. Winning Gold Cup
was obviously a pretty big win for us, as well, and being in Dennis’
[car owner Dennis Roth] back yard in California.”
Main goal for 2020: “We’ve gotta
win races. We only won four last year. I think a realistic goal is
we’d really like to try to get close to double digits, if not, as
close as we can. We’ve got to do a better job of winning more races
and being competitive and contend for more “crown jewels” and be
there again for Knoxville. The National Open [at Williams Grove
Speedway] is one that’s been there on my radar, and one I’ve been
close to winning for way too many years. So, we’d love to be able to
click that one off. I’ve run second, five times now, I believe. You
gotta go out there and win ’em, and earn ’em. It’s one that we’ve
always been good at, and been close, and we’ve love to be able to
finally check off the list. If we could be as good as we were at
Knoxville this year, I definitely think that we can contend for that
one, as well.”
After Sunday night at Volusia
Speedway Park, “We’re done until Texas,” Daryn said. They were not
staying around for another two days of 410 racing at East Bay
Raceway, as many of the other 410 teams were doing before heading
back north for the rest of the 2020 season. “We’ll get ready for
just the Outlaws races. We’ll probably run the Front Row Challenge
at Oskaloosa, but other than that, no. The Outlaws schedule keeps
’em busy enough. We don’t need to seek too many other races.”
A track that he’d choose to get a
win in 2020: “Knoxville. Only race I’ve ever won in Knoxville is a
World Challenge race, so I’d be happy with a July, or June, or
whenever we go there, or any race in August, for sure. It’s
definitely a track that I’d love to get a win at. Wins have been
only the World Challenge race – I’ve won that three times, I think,
but that’s the only race I’ve ever won there.”
Jacob Allen
Interview: “Try Again Tomorrow”
Story and photo by Richard Golardi
February 9, 2020

It almost happened in 2019. Jacob
Allen’s first feature race win in the World of Outlaws NOS Energy
Drink Sprint Car Series, that is. He was leading a race at the
Stockton Dirt Track, one lap away from winning it, when a part
failure took a “sure win” away. That makes the 25-year-old racer
from Hanover, Pennsylvania want that first win even more this year.
He took 12th place in the World of Outlaws points last
year, after a best placing of 11th in Outlaws points in
2018. He is back with Shark Racing, a team owned by his father,
Bobby Allen, in 2020, again with Logan Schuchart as his teammate.
Jacob was a full-time “PA Posse” racer, racing full-time in Central
Pennsylvania through 2013, and then went full-time in the World of
Outlaws series in 2014 for the first time.
Jacob’s main goal for 2020: “Just
to have fun,” he remarked, “and to be a good teammate, and have a
good attitude.” Highlight of the year for him in 2019: “In a weird
way, I’d say, getting that close to winning my first Outlaw race.
That was a heartbreak, but that was probably my highlight – just
being up front, leading that race, and being fast on a track that we
have struggled at in the past.”
The definite main goal for 2020
is the effort he’ll put forth to get his first World of Outlaws
feature win: “Yeah, that’s obvious, just to get that first Outlaw
win.” Jacob plans to “just take one race at a time and do the best I
can. I come to every race, and it doesn’t matter if I’ve won one
Outlaw race, or a hundred Outlaw races, I feel like I’m always gonna
treat that the same – one race at a time and try to win it.”
If he could choose a track for
that first Outlaw win, would he choose Stockton, California, or
would it be a different track?: “I’ll take it tonight, here at
Volusia. If it doesn’t happen today, I’m gonna try again tomorrow,
and see how it all plays out. This [Volusia Speedway Park] is a fast
race track. It’s pretty technical. After a few months of the
off-season, you come right into a lot of speed and great
competition, but that’s everywhere. It’s a pretty tricky and
aggressive half-mile, but it doesn’t make me intimidated or anything
like that. I just take that all into perspective, and I go out there
and I give it the best shot I can.”
Shark Racing plans to compete in
the full 2020 World of Outlaws race schedule, and also has plans for
the few weeks after the sprint car racing at Volusia ends on Sunday,
February 9. “We’re going to go back home after we race here in
Volusia,” Jacob stated. “We plan on racing in the Icebreaker, that’s
at Lincoln Speedway [Saturday, February 22], and anything with the
right scheduling that we have time to do and we’re able to race it,
I know my dad is gonna want to race, and we are too. Back home, or
wherever it might be. Back in Pennsylvania is where you can find us,
if we’re not racing with the Outlaws. At the end of the year, if
BAPS [Motor Speedway, Pennsylvania] has that race after the Outlaw
season, we always do that one.”
2019 Champion’s
Interview - Aaron Reutzel, All Star Circuit of Champions
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
February 8,
2020

Aaron Reutzel was already on a
roll coming into the Friday night season-opening race for the World
of Outlaws NOS Energy Drink Sprint Cars. He had already won at
Volusia Speedway Park this week, taking the Thursday night Ollie’s
Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions feature race with
impressive speed. Earlier this year, he also had a sprint car win in
Australia on January 5, his first win “Down Under.” With 18 overall
feature wins (16 with the All Star series) and his second
consecutive All Star Circuit of Champions driver championship in
2019, what’s left for the 29-year old sprint car virtuoso?
How about conquer Florida
Speedweeks for a start? Aaron and his Baughman-Reutzel Motorsports
No. 87 team plan to race in ten nights of competition in Florida
this week, and all the way through to the end of next week. After
Volusia, it’s off to East Bay Raceway Park on Monday and Tuesday,
and that’s where he’ll stay for the rest of the week after the All
Star series races on those first two nights. Out comes the 410
engine, replaced by their 360 engine for the East Bay 360
Winternationals on Thursday–Saturday. The rest of the year consists
of attempting to win their third straight All Star series
championship, while also including a major portion of the World of
Outlaws sprint car schedule in their 2020 plans.

“We’re gonna do the All Star deal
again,” Aaron remarked at Volusia Speedway Park on Friday. “So, we’d
like to win that again. Last year, I felt like it was a big one for
us to win it again. When we won it the first year [2018], it was our
rookie year. Last year, we felt like we needed to back it up to
prove that we were the team that we were. That was good. This year,
I think we want to back-up everything that we did, you never want to
go backwards. Sixteen wins, that’s going to be hard to do; and then
an Outlaw win, that’s going to be hard to do as well. If I have any
goal, it’s going to be to at least get two Outlaw wins this year,
and win the All Star championship again.
“I would like to have a little
bit more of a consistent year,” Aaron continued, “where we have a
little less DNFs, and try to get more consistent – me as a driver,
and also as a team together.” When asked about a track where he has
not won, but where he’d like to be a winner, he was quick to
respond: “I’d like to get Knoxville out of the way, I haven’t won
there yet.” Highlight of the year in 2019: “Winning the Tuscarora
50.” Goal for this weekend at Volusia: “Try to win one of these next
three [weekend races at Volusia], and go down to East Bay, I’d like
to win the Ronald Laney Memorial [Saturday finale at East Bay
Raceway], ’cause Ronald grew up about an hour from me and he was
always “the hometown guy,” so, I’d like to win that race. I haven’t
been there [East Bay 360 Winternationals] since 2015.”
All the Thursday speed he showed
was quite a contrast from Wednesday night at Volusia, when he
struggled for speed. Not on Thursday, when he had speed in
abundance, and a trophy. What happened? “I don’t know! At the end of
last year, it seemed like it didn’t matter where we went, we were
able to make speed and last night just wasn’t any different.” Any
other big half-mile tracks similar to Volusia that he’s looking
forward to in 2020? “I always enjoy getting back to Eldora, and
definitely Port Royal,” which was the location of Aaron’s “favorite
win” from 2019, the Tuscarora 50, at Pennsylvania’s Port Royal
Speedway on September 7, which was a $52,000 payday for Aaron and
his team, their biggest ever.
USAC Rookie Interview – Anthony D’Alessio
Story by Richard Golardi
February 4, 2020
When legendary Florida sprint car racer Frank Riddle
competed for the USAC National Sprint Car series Rookie of the Year
title in 1980 (he won it at age 51), he had three decades of racing
experience behind him. He was hardly a “rookie.” When Floridian
Anthony D’Alessio races for that same USAC Rookie of the Year title
this year, four decades after Riddle’s try, he measures his sprint
car experience in years, not decades. Next month will mark three
years since his first sprint car feature win, in an East Bay Sprints
race at East Bay Raceway Park on March 11, 2017. He went on to win
another sprint car feature in Florida that year, a Top Gun Sprint
Series race at East Bay. By the next year, the Apollo Beach resident
had moved on and was racing in the Midwest. New tracks, new
competition, and new goals were ahead for 2018 and ’19. Now, when he
sits in his dirt sprint car and looks out over the car’s hood, ahead
of him he sees 2020.

Anthony plans to race in the full USAC AMSOIL
National Sprint Car Series tour in 2020, beginning with the
season-opening race at Ocala’s Bubba Raceway Park on Thursday,
February 13. He’ll still be a teenage racer, 19 years old. But that
will change soon. On April 6, he’ll turn 20, leaving his teenage
years behind, and also embarking on an arduous spring and summer
tour of Midwest and Eastern race tracks, most of them new to him. He
did race at a number of Indiana tracks last year; highlighted by a
feature win at Lincoln Park Speedway during their “King of Non-Wing
Sprints” event in August, and also a USAC heat race win at Kokomo
Speedway in July during USAC’s Indiana Sprint Week. He raced at a
couple other USAC events, and lots of weekly sprint car shows at
tracks such as Kokomo, Gas City Speedway, and Lawrenceburg Speedway.
During early 2020, he showed off the new car colors,
with a flash of bright blue and black, on both social media and at a
kick-off event held at a pub in Anderson, Indiana last Saturday.
Anderson was a short hop down the interstate from where he currently
lives, in Gas City. He raced the full season of races at Gas City
Speedway in 2019, and will be back there in 2020 with USAC as an
owner/driver in company with Parallax Motorsports and owner Joe
Brandon. He’ll be driving the No. 01 DRC/ Claxton Mopar. Brandon
stated that he decided to move forward with this united team effort
after meeting Anthony, who immediately impressed him as “a genuinely
nice young man.” Nice … and fast, that is.
Anthony’s already got a history of success in
winning Rookie of the Year titles, winning three of them in Florida
before that move to the Midwest about 1 ½ years ago. First came the
Rookie of the Year designations in both the East Bay Raceway sprint
car division, and the Top Gun Sprint Series in 2016 (his first full
season in sprint cars), followed by a half-year of pavement racing
and Rookie of the Year with the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series
in 2017. That came at the wheel of Johnny Gilbertson’s No. 22X. He
led laps and got a top ten at the Frank Riddle Memorial race in
October 2017. That pavement experience plays an important role in
one of Anthony’s future goals – getting to race a champ car in USAC
Silver Crown, which races on both dirt and pavement.
But first, it’s time to gain experience in USAC
competition on USAC tracks in a USAC sprint car. “When I moved to
Indiana, it was always the plan to go USAC racing,” Anthony said.
“Last year was my ‘build season,’ I like to call it. I wanted to get
one good season of local Indiana racing under my belt before I went
full-bore USAC racing, so I used last season to build my operation
and just learn as much as I could.” His parents are “still down in
Florida. I’m actually living up here by myself – all on my own.”
Other racing plans for 2020: “If the time comes when
we have a week off, and can go hit Kokomo, and any local Indiana
track, I probably will. I’m just kind of going to play it by ear. My
number one goal is to go out and have fun and that’s what I came
here to do. This is going to be a learning season and there’s a lot
of tracks on the schedule that I haven’t been to yet. So, I’m going
to have to really buckle down, and learn all I can while I can – get
my notebook together, I guess you can say, for the coming seasons.
Most of the tracks on the schedule, outside of Indiana, I haven’t
been to.”
His family’s plans to come see him race outside of
Florida: “They’re going to try to come to the majority of them. My
mom’s kind of sick right now, and she can’t travel as much as she’d
like. But, my dad is going to try to come to just about all of them.
He wants to be there for me, to support me.”
His opinion of his chance of winning USAC Rookie of
the Year: “I think I have a pretty good chance. There’s some stiff
competition for Rookie of the Year this year, but I feel I’ve put a
pretty good program together, and can definitely be a contender for
it. It’s going to be mostly about consistency, and who can make the
most races, and right now, that’s all I’m focused on.” On the other
two USAC rookie contenders, Anton Hernandez of Texas, and Sterling
Cling of Arizona, Anthony said, “I’ve raced with them quite a bit.
Anton Hernandez is a great shoe, and he’s got a great car owner,
Kenny Baldwin, behind him this year, so I think he’ll definitely be
stiff competition. Sterling Cling, as well, he’s also gonna be
pretty tough. He’s got Jeff Walker behind him turning the wrenches,
he’s one of the most notable [car owners] there is. It’s definitely
going to be tough, but I hope I’ve put a good program together, so I
can at least contend for it. I actually work over at Scott Benic’s
speed shop right now; we also build for Baldwin’s team for Anton’s
car. I’ve worked alongside Anton putting the cars together.”
Would he want to do more pavement open wheel racing?
“Yeah, I’d be interested in doing pavement, either at the Little
500, or pavement Silver Crown stuff. I’d love to get behind the
wheel of anything on pavement. I’d never turn anything down, that’s
for sure.”
Racing plans beyond 2020: “I don’t know really – I
guess it depends on the opportunities that arise. I love the USAC
racing, I love the community behind it. I’d love to be able to drive
in Silver Crown, and get behind the wheel of a midget. I’ve always
said that wherever I go, I just want to be good at it. That’s what I
want to do – whatever I race, whether it’s USAC sprint cars, Silver
Crown, or midgets, or World of Outlaws, or if I’m lucky enough to
make it to higher levels, like IndyCar or NASCAR, I just want to be
good at whatever I do.”
Champion’s Interview – AJ Maddox, Top Gun Sprint
Series
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
January 29, 2020
Rounding the one-third mile dirt surface at
Gibsonton’s East Bay Raceway Park for a last time on the night of
November 30, 2019, AJ Maddox was in an intense battle with Shane
Butler for the feature race win, a race that later was declared the
season finale. Going into this Top Gun Sprint Series finale, he had
a 20-point lead in the season-long points over second-place Keith
Butler. AJ had just surpassed Butler in the series point standings
earlier in the month, when Butler had a stretch of bad luck. As AJ
and Shane Butler approached the front straight and the checkered
flag, with a first or second place feature finish almost certain, AJ
had the 2019 Top Gun sprint car driver championship firmly in his
grasp. Keith Butler was just inside the top ten in the race,
allowing AJ to gain points and sew up the title. That was his. One
thing was left … win the race.
With a win this night, AJ was going to earn his
fifth Top Gun series feature race of the season. The four prior 2019
wins came at East Bay Raceway during Speedweeks (two wins), at
Volusia Speedway Park in April, and also at East Bay in October. He
had already established a record of earning the driver championship
in Top Gun Series racing during odd-numbered years, going back to
2015, his first driver championship in the series. That was followed
by championships in 2017, and now, 2019. These all came at the wheel
of the No. 3A car owned by Ray Bolin. His car had now carried AJ
into a tie with Danny Martin Jr. (champion in 2011, 2013 and 2014)
for the most career Top Gun driver championships. Both drivers now
had three titles.
AJ
Maddox at Volusia Speedway Park, 2016
Let’s go back to that East Bay race on November 30:
Earlier in the evening, race officials informed the teams that the
transponders, an electronic device installed on each car for timing
and scoring, would not be used, as the computerized system used in
conjunction with the transponders had malfunctioned. Teams were
informed to return the transponders. There was no system to capture
a “photo finish” by a camera at the start/finish line, if one was
needed in case of a close finish. The finish was going to be decided
by race officials by eye.
AJ and Shane were now side-by-side coming off the
fourth turn on the last lap, and seemed to stay that way upon
crossing the finish line. But, one of them was just slightly ahead.
The race was now over. The arguing was just beginning. One view of
the finish line, slightly askew from directly straight-on, appeared
to show AJ and the No. 3A ahead at the line. But he was not declared
the winner. Shane Butler was declared the winner, and got the honor
of celebrating in the front straight winner’s circle at East Bay.
AJ had a different opinion of that declared
finishing order. He stated that if the transponders had been present
and were functioning properly, that he, and not Shane, would have
been declared the winner. “I chalk up the last race of the year as a
win,” AJ said defiantly. “If we would have had transponders on the
cars, I think the end results would have been a little bit
different. There’s video evidence of the finish, at the finish line,
and at the time, we couldn’t do anything about it, so I didn’t want
to make a fuss. It was a Memorial Race for Don [Rehm], and his
family was all involved. That’s the way it goes sometimes: sometimes
the calls go your way, and sometimes they don’t!”
About Top Gun Series racing: “It’s one of series
where you have to run every race. You gotta support the series, and
show up every week. Sometimes that’s difficult to do – life gets in
the way, and you’ve gotta truly be dedicated to it. Luckily, every
year that I’ve won the championship, it’s been one of those years
where I’ve been lucky enough to make every race, and finish well,
and have a good car underneath me. That’s what it takes to win
championships. It takes dedication, and a good car, and good
support.”
About the oddity of winning his championships only
in odd-numbered years: “Some of those years, we’ve been trying to
branch out, and run some 360 stuff,” which for dirt racers in
Florida, that often consists of the East Bay 360 Winternationals,
and USCS national sprint car series races, which require an
ASCS/USCS 360 engine to be competitive. Top Gun Series racing does
not allow these engines, only limited 360 engines (and some others).
“One or two of those years, I didn’t have a motor for some of the
races, we had some motor issues” he added. AJ has had a goal to run
more USCS races, and those “even-numbered, non-championship years”
sometimes marked the time when his team had that goal in mind. USCS
races in Georgia and South Carolina were sometimes within reach
during the summer months, but the desire not to lose points in the
Top Gun rankings often kept them closer to home.
His goal for the 2020 race season: “Try to not run
as much Top Gun stuff, but run a lot more 360 stuff. From 2012 to
2018, I did have a 360, and we ran quite a bit with the 360.” Engine
builder Robert Delgado began the rebuild on his USCS 360 engine in
2018. After health issues delayed the rebuild and set back Delgado’s
work timeline, car owner Ray Bolin decided to stick with Delgado and
wait out the delay. Delgado’s engine work was worth waiting for,
they decided.
AJ
Maddox, with car owner Ray Bolin, and Ashlynn Durden in 2015
After missing last year’s East Bay Winternationals,
they’ve got their USCS 360 engine back, and are now ready for more
360 racing in 2020. “It’s a bullet, for sure – came off the dyno
with good numbers,” AJ said of his confidence in the rebuilt 360,
which will be ready to race in the East Bay Winternationals in two
weeks. His 2018 Winternationals results included getting a top six
start to get locked into the feature on the final night, Saturday,
February 17. Those top six qualifiers are often considered among the
best 360 dirt sprint car racers in the nation.
AJ’s highlight of the year in 2019 racing:
“Honestly, it’s going to sound kinda selfless, but, helping Matt
Kurtz during the 2019 360 Winternationals was kinda the highlight of
my year, in racing. He didn’t make the show the first two nights,
and kept workin’ at it, and he went on to start last in the heat
race and win. Raced his way in, came from the back in the feature, I
think he started 16th, or so, and drove right up to the front, got
to second. I think he got a little tired there towards the end of
the race; it’s certainly special when you get to do that with that
kind of company – even workin’ on ’em and helping somebody else.
Seeing an effort like that is really satisfying. We ran the Top Gun
stuff, we won some races and it’s always fun to win the non-wing
races. Other than the last race, according to the history books,
I’ve won every Top Gun non-wing race at East Bay that they’ve held,
heat and feature, since 2012. Probably one of the highlights of my
career.”
On Sunday, January 19, the Top Gun Series Annual
Banquet saw Ray Bolin and AJ Maddox take the check and trophy for
their 2019 series driver championship. I asked who gets the check,
is it split between owner and driver? “Any money that is awarded
goes to the owner of the car,” AJ replied. “I’m not sure what the
amount is, they kinda keep going up every year. It’s between three
and five thousand for the championships [driver and car owner both].
Ray will get that. That’ll help out for the following year, and
we’ll keep on movin’. I get a picture, and a handshake, and a jacket
[Hoosier Tire purple], and get to drive race cars for another year.”
But … the check split? “Ahh – we don’t really have anything set in
stone. I take care of the cars, and house the cars here. Ray lives
in Orlando. He covers the cost of all the racing, I get to enjoy
driving and working on the cars. That’s pretty much my payment of
the whole deal. It costs a lot to keep these cars goin’. I don’t
expect anything in return, honestly. Just get to drive them, and be
around it, and live my dream is plenty payment enough.”
AJ’s “thank yous” to all who helped him achieve
another Top Gun Series driver championship in 2019: “First would be
Ray Bolin, then his business is the sole sponsor of the car, as of
right now: AMP Agri Machinery and Parts. And Robert Delgado Racing
Engines, he’s always provided reliable, great power. That’s pretty
much all we’ve got right now. And Ashlynn [his girlfriend], of
course, for helping me work on it and maintain it.” Is she being
assigned the “crew chief” title? “Oh, yeah, for sure,” he answered.
“She’s usually got it washed on Monday or Tuesday, and on stands,
ready to be worked on. She’ll do most of the work on it if I get
hung-up at work, or I can’t make it over there, and she can. She can
do full maintenance, and do anything and everything making sure that
car’s ready to race.”
That certainly makes AJ a lucky guy, many would say.
“Yeah … I ought to marry her one of these days,” he stated. When I
called AJ for this interview, there was the possibility that “home
shopping” for he and Ashlynn might necessitate a change of day and
time for the interview. They were looking for the perfect home – for
the two of them. “Ashlynn and I are trying to get our first house,
we’re in the process of that right now. Actually, we put an offer in
on one today. I’m working pretty hard at my job
[plumber/pipefitter], I’m doing at least 60 hours a week. Between
moving, and that, and getting ready for the Winternationals, I’m a
pretty busy guy.”
Racing plans for the next month: “We’re going to do
all the Winternationals stuff we can for the next month.” At most,
that’s six nights of racing: possibly three nights of the Top Gun
Series, limited 360 engine, on January 30, 31, and February 1; and
“definitely” three nights of the East Bay 360 Winternationals, on
February 13–15. Also – “The majority of the Top Gun stuff throughout
the year, and whatever USCS stuff we can break-off and hit, we’re
gonna do that. Usually, there’s 10 to 12 USCS races throughout the
year that we try to plan on hitting. It doesn’t always work out that
way, but we’ll at least try to hit that many. Most of the places are
within reason [with cost considerations] – Georgia, and Alabama, or
North or South Carolina. Try to look at it as a mini-vacation, just
get outta town. We’ve talked about it a little bit.”
Home plans, looking to the future, looking ahead to
more championships, AJ was willing to say how he was putting it all
together, his current perspective: “We are plenty excited about it,
hopefully it all works out, and we can start another chapter of life
here.” The house being considered, it’s “a little three bedroom, two
bath, it’s got a pretty decent size shop in the back – plenty of
room for us to expand, and get our race car hauler in and out of.
It’s a good starter home, at least for now.” His own race shop,
right next store to his home: “That was the idea in mind when we
started the process. I haven’t been able to keep the race cars where
I live yet, since I’ve been racing.”
If you are wondering: did I ask about a wedding, and
family, and children, and so on, in the future? Here’s the answer:
No. I didn’t. I’d already demanded that the “ought to marry her”
comment be on the record (pretty good – huh?). I decided not to
press any further. I believe AJ will tell us what he’s thinking, and
what’s he’s feeling. All that will happen … when the time is right.
A Look Ahead – To 2020 February Sprint Car
Speedweeks
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
December 22, 2019
The swift-approaching February Sprint Car Speedweeks
in Florida will have a different look in 2020. The national series
will hold their races during a condensed period of just 11 days
during the first half of the month. Compare that to 2019 – when just
one track, Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, had national sprint car
series races for three consecutive weekends during February. Of the
three sprint car series that raced during those three weekends, only
one returns to Bubba Raceway Park in 2020 – the USAC national sprint
car series.

Bubba Raceway will have two weekends of national
open wheel racing in 2020, as they will once again host the USAC
national midget series on the weekend prior to the arrival of the
USAC sprint cars. But, the All Star Circuit of Champions and the
USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour, the other two national sprint car series
to visit in 2019, will both be absent from Bubba Raceway in February
2020. Rumors of financial difficulties for track co-owner Bubba Clem
have been swirling all through this year, but the truth is that the
track will be back with racing in 2020, although with a shorter
Speedweeks schedule.
Despite the announcement that East Bay Raceway Park
will likely be sold and closed in 2024, long anticipated as the
mound of phosphate waste that looms higher in the east with each
passing year seemed destined to overwhelm and supplant the track
eventually, the East Bay 360 Sprint Car Winternationals return. If
the 360 Winternationals are held each year until the end (which
seems sure to happen), then the 2020 edition will be followed by
four more before the last ever 360 Winternationals in February 2024.
East Bay management is hardly rolling over and waiting for the
inevitable, however. They are bringing back national 410 sprint car
racing for the first time in years with the return of the All Star
Circuit of Champions, filling in the Monday–Tuesday gap between the
Florida dates for the World of Outlaws sprint cars and the USAC
sprint cars.
With that “gap” filled in, which was a three-day gap
without a national sprint car series race last year, there now will
only be a one-day gap without a national sprint car series race
during the week before the Sunday, February 16 date of the Daytona
500. In fact, beginning on Wednesday, Feb. 5, there will be a
national sprint car race in Florida for all of the rest of that
week, and almost all of the next week. The only day without a race
will be Wednesday, Feb 12, and it will have national sprint cars on
track, but just for practice, and not racing, in Ocala at Bubba
Raceway. For an 11 day period from Feb. 5 to Feb. 15, the dedicated
sprint car race fan can see cars from a national sprint car series
on track for those 11 consecutive days, and all but one of them with
racing.
Despite the disappointment that came with their
previous “Big Speedweeks sprint car race,” which saw a depleted car
count, few cars with 410 engines, and sparse attendance in 2014,
Showtime Speedway will make a try at another big February Speedweeks
race, this time a non-wing, non-points race to honor the memory of
Dave Steele. The race will be held on Thursday, February 20, at
Showtime Speedway, and will be designated as the Dave Steele
Non-Wing World Finals. The planned distance is 125 laps on the
quarter-mile pavement oval.

Feeling up to the challenge of going to the track
for 11 consecutive days of national sprint cars on dirt? Well, then
you’ll need the 2020 February Sprint Car Speedweeks schedule for
Florida, and here it is:
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 1/30 to 2/1: Top Gun
Sprint Series, East Bay Raceway Park, Gibsonton.
Wednesday and Thursday, 2/5 to 2/6: All Star Circuit of Champions,
Volusia Speedway Park, Barberville.
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 2/7 to 2/9: World of Outlaws Sprint
Car Series, Volusia Speedway Park, Barberville.
Friday and Saturday, 2/7 to 2/8: USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour, Hendry
County Motorsports Park, Clewiston.
Monday and Tuesday, 2/10 to 2/11: All Star Circuit of Champions,
East Bay Raceway Park, Gibsonton.
Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, 2/13 to 2/15: East Bay 360
Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park, Gibsonton; and the USAC
National Sprint Car Series at Bubba Raceway Park, Ocala.
Saturday, 2/15: Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series, 4-17 Southern
Speedway, Punta Gorda.
Thursday, 2/20: Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series, Dave Steele
Non-Wing World Finals, Showtime Speedway, Pinellas Park (special
non-points, non-wing race).
NOTES:
The 2020 schedule for the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series, which
does not include any race dates for New Smyrna Speedway, means that
next year’s races will be lacking any high-speed, high-banked track.
In fact, with a second race date added for Auburndale Speedway, that
means that the 2020 schedule will be heavily weighted toward the
tighter, slower tracks. No half-mile tracks are on the 2020
schedule. It is unknown if a national pavement sprint car series may
be coming to Florida next year, but the only national schedule still
open is the King of the Wing series.
When asked to comment on the lack of New Smyrna Speedway races on
their 2020 schedule, the Southern Sprint Car series management
responded as follows: “It’s hard to get cars there and they didn’t
ask us back next year. Not saying [we] wouldn’t go.”
Florida’s 2019 sprint car racing champions are: East Bay Raceway
Park limited 360 sprint car track champion; Joe Zuczek; Top Gun
Sprint Series driver champion: AJ Maddox; Southern Sprint Car
Shootout Series driver champion: Troy DeCaire.
If Troy DeCaire’s new sprint car team for 2019, a team that he took
to multiple wins in Florida, plus some visits to Mobile
International Speedway’s victory lane, and finally to the
championship in the state’s most prestigious pavement sprint car
series, the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series, sounded like a
familiar achievement accomplished by a driver from a previous
generation of Floridians, then you must be fairly old (or really
knowledgeable about Florida sprint car racers). I state that because
the last time that a sprint car driver from Florida accomplished
something eerily similar was 50 years ago – in 1969.
That’s when Wayne Reutimann’s 1968–1969 race seasons included a new
team beginning in 1968 (with Florida car owner Sam Posey), then a
trip to Mobile’s victory lane, a super modified/sprint car race win
on April 28, 1968, followed by multiple Florida wins and taking the
championship in Florida’s most prestigious pavement sprint car
series at that time in 1969 – the Golden Gate Speedway sprint car
track championship. November 2019, when DeCaire virtually locked up
the Southern Sprint Car title, marked 50 years from when Wayne
Reutimann locked up the Golden Gate Speedway sprint car title in
November 1969.
New Career
Milestones for Two Florida Sprint Car Champions
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
December 7,
2019
Two of Florida’s pavement sprint
car racing champions, who prior to last weekend’s Florida races had
not had a single Florida sprint car feature win on dirt, have now
reached, or will soon reach, career milestones in Florida racing.
They are Shane Butler and Troy DeCaire.
Shane Butler has been injecting
greater variety into his Florida sprint car racing pursuits,
including more dirt sprint car racing across Florida’s dirt tracks.
He came close to getting his first career sprint car feature win on
Florida dirt in the past year’s racing. That win finally came in the
Top Gun Sprint Series season finale last Saturday, November 30, at
East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton. That was his first dirt sprint
car feature win in Florida to go along with 31 career Florida
pavement sprint car feature wins.
Shane
Butler, feature race winner, Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series,
Auburndale Speedway, 3-17-2018
Both racers, Butler and DeCaire,
are in the top 20 drivers on the All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win
List. Shane has solidified his hold on the number 20 spot on the
list with his most recent win, and Troy DeCaire made his own move
into the top 15 drivers with his most recent Florida feature win on
November 23 in Punta Gorda, Florida. That win put him into a tie for
15th place on the list with both Roland Johnson and Jimmy
Riddle. DeCaire’s good luck talismans for this year have been the
Statham Construction Racing team, a team he joined at the start of
this season, and greater concentration on a full season of Florida
pavement sprint car racing (and maybe even that “Florida orange”
that recently appeared as his new car color). In the past several
years, he has not launched a full-season assault on the Florida
pavement sprint car champion title, as he has this year.
Due mostly to that limited
pavement racing schedule in Florida for a number of years, Troy
DeCaire has not won a Florida pavement sprint car racing driver
title in 10 years. His last Florida championship was the Central
Florida Wingless Sprints driver title in 2009. He has not gone
without a championship in a decade, just to be clear. He did garner
the Must See Racing Series driver championship in both 2010 and
2011. But those were multi-state series titles, and considered by
the racing community to be national driving championships. But as
far as Florida racing is concerned, it has been a decade since his
last Florida sprint car driver championship.
Dave
Steele greets Troy DeCaire prior to the start of the 2015 Little
500, May 23, 2015
If Troy DeCaire is successful in
winning the 2019 Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series driver title,
which is anticipated to occur this evening (Saturday, 12/7) at Punta
Gorda’s 4-17 Southern Speedway (with starting the feature race),
this will be his fourth Florida pavement sprint car driver
championship, putting him into a tie with Dave Steele for most
career Florida pavement sprint car championships in a traveling
series in the modern era (1969 to present). In addition to the 2009
Central Florida Wingless title, DeCaire also earned the TBARA driver
championship in 2007 and 2008. Three of Dave Steele’s titles also
came in the TBARA (2005, 2009, and 2013), with one Southern Sprint
Car Shootout Series driver title in 2016.
As a side note, although Taylor
Andrews has four TBARA driver championships, all his driver titles
came during a time when the TBARA competed on both dirt and
pavement. Although this did put him into the category of four-time
TBARA driver champions, and the only driver to earn that TBARA title
four times, it does not put him into the category of four-time
winners of a Florida pavement (only) sprint car driver championship.
Of course, Andrews’ achievement only highlights his driving skill,
as he had to show expertise on both dirt and pavement to win the
titles.
NOTES:
This column marks my 10-year
anniversary of writing the Florida Open Wheel column on
Hoseheads.com. I have immensely enjoyed writing this column since it
debuted in December 2009. I wish to dedicate this column to all my
readers in the State of Florida and beyond, and hope that it has
brought you some newsworthy Florida racing stories and also brought
you reading enjoyment. I will continue in this pursuit, and continue
writing this column, along with some new writing projects that will
debut over the next year (yes, bigger and better!) … so stay tuned.
Thanks again, and happy reading!
Frank Riddle Memorial Returns to Citrus County
Speedway on Saturday, 11/9
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
October 31, 2019
The Frank Riddle Memorial, which is scheduled for
its ninth annual edition on Saturday, November 9, at Citrus County
Speedway in Inverness, is being held to honor a man who is a sprint
car racing icon and a Florida racing legend. This memorial race was
held at Desoto Speedway three times previously, in 2007, 2008 and
2014; and at Showtime Speedway once in 2016; and also at Citrus
County Speedway in 2013, 2015, 2017, and 2018.
Frank
Riddle at Golden Gate Speedway 1975
Who is Frank Riddle, you may ask? He was a family
man, a working man, a businessman, and a racer. Frank Riddle was
inducted into the Little 500 Hall of Fame in 1996, and also the
National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2010. This last honor came three
years after he died in 2007, at age 78.
Frank is known for winning the Little 500 twice in
the 1980s when he was in his mid-50s. The Little 500 is known
worldwide as one of the most prestigious and grueling auto races. It
is a test of both man and machine. Frank had always wanted to race
and win in the Midwest. In his first attempt at the Little 500 in
1978, he started fifth and finished in fourth place, earning Rookie
of the Year. In just his fourth try in 1984, he qualified on the
pole and won the 500-lap race. He came back the next year and
repeated the same feat, this time at age 56. In his first five
attempts through the 1980s, he was the fastest qualifier each time.
In his career at Anderson Speedway, he had sixteen starts in the
Little 500, with two wins, five top ten finishes, and seven top five
starting positions.
Frank Riddle’s status as a fierce and talented race
car driver was initially earned in Florida while competing at tracks
around the Tampa Bay area. These tracks included Phillips Field,
Speedway Park on Hillsborough Ave., and the half mile dirt oval at
the Florida State Fairgrounds. Early in his career, Frank raced
stock cars, modifieds, and supermodifieds, which ran with wings back
in the 1960s, well before their use in Formula 1 and Indy car
racing. He would run two or three supermodified races a week,
frequently ending his night in the winner’s circle. During this
time, Frank also raced all over Florida, from the Southeast coast to
Pensacola, and also in the Deep South. Some of the races would be as
long as 300 laps, and Frank would show his expertise at taking care
of his car and making it to the checkered flag.
2018
Frank Riddle Memorial Feature Race Winner John Inman and family,
Citrus County Speedway, Inverness, FL
When sprint cars replaced the modifieds at Golden
Gate Speedway in 1969, car owners sought out Frank to drive their
car, as he had already shown his abilities at “the Gate” and in IMCA
sprint car races at the Florida State Fair dirt track. When the
Tampa Bay Area Racing Association was formed, Frank was a regular
sprint car competitor on both the dirt and pavement with his fellow
Bay area racers. He had 95 lifetime Florida sprint car feature wins
during his years of racing in the Sunshine State, which places him
third on the overall winners list, behind only Wayne Reutimann with
97 wins and Dave Steele with 101 wins.
Tall and lanky, Frank’s friends called him “Bones,”
or “Old Bones,” and when he raced at Golden Gate, he called himself
“the old man around here.” The press called him “Old Pro,” and “the
Flying Trainman,” and “the dean of Florida sprint car racers.” His
facial wrinkles always made him look at least 10 years older than
his actual age, and he used that to his advantage. He’d lull his
opponents into thinking he was too old, and past his best days, and
then he’d go out and beat them. During the 1980 season, he ran the
USAC National Sprint Car Series in the blue and yellow number 11 J.W.
Hunt Produce car owned by Harry Campbell, and earned the Rookie of
the Year title at 51 years old. At that time, it made him the oldest
ever USAC Rookie of the Year.
A popular story from Frank’s career involved a
frightening crash and fire at Anderson Speedway in 1993. His car
caught fire after coming to rest in turn one, where a fan crawled
under the fence and ran to the car to tell Frank, who appeared to be
stunned from the crash, that he was on fire, and to get out. Frank
would meet with the fan when he returned to Anderson to race,
remembering the good deed for many years after that fateful day.
After he retired from his job as a CSX railroad engineer in 1987, he
spent his time farming when he wasn’t at the track.
After starting his racing career in 1948 and getting
his first feature race win on March 3, 1951, at Tampa’s Phillips
Field, Frank Riddle racked up 250 feature wins over the next 49
years. His wife, Margaret, and his family, and a small farm in
Thonotosassa became his life after he retired from racing in 1997 at
age 68. That year was his last trip to Anderson to drive in the
Little 500. To this day, he is credited with being one of a group of
racers from Florida to begin the tradition of making an annual trek
to Central Indiana and the Little 500 in the ’70s. Each year, the
highest finishing Floridian at the Little 500 earns the Frank Riddle
Award. This is why the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series and
Citrus County Speedway are honoring Frank Riddle, naming the race
the “Frank Riddle Memorial”.
The Southern Sprint Car series has announced that
the Frank Riddle Memorial this year will pay the winner of the
feature race $1,600. Series sponsor BG Products is providing
sponsorship of the sanctioning body, the Southern Sprint Car
Shootout Series, as they have since taking over the sanctioning of
the Frank Riddle Memorial in 2016. A former Frank Riddle Memorial
winner (2014), Shane Butler, who is going for his first series win
of 2019, will be one of the favorites to win. Other drivers to watch
will be two drivers who have series feature wins this year: Joey
Aguilar, and Sport Allen in the car owned by a former TBARA
champion, Taylor Andrews.
With only four races remaining in the series
schedule this year, the driver point race is still fairly close. Two
drivers appear to be positioned to have the best chance to win their
first Southern Sprint Car series title, and one is a former TBARA
champion: Troy DeCaire. DeCaire has won the TBARA driver
championship twice, in 2007 and 2008. He has not won a Florida
sprint car series championship since 2009. DeCaire (five series wins
in 2019) has a 35-point lead over Daniel Miller (one series win,
eight top-10) going into the November 9 race, one of the closest
point contests for the series in recent years. DeCaire has not
confirmed that he will compete in all four remaining races, which
could tighten the point battle over the next month, with the 2019
finale on December 7 in Punta Gorda.
The Frank Riddle Memorial Race,
Race Winner History
1) 9/29/2007, Desoto Speedway, Winner - Dave Steele
2) 9/27/2008, Desoto Speedway, Winner - Troy DeCaire
3) 10/19/2013, Citrus County Speedway, Winner - Joey Aguilar
4) 10/18/2014, Desoto Speedway, Winner - Shane Butler
5) 10/3/2015, Citrus County Speedway, Winner - Jason Kimball
6) 10/29/2016, Showtime Speedway, Winner - Dave Steele
7) 10/14/2017, Citrus County Speedway, Winner – Mickey Kempgens
8) 11/10/2018, Citrus County Speedway, Winner – John Inman
(NOTE: the race was not run from 2009 to 2012.)
Next running of The Frank Riddle Memorial is at
Citrus County Speedway on Saturday, November 9, 2019. Racing begins
at 6:30 p.m., and the main event is a 40-lap feature race.
2019 Florida
Fall Sprint Car Season Preview
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
October 10,
2019
Florida’s traveling sprint car
series launch the busiest portion of their fall season this weekend,
with both the BG Products Southern Sprint Car Series and the Top Gun
Sprint Series in competition in Central Florida. Southern Sprint
Cars will take to the high-banked half-mile at New Smyrna Speedway
on Saturday, and the Top Gun Sprint Series will have one of their
non-wing races at Gibsonton’s East Bay Raceway Park, also on
Saturday.
Keith
Butler gets ready to take to the track for Top Gun Sprint Series
competition at Bubba Raceway Park
Both series have had one race
each since the fall season began, which took place on Saturday,
September 28. The Southern Sprint Cars had a marked improvement in
their car count on that date, after rain and race cancellations
imposed an unwanted four-month layoff in series racing. Their first
race back after that layoff, on August 24, had 12 cars start the
feature race; followed by the first race after the layoff outside of
the Tampa Bay area (Punta Gorda), which drew only eight cars for the
feature on September 14 (won by Troy DeCaire). Two weeks later, they
were back to 12 cars for the September 28 feature. Race officials’
calls during the August 24 feature angered driver Troy DeCaire, who
was very vocal after the race about how displeased he was with the
decisions of series officials, and vowed, by way of social media,
not to race at Showtime Speedway in the future.
Top
Two in 2019 Southern Sprint Car Points - Troy DeCaire, left, and
Daniel Miller
That may put Troy DeCaire in a
precarious situation in protecting his lead in the Southern Sprint
Car driver point standings, which is currently a 41-point lead over
second-place Daniel Miller. One of the remaining five races in 2019
is at Showtime Speedway, and it would be impossible at this point to
know if he could afford to “give up points” by skipping that race,
and still win the 2019 driver title. DeCaire has frequently raced in
partial seasons in Florida during the past decade, and has not won a
Florida state sprint car driver championship for more than a decade.
His last was the TBARA driver championship in 2008, a time when cars
owned by George Rudolph won most of the Florida pavement titles.
The Top Gun Series, now run by
members of the Rehm family after the death of Don Rehm mid-way
through the 2018 season, has seen an influx of new teams, and
impressive car counts in their recent races (18 cars started the
most recent feature, won by Harley Zimmerman). The non-wing race
scheduled for this Saturday carries sponsorship from a retired
Florida sprint car racer, Carlton Calfee, and his company, Boomtrux
Inc. According to the series website, Keith Butler is the current
point leader, with six races remaining on the 2019 schedule.
The Top Gun management has shown
a commitment to having several non-wing races for the past several
years, and has one special event, also a non-wing race, remaining in
2019, the 2nd Annual Don Rehm Classic at East Bay
Raceway, on Saturday, November 30. There is also one special event
planned for the fall for the pavement racers, which is the Frank
Riddle Memorial Race at Citrus County Speedway in Inverness, on
Saturday, November 9.
East Bay Sprints, the limited 360
sprint series at East Bay Raceway, has had a limited race schedule
this year, and has two races remaining at the Gibsonton track, on
Saturday, November 2, and on Saturday, November 16, the Bob and
Marge Long Memorial race.
The only national sprint car
series visiting Florida during the fall season will be Pete Walton’s
USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour, which will be racing at three tracks:
Hendry County Motorsports Park (11/1 & 2), Bubba Raceway Park (11/8
& 9), and concluding with the USCS season’s final races at Southern
Raceway in the Florida Panhandle (11/ 15 & 16). Mark Smith has the
most feature wins in Florida this year, with four USCS feature wins
back in February and April. Veteran racer Terry Gray is the current
driver point leader, with Floridian Tony Agin in third place in the
driver point tally. The points earned in the Florida races will be
pivotal in determining the 2019 USCS driver champion. The Bubba
Raceway Park and Hendry County races usually draw the largest number
of Floridians, with most Florida dirt 360 teams based out of the
Tampa and Jacksonville metro areas.
There is one special distinction
that is currently held by Florida for one of its fall season races.
The Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series is planned to have the last
scheduled 2019 North American sprint car race, set for 4-17 Southern
Speedway in Punta Gorda on Saturday, December 7 (Source:
TJSlideways.com). That distinction has been held by Florida for
several years.

Remembering Cush Revette
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
September 13, 2019
April 30, 1955. Phillips Field, Tampa, Florida.
Cush Revette, “the husky, heavy-footed racing star,” was joining
some of his local Tampa racing competitors for the usual Saturday
night stock car races at Phillips Field in Tampa. You could always
describe Cush as husky, he’d just always been that way.
Summer, 1955. Phillips Field, Tampa, Florida.
“I’ve always weighed 200 pounds,” Cush said in a July 2015
interview. He was also a near-perfect personification of the “tough
guy race car driver.” At Phillips Field in 1955, the engine exploded
in his Ford Model A. His crew had gotten a little too exuberant when
adding nitro to his car’s fuel tank. As the flames blew back in his
face, his raised one arm, then the other, in an attempt to deflect
the flames away from his face. He hadn’t slammed on the brakes. Not
yet. There was still a race to win. But the flames were searing his
arms. He had no intention of giving up on the race until the flames
got too intense, so that’s when he decided to dive out the window of
the Model A. He needed to act quickly, so out he went. One potential
problem with that decision was that he was about to risk some broken
bones, in addition to the burns that he had already suffered. That
was because his car was still going about 50 mph.
July 2015. Cush Revette’s Home, Tampa, Florida.
“Well, it was on fire! There wasn’t much time to do anything else,”
Cush exclaimed. He was within days of his 87th birthday. His wit and
memory were both still intact, still sharp as ever. I was at his
home to interview Cush for a story that I had been seeking for about
a year, that of “American Sprint Car Drivers in Cuba.” He was the
last surviving member of a small contingent of sprint car drivers
from Tampa (one driver, from Pennsylvania, only spent his winters
there) that had traveled to Havana in 1951 to race their sprint
cars. They had brought their cars with them in the cargo hold of a
Cuban-owned Curtiss C-46A transport aircraft. Over the next couple
of hours, the story he gifted to me was a grand adventure of young
Americans in search of hijinks, racing excitement, and wild
escapades, with good Cuban rum and beautiful Cuban women thrown into
the mix. This once-in-a-lifetime memory would never leave him for
the rest of his life. When I left his home later that day, I felt my
head reeling. Could it be possible that I had just been given the
best racing story that I’d ever heard? Could it really be that good?

Summer, 1955. Phillips Field, Tampa, Florida.
“No!” Cush bellowed in protest. His friends had gathered around him
when his body had stopped tumbling through the infield at Phillips
Field. OK, he was still alive, they thought. That’s the first thing
you checked back in those days. You didn’t ask, “Are you hurt?”
Nobody asked that. They all knew that you’d be hurt, injured in some
way. Instead, they first checked to see if you were still alive.
Flinging yourself out of a race car going 50 mph could result in a
broken neck. That didn’t happen to Cush – no broken bones this time.
But both his arms were burned. It may be a while before the pain
really kicked in. Didn’t seem so bad, at the time. It was hardly
Cush’s first time getting hurt at the race track. He could reel off
the list of a career of pain and broken bones: neck broken twice,
back broken twice, both arms and legs broken. What’s the pain of
some burns, in comparision?
They’d better go to the hospital, just to get his
burns checked out, his friends argued. Cush didn’t feel any pain, it
hadn’t kicked in yet, but his arms were red and they were obviously
burned. They needed to convince him to go – for his own good. Not
feeling any pain, he had no intention of being taken to the
hospital. Tough guys didn’t do that. They gritted their teeth, they
ignored the pain. Just ignore it – maybe it will go away – who
knows?
Even though he didn’t feel pain, Cush did feel
something else. It was thirst. You could easily see the sign from
Phillips Field. After all, it was right across the street,
appropriately named Stadium Inn. That night’s races at Phillips
Field, a college football stadium, hadn’t ended yet. They could beat
the post-race crowd at the bar. And the taste of an ice-cold beer
would taste pretty good after that night’s harrowing experience.
Well, maybe to an ordinary person, with normal fears, it might have
been a harrowing experience. But not to Cush. He convinced his
friends to give up on trying to persuade him to go to the hospital,
as he had another destination in mind.
“There was a joint right across the street,” Cush
recalled. “It was named Stadium Inn. So we all went over and checked
me out and had a few beers. Back in them days you had to be tough.
If you went to the hospital, blood had to be running out of you!”
July 27, 1951. Speedway Park, Tampa, Florida.
If some of the other stock car or sprint car drivers at Speedway
Park felt some jealousy toward Pancho Alvarez, it’s possible that it
could be traced back to that Tampa Tribune article that screamed,
“Pancho Alvarez, Star Stock Car Pilot, is Latest Idol of Tampa
Feminine Fans.” It claimed that Pancho was “a nice, polite chap,”
but that was only when he wasn’t in his race car. Behind the wheel
at Speedway Park or Phillips Field, he had a different persona. He
was “a rough and reckless daredevil … that makes girls fight over
him.” Lucky guy, that Pancho.
They had all seen it and had been talking about that
article written by Bob Smith. Cush had seen it too. He and Pancho
had already risen to the top of the Tampa stock car ranks and were
destined to be rivals. Their most enjoyable wins came when racing
against each other, when they could seize the winner’s trophy out of
the grasp of the other guy. By September, it wasn’t just a rivalry
any more, it was a feud.
September 12, 1951. Speedway Park, Tampa, Florida.
“New Alvarez-Revette Duel Carded Tonight – New Rivalry Breaks Out.”
Other than the month of February at Plant Field, the Florida State
Fair track, Tampa’s half-mile dirt oval at Speedway Park was the
most popular race track in the Tampa area. The locals fought it out
on the quarter-mile or half-mile dirt tracks during the summer, and
many stars of the Midwest circuits joined the locals for weekly
racing during the winter. The locals had all year to find their
biggest rivals, and the newest dueling duo of the dirt was sure to
find each other on the dirt most race nights. They were Cush and
Pancho Alvarez.
The feud was likely to “burst into full bloom in
tonight’s races” the newspaper declared. There had been a string of
one–two finishes for the pair; they just seemed to rise to the top
each Saturday. “Now it is Revette that is sharing the spotlight with
the little Pancho.” The previous Saturday, there had been some
fender-bending in the stock car feature race. Cush shook loose of
his rival and won it. As was expected, Pancho was second. It seemed
like it was going to go on that way for a while, but neither of them
were going to totally dominate their rival. The track management
certainly wouldn’t allow it. If one of them won all the time, that
might hurt attendance. Expect the rivalry to go on for a while.
“Apparently Revette is to be the new foil for Alvarez.”
And the rivalry did go on – through to the end of
Speedway Park in 1954, through several more race tracks and an
ever-growing stack of crumpled fenders, and even into the 1960s at
the track that eventually replaced Speedway Park as Tampa’s most
popular – Golden Gate Speedway.
Friday, May 18, 1962. Golden Gate Speedway, Tampa,
Florida.
On the second weekend of racing at “the Gate,” Friday night was
chosen as the night for Golden Gate Speedway’s first late model
feature race. One popular myth from Cush’s racing career is that he
won at the Gate on the track’s opening night, but that’s not true.
He first won at the Gate on the track’s second night of racing, May
18, 1962, Friday of the track’s second week. That was the night when
he won everything in sight on the third-mile asphalt in his late
model.
Cush had already established himself as a winner,
and track champion, at Sunshine Speedway, another asphalt track that
had opened two years earlier over on the other side of Tampa Bay.
This spate of asphalt short track construction had been spurred on
by the recent success of another Florida asphalt track – Daytona
International Speedway.
That Friday at the Gate started off with a bang,
thanks to stuntwoman Dolores Carroll, “the Human Bomb.” Thankfully,
Cush avoided adding a second explosion to the night’s entertainment
after his fuel tank started leaking during the late model feature.
He had already won a heat race and the late model semi-final. He had
succeeded in getting the brand-new track figured out and knew the
fastest way around the still-slick shiny new asphalt. With the leaky
fuel tank, Cush later admitted that he shouldn’t have raced in the
feature. But he did anyway – as any tough guy racer would. A little
leaking fuel at speed was hardly a fearful circumstance. Plus, he
was confident he could win the late model feature, which he did
easily, becoming the first late model feature race winner at Golden
Gate Speedway.
Summer, 2019. Tampa, Florida.
Eight years had passed since Cush’s last late model feature race
win. That had happened in March 2011 at Lake City, Florida, a DAARA
Blast from the Past race day. He was 82 years old, and beat some
other race car drivers who were decades younger than him. He drove
the car he loved, the classic red and white “Crown 7” 1957 Chevy
late model, with Revette Racing in block letters on the fender. He
was proud of that car, and on the day of my 2015 interview, took me
to his garage so we could take a look at it and admire it. He had a
mobility cart for getting around on his property. Those decades of
racing, and the crashes, had taken a toll on his body.
Cush celebrated his 91st birthday this summer.
Sadly, it was his last. Harold “Cush” Revette, who got his nickname
from his Tampa motorcycle riding buddies, died on Wednesday,
September 11. He will be laid to rest in Tampa on Sunday.
Rest easy now, tough guy. So long Cush.

Troy DeCaire after winning at Showtime Speedway, March 23, 2019
Troy DeCaire
Nears Top 15 on All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win List
Story and Photo
by Richard Golardi
August 20, 2019
There hasn’t been much movement
on the All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win List since the remarkable
achievements of Dave Steele in 2016–2017. This was a time when
Steele surpassed Wayne Reutimann’s win total of 97 wins to take over
the number one spot on the list. He later became the first sprint
car driver in Florida history to earn 100 wins on Florida dirt and
pavement tracks since the inception of the list in 1969.
But there may be an upcoming
event that will change that (with the proviso that there’s no way to
predict the future). If he continues his current winning ways, Troy
DeCaire will be on the verge of moving into the top 15 on the
All-Time Win List. He currently has 34 wins, up from his total of 30
wins at the beginning of the year. With his four Florida wins so far
this year, he has moved from 20th to 18th
place, surpassing both Donnie Tanner (33 wins) and Shane Butler (31
wins). His Florida pavement win streak, four straight Southern
Sprint Car Shootout Series feature wins, will be on the line this
Saturday at the next series race at Showtime Speedway in Pinellas
Park. DeCaire needs three more Florida wins to move into a tie for
15th place on the win list with both Roland Johnson and
Jimmy Riddle (37 wins).
DeCaire’s nationwide pavement
sprint car win total this year is at seven wins, with two wins at
Alabama’s Mobile International Speedway (6/29 and 7/27) and one in
Washington State (5/11), but none in Florida since April. Florida’s
only pavement sprint car series, the Southern Sprint Car Shootout
Series, hasn’t held a race since April 27, partly due to rain and
races that were canceled by the series for various reasons. There
are eight races remaining on their 2019 series schedule, culminating
with the series finale on December 7 in Punta Gorda. With the end of
Florida’s rainy season in about a month, the shortage of sprint car
racing in Florida should soon change. Since the beginning of the
summer, there has only been one sprint car race in the state, a Top
Gun Sprint Series dirt race on August 10 won by Matt Kurtz.
Other changes in the All-Time Win
List this year included a new name moving into the top 30, which was
Joey Aguilar, who moved into a tie with Johnny Gilbertson and Jim
Haynes for 30th place on the list with 18 Florida wins.
His win in Punta Gorda on January 19 was Aguilar’s 18th
Florida win. A veteran Florida racer who has been ranked highly on
the list for decades, and was also the TBARA champion in 1986 and
1987, had his first win in a while. It was Robbie Smith, who
maintains his hold on 21st place on the list with 30
career wins in Florida. He won a Top Gun dirt race at East Bay
Raceway Park on May 18.
The Indy Race
Week Diary
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
May 30, 2019
Sunday, May 19
Saturday, May 18 was a travel day
to the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing in York Springs, Pennsylvania,
where I was scheduled to speak on Sunday on two of the chapter
subjects in my new book, Racers in the Sun, Volume One. I was
speaking on the Reutimann brothers and Ralph Liguori, based on the
chapter on Ralph, and also the Wayne Reutimann chapter. This was my
first speaking engagement to promote the book, planned for release
in June. The next several planned speaking dates will be in Florida,
with a schedule released soon. I’ve always had a great affection for
this museum, as it has a great emphasis on sprint car racing, and is
right in the middle of “PA Posse” territory in South Central PA.
Also, it has Lynn Paxton, who is great fun to work with and has been
a great help to me in my research for the book.
2019
Little 500 Florida Driver Group Photo, L to R, Mickey Kempgens,
Johnny Gilbertson, John Inman, Shane Butler.
Monday, May 20
Travel day to Indiana. Level of
excitement builds – the “Week of Indy” is coming, and it will
consist of race dates from Thursday to Monday. At least that’s the
way it will be for me. I am heading directly to Anderson, Indiana,
my “main base” of operations for my Week of Indy. I am trying to
ignore the weather forecasts for Central Indiana. They are daunting
– lots of rain predicted.
Tuesday, May 21
Meeting day and photo editing
day. I met with the photo editor for a future book project, David
Sink, to edit and choose photos for an upcoming book, planned for
release later this year after the release of Racers in the Sun.
Wednesday, May 22
Practice day at Anderson
Speedway, preparation for Saturday’s Pay Less Little 500. Wasn’t
able to catch much of it, as I completed my last (ever?) day of
research at the Anderson Public Library, a place at which I have now
spent about a week of my life conducting research for three
different books. They’ve got all the Anderson newspapers on
microfilm, so it’s a researcher’s dream spot, if you are researching
the Little 500 and the racers who have been part of it, and racers
from Florida have been an important part of it since the ’60s.
Kody
Swanson on pit road prior to the 2019 Pay Less Little 500, May 25,
2019.
Thursday, May 23
At Anderson Speedway, this is the
day during which I conduct all the interviews needed for my annual
Little 500 pre-race article, the one I write for my column, Florida
Open Wheel on Hoseheads.com: http://www.hoseheads.com/richard.html
George Rudolph is always a
delight to interview. It is guaranteed that he’ll be a little
ornery, a little gruff, and that he’ll give you some great quotes
and some great one-liners, and that he’ll never refuse to be
completely open and honest. He also seems to be aware that his life
is about to change, as the world gets to examine a detailing telling
of his life history in his authorized biography, included in
Racers in the Sun.
His car, and his team, at this
year’s Little 500 is the number 68 PCS Racing entry, and he’s the
crew chief for car owner Doug Kenny and driver Mickey Kempgens, the
driver with an impressive history of getting his car to the finish
of the race each year, without fail.
“Better than I thought it was
going to look,” George said of his team’s chance – “as good as
anybody starting” – to win in 2019. “We’re starting a lot further
forward than we did last year. I’m happy with that. All we need to
do is win it now – that’s it.” Their car was a Hurricane chassis
that they’ve used for several years at Anderson, one of the few
Hurricanes in the field that’s dominated by the Beast chassis. The
chassis is actually George’s, with engine and parts from car owner
Doug Kenny.
“Mickey’s good in the race,”
George added, saying his race craft skills were better than Mickey’s
Little 500 qualifying results. Mickey is a driver talented at making
his car last, being there at the end, and saving himself and his car
for a late race rally, passing others as they tire in the last
50–100 laps. Since George has closely observed all the legendary
sprint car drivers from Florida, and had them drive his cars for
decades, I asked the question about which Florida sprint car legend
Mickey most resembles, with his skills at preserving himself and his
car, and coming on strong at the end.
“Bill Roynon,” George answered
after a short pause, with a slight knowing laugh. Reminds you of
him? “Yup,” he added.
The last (gasp!) Hoosier Hundred
at the Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis, on Thursday evening.
Or is it? It’s the last champ car race at the 1-mile oval at the
fairgrounds, that’s for sure. All week, it was promoted as the “last
ever” Hoosier Hundred, only for a marketing backtrack to occur on
the day of the race, with a declaration of “the Hoosier Hundred will
be back next year, we just don’t know where it will be run.” Whether
the first or second statement will be true is a guess for now, there
is no other Indy-metro area dirt track that is appropriate for dirt
champ cars, and Terre Haute is a long haul from Indy, the place
where most Week of Indy fans are based. Hopefully, promoters will
keep the tradition alive and not trample on the Little 500 Saturday
night race timetable.
The fairgrounds track has always
been woefully inadequate as far as protecting front straight
spectators. The front straight catch fence is about four or five
feet high, and should be about three times that height. Thursday’s
race featured a terrifying crash within feet of this catch fence,
with Chris Windom walking away from his twisted champ car without
being injured, or so it seemed. I spoke to him the next night about
the crash.
Kody Swanson’s ability to
dominate dirt miles in a USAC champ car may be diminished this year,
as the DePalma Motorsports team car he previously used to humble the
competition on USAC’s dirt miles has been retired. Not Kody – he’s
still there, behind the wheel of Gene Nolen’s number 20 car, which
didn’t seem to allow him to put on his usual “post-lap 55 push to
the front, pass for the lead, and then win at lap 100” routine in
1-mile dirt oval races. Kody was in third, from which he didn’t
mount his usual advance to the lead to win. He finished in third,
still smiling in the top-three finishers photo, as he always does –
“the Unflappable Mr. Swanson,” levelheaded and composed, as usual.
Mickey
Kempgens, 2019 Pay Less Little 500 8th place finisher, Frank Riddle
Award winner as highest-placed Florida driver, May 25, 2019.
Friday, May 24
A special day and night for
Floridians, as it is the day that USAC, and the entire open wheel
racing community, pays homage to a Florida open wheel racing legend,
Dave Steele. He’s been gone for two years now, and it’s the second
annual Dave Steele Carb Night Classic (USAC Silver Crown Series) at
IRP. OK, OK. It’s not IRP anymore. It’s the Lucas Oil Raceway at
Indianapolis, which explains why old-school fans will still call it
IRP, instead of trying to remember that other convoluted name.
I spotted Chris Windom standing
near his USAC champ car, waiting for the start. I assumed that he’d
be mobbed by reporters, asking about his grinding, hard hits in two
open wheel crashes in the past 24 hours, but Chris stood alone,
looking over his car without emotion. Earlier on Friday, a spinning
Indy Lights car at Indianapolis Motor Speedway had taken him out
during the Freedom 100 Indy Lights race, and pushed him into the
SAFER barrier at high speed. His car looked as if a giant had
grabbed it and ripped it in half. Again, he emerged unhurt. It was a
wreck he described as being just as hard a hit as the flipping,
cartwheeling crash at the Indy fairgrounds the night before.
When his USAC champ car came to a
stop in the middle of the Indy fairgrounds track on Thursday
evening, I wondered if he had turned his head to see the entire
field bearing down on his now stationary car, a sight that had to be
terrifying for a race car driver. Next to fire, that’s probably the
biggest fear of race car drivers – coming to a stop on the track
while other cars approach at speed, some unable to see the stopped
car on the track ahead.
I had seen that Chris appeared
somewhat limp in his car when it came to a rest, with his left arm
slumped down along the side of the car, as if the seat had been
shifted in one of the grinding impacts.
“No,” Chris replied. “I didn’t
close my eyes, either. I couldn’t see anything, actually.” Chris
described experiencing temporary total blindness after the flips
ended, but only for about 30 seconds of total blindness. It is an
injury that is less frequently experienced by modern-day open wheel
racers, with the advent of safety measures such as the HANS device,
and it ability to limit head movements.
But Chris saw nothing but black.
After 30 seconds, his vision came back, just like those old-style
1950s TV sets, which would show a dot in the center of the screen
when first switched on, which would then expand to the outer edges
of the screen to take up the whole screen. That’s how Chris’ vision
returned. Then he climbed out of his twisted, wrecked car, and
walked away.
There was a third wreck that
Friday night for Chris Windom, a third wreck within a period of 26
hours. His car lost an engine, lost traction, and the skid marks
left a trail of evidence that his car made hard impact with the turn
one wall at IRP (sorry!) that night. He was able to climb out, walk
to the ambulance, and declare, for a third time, that he was
uninjured. Another track, another crash, another race the next night
– the Little 500.
Saturday, May 25
Little 500 race day, also known
as the day that all pavement sprint car racing fans look forward to
all year long. It’s the biggest, most coveted race title for
pavement sprint car drivers to add to their list of victories.
Florida drivers have done it nine times, and there were four drivers
from Florida this year (Shane Butler, Mickey Kempgens, Johnny
Gilbertson, and John Inman) that will attempt to be the sixth driver
from Florida to accomplish the feat. This week also brought the 10th
anniversary of Dave Steele’s second Little 500 win in 2009.
The highest-finishing driver from
Florida was again Mickey Kempgens. In five out of the seven Little
500 starts that Mickey has earned, he has been the highest finisher
from Florida. Those other two times when he was beat by another
Floridian? It was Dave Steele who beat him for a higher finish, in
2015 and 2016. Mickey’s streak of being the highest finisher from
Florida is now three years long. All that’s left is a top-three,
then a win. It seems inevitable that it will happen – some day.
Kody Swanson’s long-expected Week
of Indy domination arrived tonight, with his only win of the week,
in glorious, give-the-rest-of-the-field a butt-kicking fashion. He’s
still the current king of asphalt at Anderson during this week (with
three Lil’ Five wins). Just seven more wins, and he’ll be able to
beat the all-time king of asphalt there, the nine-time Little 500
winner, Eric Gordon. Chris Windom had a chaotic race, ending in
fifth place after 500 laps.
Sunday, May 26
It’s the day of the Indianapolis
500, and my own personal celebration of being a fan of American open
wheel racing for 55 years, since the day of the tragic ’64 Indy 500.
While it’s a virtual certainty that an American driver will win the
Little 500 each year, not so for the Indy 500. You just don’t know
who will win during this era of spec cars and loads of talented
racers. The era of a few American drivers winning all the 500s has
been over since Rick Mears said goodbye to Indy car racing several
decades ago.
The race was won by a
foreign-born driver for a third consecutive year, victory for Simon
Pagenaud, and the disappointment of defeat for American Alexander
Rossi, who took second.
I didn’t plan on going to Kokomo
Speedway for the first time in a few years on Sunday night. Of
course, that Sunday delight of seeing Bryan Clauson do “the double,”
racing in both the Indy 500, followed by the Sunday night sprint car
feature race at Kokomo, is gone. I decided to skip Kokomo this year
– no matter, the Sunday race got rained out anyway.
Monday, May 27
Instead of Kokomo Speedway, I
planned to go to that race that I believed had often wound up being
the most exciting race of the entire week, the World of Outlaws NOS
Energy Drink sprint car race at Lawrenceburg Speedway in the
southeast corner of Indiana. It’s not so far from the Indy area, and
an easy drive from there. This year, I decided not to miss the race
with the potential of being “the most exciting of the week.” Dirt,
high banks, winged outlaw sprint cars, a non-NASCAR race day with
some NASCAR stars present, and with the usual Outlaws stars (meaning
D. Schatz) mixed in – this was certainly a race with a high
potential to please.
It didn’t disappoint. NASCAR
drivers, and dirt sprint car aces, Chris Bell and Kyle Larson
started the feature race on the front row. Ahead were 35 laps of
broadsliding the high banks of Lawrenceburg by two of the most
talented young open wheel racers in the nation. Larson dropped back
early in the race, got his rhythm by mid-race, then caught up to the
leading car of Bell, who was looking to give Kevin Swindell his
first WoO feature race win. Bell had pulled away from the rest of
the pack at each restart, and seemed to be on the way to a sure win.
Not so fast.
Hold on – here comes Kyle Larson.
He passed Bell, and seemed to set up an anticipated seven-lap
shootout to the finish between him and Bell. Despite the announcer’s
statement that they “came together” (they didn’t), the cars of Bell
and Larson both drifted up to the edge of the cushion in turn one,
leaving Bell with no room. He went over the cushion, into the wall,
and out of the race. After several races with close finishes between
the two racers (Turkey Night Grand Prix, Chili Bowl, both in
midgets) that resulted in victories for Chris Bell, Kyle Larson had
his turn. His moment of joy came next. He got to celebrate in the
Lawrenceburg Speedway winner’s circle with his young son in his
arms. What a fitting end to an exciting, satisfying “Week of Indy.”
“I’ll be back next year,” I
stated. Definitely.
2019 Little 500
Florida Driver Post-Race Report
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
May 27, 2019
Florida driver
finishing positions in the 2019 Pay Less Little 500 Presented by UAW,
May 25, 2019, Anderson Speedway, Anderson, Indiana:
Mickey Kempgens:
8th place, 495 laps completed
Shane Butler: 17th,
264 laps
Johnny
Gilbertson: 18th, 238 laps
John Inman: 21st,
185 laps
John Inman:
“Little 500 was good, man. Bob
East builds an awesome race car. The Claxton motor in it was
awesome. Started 21st, we drove up and we were inside the
top-five. Come down for a pit stop, they pulled the right rear off
and the right rear bird cage bearing failed on us. It just
self-exploded on its own. There’s nothing they could do, they did an
awesome pit stop. Tightened up the right rear wheel, dropped it
down, and it was no go. They said to get out, so I got out. It was
just a parts failure. We’ll try again next year. That’s what we keep
saying. Awesome race car – I was really happy with it.
John
Inman and his number 59 car, 2019 Little 500, May 25, 2019.
“For the next 12 months, I have a
lot going on at work. This [the Beast chassis] is a ‘Little 500,
Anderson car.’ I plan to be here with the Beast only at the Little
500. Maybe some races here and there to get a little bit more speed
out of it, so we can compete inside the top ten. The Diablo chassis
is strictly for winged stuff, I just brought it this week as a
spare. It did its job, just as it was supposed to do, it was ready
to go when it needed to go. We’ll come back to the Little 500 in 12
months.”
Shane Butler:
For Shane, the answer to the
question of how his race went was, “Not worth a s---. Nothing seemed
to work out right. I screwed up and got into the 88 car there
getting into one and spun out and caused two guys to crash. Got
restarted and the car was pretty good, actually. By that time, we
were a couple of laps down. Went underneath another car that was
more laps down than we were, and he decided not to give me any room,
and it cut the right front tire when we made contact in the fourth
turn. We pitted, and the right rear was flat too, we had two flat
tires at the same time. Put some tires on it, and the car was really
good. When Hollingsworth was leading, just before half-way, we were
running with him.
Shane
Butler and number 95 car, 2019 Little 500, May 25, 2019.
“The car was good pretty much the
whole race, just no good luck. Whoever lost the left rear tire off
of four, everybody got on the brakes, and somebody tagged me and
spun us out. We got slowed down, and somebody else didn’t. Got back
going, the car was good again, and then the motor starting making a
fluttering sound, like a mag went out on it or something. It wasn’t
worth it to keep running it, so we just parked it.
“That’s the way it goes – we’ve
got 360 days to work on it and get it ready for next year. We don’t
give up. I don’t know if you heard, but last Friday we came here to
test, and this car [black number 95] broke a motor and then we got
my car out to run some laps in it and the push truck ran it over and
tore the nerf bar off of it, and bent the front axle, and some other
damage. We got that fixed, but it’s been a rough week, it’s been a
long week. Ran some laps Friday night, and last weekend we decided
to put the motor in this car, and this is the car we decided to run.
We definitely had the speed; the guys are always good on the pit
stops. I think if we can just get a little bit of luck during the
race, I think we’ll be in good shape. We’ll work on it and get it
ready for next year. We don’t quit. We’ll be back.”
Johnny Gilbertson:
Regarding his car’s handling
during the race, Johnny commented, “Yeah, it was pretty wicked at
the beginning. I think it was tires. I thought I was getting the
black flag, and evidently it was for somebody behind me, and that
kind of screwed us for about 20 laps. So we came in and changed
tires, and I went out there and it was a totally different race car,
and I could run with the leaders. I was just trying to be careful to
not mess them up because I was already 20 laps down. When we lost
the wheel, right before I hit the wall in turn two, the car was
actually pretty good. We had issues with the wheel nut when we
changed our tires, and then we put it back on, and the wheel came
off. I don’t know if the nut might have broken, that’s the only
thing I can think of.
Johnny
Gilbertson examines crash damage on his car after the 2019 Little
500, May 25, 2019
“I did a full 360 and then nosed
into the fence, messed it up pretty good. I’ll have to replace the
rear axle, front axle, a couple radius rods, a front bumper, and a
couple panels. Other than that, it doesn’t look like it bent a
shock. It could have been a lot worse. My initial reaction was that
it was toast.
“We struggled for two days, then
we struggled at the start, and when we came in on lap 120, or
whenever it was, we went back out, and man, I could drive it, and it
was fun. Actually, I thought to myself, under the caution right
before we had the wheel come off, if I just played my cards right,
and people kept having mechanical problems, I could gain some laps
on them and we might get a top-ten. Starting 32nd, and
running like that at the end, and struggling like we had the last
two days, I’m excited for next year.”
Regarding plans for Florida
racing for the next 12 months, Johnny does not have any plans to
include Florida pavement racing this year, as he has “sold all my
winged cars,” adding, “I don’t have any. This [Little 500 car] is
the only pavement sprint car I have. I have one dirt car now, and
this one here.”
Johnny stated that his current
Florida racing plans involve racing in the winged USCS dirt races,
but, “I’m not ruling out going back to the winged stuff in Tampa, I
just need to concentrate on the business right now. We sold three
Diablo chassis’ in the last month, and I have to assemble a couple
of them for the customers, so I’m going to concentrate on the
business and do that and get the chassis brand back out there.”
“Mr.
Reliability” Mickey Kempgens Always There at Little 500 Finish
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
May 27, 2019
“Mr. Reliability” should be his
new moniker. He’s the Florida driver who’s always there at the
finish of the Little 500, it seems. Year after year, when the
checkered flag drops at the Pay Less Little 500 Presented by UAW,
Mickey Kempgens is there. For five out of the past seven years that
he’s been in the race, he’s been the highest-finishing Florida
driver at the classic race at Anderson Speedway. His goal of a
top-three finish (his best finish so far is fourth, last year) will
have to wait ’til next year, as will that goal of being the sixth
sprint car driver from Florida to win the race. He can’t be any more
determined or motivated or prepared to win. With one added factor,
good luck, it seems inevitable that he’ll be a winner.
Mickey
Kempgens, 2019 Little 500 8th place finisher, Anderson Speedway, May
25, 2019.
That purple number 68 car has
been in the Little 500 winner’s circle twice before – twice with
owner George Rudolph and driver Jim Childers in 1992 and 1994. For a
little added luck, this year his car, owned by Doug Kenny, was a
purple number 68. And the crew chief – it was George Rudolph, that
maker of Florida racing champions for decades. One more Little 500
win as a crew chief would sure be a topper for his storied racing
career, which stretches back to the ’50s in Florida.
At this year’s Little 500, Mickey
was the only Florida driver left in the race after the 300-lap
distance, and was the highest-finishing Florida driver, taking an
eighth place finish, his fifth top-ten finish. He’ll be back next
year, he says. So will the team.
PCS
Racing team at the 2019 Little 500, L to R, crew chief George
Rudolph, driver Mickey Kempgens, and car owner Doug Kenny, May 25,
2019.
How can he be so reliable at this
track, at this race? “I honestly don’t know,” Mickey replied. “I had
quite a few chances to wad the car up tonight. I don’t know how I
made it through a couple crashes, but I did. Car was really good
from the start of the race to the first pit stop. We were fourth
when we came in to pit, because a couple people pitted. Put right
side tires on [first pit stop] and it just was so loose that I
couldn’t drive it. It was absolutely awful. We put right sides on.
We needed to put rears on.”
From lap 200, ’til lap 350, was
the period of dealing with a loose-handling car. “So, everything I
made up first half of the race, I lost. I’ve got blisters on my
hands, and I’ve never had blisters in a race car – ever. And then,
came in at 350 and put rear tires on and went back out, and it was
fast, sitting right with Kody [Swanson]. We were just as fast as
Kody at the end of the race – I was glued to his bumper, and we were
just going through traffic.
Mickey
Kempgens, afternoon warm-up session, 2019 Little 500, Anderson
Speedway, May 25, 2019
“It was just that middle section.
Between the first and second pit stop, last year was really loose.
This year, was really loose, and then we pick it up after the last
pit. It sucks finishing eighth, at least we finished again. That
middle section, when the car’s just junk, you just gotta just keep
it straight and try not to get in a wreck. If someone hits you in
the bumper, just let ’em go. Aaron hit me quite a few times and I
waved him by, Windom hit me, but at that point, I just let ’em go. I
couldn’t race ’em, the car was so loose. You gotta know when to go,
and know when to conserve. I kind of had to cruise for 150 laps,
which got us behind the eight ball. I was only five laps down. Last
year, I finished fourth, and was five laps down. It was a fast field
this year.
“Another year … another finish …
that’s seven for seven,” Mickey said, determined and steadfast in
his desire for success. When other drivers have spins or crashes in
front of them, and are in the wall, or into another car, and out of
the race, Mickey seems to be able to avoid trouble that others can’t
avoid or can’t steer around. “It’s weird. I see it happening before
it actually happens. So, like if I’m going down the back stretch,
I’m looking into turn three at guys racing each other, and I’m like,
‘They’re about to crash!’ And, guess what? And soon as they get into
three, they crash. So, I’ve already got it into my head to start
maneuvering. It’s weird to say I can see it happening, but I look
far enough ahead. I don’t drive one car ahead. I drive five cars
ahead.”
His closest call in the race?
“Every bad crash,” Mickey replied. “I was in the middle of it.
Somehow got through it all. I don’t know how I do it. Every year, at
the start, I think this is going to be the year that I’m going to be
taken out, and I’m not going to finish, and at the end of the night,
I’m still here.”
“Here” on this night, Mickey
Kempgens was in a now quiet infield at Anderson Speedway after the
roar of 33 sprint cars had been silenced, for this year. He turned
and walked away to pack up and head home, another race and another
year in the books, but “Mr. Reliability” will be back next year. You
can rely on that.
2019 Little 500 race highlights,
Anderson Speedway, Indiana, Saturday, May 25, 2019:
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=722144564869867
Two Floridians Inducted into Little 500 Hall of
Fame
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
May 26, 2019
Two Florida sprint car racing legends were inducted
into the Little 500 Hall of Fame on Saturday at Anderson Speedway in
Anderson, Indiana. The inductees were Bob Gratton of Homosassa and
Jerry Stuckey of Spring Hill. A third legend of the Little 500, Tony
Nosal of Michigan, was also inducted on Saturday during the 2019
induction ceremonies held at the track on the day of the 2019 Little
500.
Jerry
Stuckey, 2019 Little 500 Hall of Fame Inductee.
Bob Gratton is best known for the cars he entered
for fellow Little 500 Hall of Fame inductee Dave Steele. This
pairing of two legends resulted in three Little 500 pole positions.
Gratton’s entries earned three top-five finishes, the highest finish
was second place in 2001 with Steele driving. Even though they led
four races for a total of 762 laps, this was during a time when Eric
Gordon dominated at the Little 500, and won the race for five
consecutive years from 2001 to 2005. Dave Steele was likely his
toughest competitor during this time. Bob Gratton also entered cars
in the Little 500 for Kipp Beard, Stan Butler, and Wayne Reutimann.
Bob
Gratton, 2019 Little 500 Hall of Fame Inductee
Jerry Stuckey’s name will forever be attached to the
Hurricane sprint car chassis. That’s the chassis that he designed
and still builds for pavement sprint car racing clients in Florida
and nationwide. The chassis performed best in its early years at the
“Lil’ Five.” In its first year, Dave Steele drove the orange and
white number 14 car owned by Jack Nowling, with an engine supplied
by Harold Wirtjes, to the winners circle. It was the first Little
500 win for all three men, and for car builder Jerry Stuckey, too. A
second win for the Hurricane happened in 2000, when car owner Jimmy
Riddle entered a car driven by his son-in-law, Jim Childers. Jim’s
win that day, his third, set a record that still stands, for most
Little 500 wins by a Florida driver. Jerry Stuckey’s Hurricanes have
won the Little 500 pole position five times and raced to seven
top-three finishes, in addition to countless wins at Florida tracks.
Johnny
Gilbertson at the 2019 Little 500 pole day, 5-23-2019
Smiles and Trials for Floridians at 2019 Little
500 Qualifying
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
May 24, 2019
Shane Butler was smiling and laughing as I spoke to
him after he qualified in 10th place yesterday at Anderson Speedway
during Little 500 qualifying. He was very satisfied with his
best-ever Little 500 qualifying position. Johnny Gilbertson felt
differently, and had a one-word description for his day in Little
500 qualifying: “S----y.” He had a third-turn spin during his first
qualifying attempt on Pole Day, the first of two days of qualifying.
He later went out and put four laps “on the board,” so that he post
a qualifying time, and could see where he stood among the 36 cars to
make an attempt. His Thursday time was 33rd fastest, and he was not
locked into the field. Shane Butler was, as he was in the top 15
qualifiers, and was in the field. Gilbertson had a long day ahead of
him on Friday, day two of qualifying, and on the agenda was plenty
of sweat and straining to get every last ounce of speed out of an
uncooperative car. At 3:30 p.m. on Friday, qualifying would end, and
he’d either be in … or not.
These two Floridians were only two of the four from
the Sunshine State to complete four laps and post a qualifying time
for Saturday’s 500-lap test of man and machine, won by Floridians
nine times, the Little 500 pavement sprint car race. Mickey Kempgens
and John Inman, two Floridians who each have one Florida pavement
sprint car championship on their resumes, also qualified, but are
not yet locked into the field until the end of Friday qualifying.
Kempgens had the 18th fastest time and John Inman was 20th – fast
enough, but not locked into the field yet, as of Thursday.
Shane
Butler at the 2019 Little 500 pole day, 5-23-2019
Shane Butler was waved off on his first four-lap
qualifying attempt, it “wasn’t quite where we agreed to be,” he
said. After his team made some adjustments (chassis work, gear
change, three new sticker tires), then he “went back out and drove
the hell out of it for four laps. Everything we did made a big
difference, we made all the right adjustments. It was a lot better
from where we were the last two days. We’re just ecstatic with a
10th place start – we’re pretty happy. This exceeds our expectations
so far, this 10th place start is by far my best start for the Little
500. Who knows? Maybe Saturday night’s our night.”
When asked why his team’s performance had seen such
an improvement this year, Shane credited car owner Chuck Castor and
his team, saying their combined effort “just added up. Chuck Castor
has a lot of years racing with Tray House, and Tray House was always
the number 95, so last year they had a couple numbers threes, so he
[Castor] decided to change the number to 95. It is the same car as
last year.”
Same car … but whole different attitude … and Shane
was unable to contain his joy and laughed easily. “This is nice,”
Shane stated. “For once, we can enjoy our Friday. The beer’s gonna
taste really good tonight! I’ve given my crew the green light to get
drunk tonight.” Not too drunk, of course, because on Friday, they
would spend the day working on race set-up, and take the car out
with a full fuel load, allowing them to know what the car will do
and how it’ll handle with their Saturday night set-up. Then comes
the big test for the team – 500 laps of intense racing.
As to why his car was “S----y,” Johnny Gilbertson
replied, “I don’t know. We can’t find it. We were really good at the
beginning of yesterday. We tested some tires all day and we were
pretty consistent and now today we’ve got a totally different race
car, and I can’t find out why. We’re stripping it down tonight, and
start all over tomorrow morning.”
John
Inman at the 2019 Little 500 pole day, 5-23-2019
The cause of the spin was because “the right rear’s
not on the race track at all, none of the tires are really on the
race track. I feel like I’m on black ice out there. Yesterday, I was
very, very confident, and today, it’s like I don’t know what
happened. We got something somewhere, and I gotta find it in a
hurry. They’re kicking us out of here, so we’re going to do whatever
we can here this afternoon, so we’ll be back first thing in the
morning. We’ve already started making some changes, so tomorrow,
we’re going to reset all our ride heights and we’ve already changed
some springs and some shock adjustments, and we’re going to put some
different tires on it, and see what happens.”
“As long as we’re in the top 20,” Mickey Kempgens
remarked, “I’m OK with that. Obviously would like to be a little
further up, but, top half of the field – I’m happy with it. Last
year, we were 28th, so we’re a lot better. The year before, we were
16th. It’s not ideal, but …
“All the speeds are down this year,” Kempgens
continued. “Except for Kody [Swanson], he’s just in a world all his
own. We just haven’t been able to get any speed this week, but we
struggle with that every year, and then come race time, we’re fine.
I think we’ll be OK for the race.”
As far as Mickey’s known talent for conserving the
car and conserving his energy, and then coming on strong near the
end of the 500 laps in the race, he said, “It’s a fine balance
between conserving and still being aggressive. I’ve somehow kind of
figured that out for this race. You gotta run like 95 percent, but
at all times. But that 5 percent – you gotta conserve. The car’s
very consistent, I’m consistent, that’s why we race really good. I
can run the same speed the entire race.
“We ran fifth two years ago, fourth last year, so
hoping for a third or better this year,” Mickey said. “But I’d be
happy to come out of here with another top five. The race is
extremely hard, anytime you can come out of here with a top five,
you’re doing good. We’ve got an incredible pit crew, our pit stops
are great. I’ve just got to have the breaks go my way.”
Mickey’s car also carries the purple paint scheme
and number 68, reminiscent of crew chief George Rudolph’s two
winning cars in the Little 500, in 1992 and 1994, with Florida
pavement ace Jim Childers driving. Mickey himself has turned into a
Florida pavement ace himself. Though he still lacks that Little 500
win, his consistent improvement year-by-year appears to place him on
a path to an eventual win in the Anderson Speedway classic either
this year, or soon.
John Inman was confident. He had a Beast chassis and
a 410 c.i. engine for this year’s Little 500 and had speed he didn’t
have last year. His black number 59x car had him ahead of his speed
output and starting spot for last year’s Little 500, his rookie
year. As a second-year driver this year, things were looking up. He
was working on his “backup car” when I spoke to him in the pits on
Thursday. That backup car was for him, and he didn’t intend to put
another driver in that car for a Friday qualifying attempt, he said.
His team was going to be a one-car team, as it was in 2018.
“We brought a Beast and a 410 back,” John Inman
said, “and I’ve got to thank the Steele family, they got on board
and we’ve got a 410 for that car. We struggled a little bit this
week. It’s the first time I’ve ever sat in a Beast and we had a good
run going there – I messed up a little bit. We know we’re solidly in
the show.”
Inman was thankful to have the Beast chassis/Claxton
engine combination, a potent, speedy pairing for Saturday night. His
Beast chassis, with the gold 59x numbers, had the Claxton 410, and
he also brought his Diablo pavement chassis, which had the yellow
numbers, and the 360 c.i. engine used in Florida racing. That’s the
backup car for him. The Beast chassis (“just frame and body, built
it from the ground up, it’s never been raced before”) was purchased
about two months ago in Indiana, taken to Auburndale Speedway for a
shakedown run, and then Inman decided to bring both cars to Indiana
for the Little 500.
“Better than last year,” John Inman said of his
qualifying result. “The car’s a lot more drivable. It’s awesome in
race trim.” He had “no plans” to put a driver in his backup car on
Friday, but would take it out to see if it might have more speed
than the primary car, the Beast chassis. “No intention to put
another driver in the car,” he stated.
Video of all Florida driver qualifying attempts for
the 2019 Little 500, Anderson Speedway, Indiana, from Thursday, May
23, 2019:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6yi4z9pRkwo

New Book on Florida Sprint Car Racing to be Released
in June
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
May 22, 2019
I am proud to share the title and book cover of my
first book, a collective biography on Florida's sprint car racing
legends. The title is Racers in the Sun, Volume One. This book is
the first volume of two, and will be released in e-book and
paperback in June on Amazon.com. The complete list of chapter
subjects and titles will be released shortly before the book’s
publication date.
Included are the authorized biographies of two
National Sprint Car Hall of Fame inductees, Pete Folse and Frank
Riddle; three Little 500 winners from Florida; and NASCAR, Indy car,
and open wheel legend Ralph Liguori. Also included is the story of
American sprint car drivers in Cuba, which has been untold for 68
years.
The biographies of six Floridians inducted into the
Little 500 Hall of Fame are included in the book. They are Frank
Riddle, George Rudolph, Jack Nowling, Wayne Reutimann, Dave
Scarborough, and Robert Smith. All are authorized biographies, with
the exception of Dave Scarborough. Several more biographies of
Little 500 Hall of Fame inductees will be included in volume two,
including Floridians Jim Childers and Stan Butler.
Dave
Steele's number 33 car at the Eastern Museum of Motor Racing on May
19, 2019
I had the pleasure of speaking at the Eastern Museum
of Motor Racing, in York Springs, Pennsylvania, this past Sunday on
the racing careers of a couple of subjects in my new book, Wayne
Reutimann and Ralph Liguori. This was the first speaking engagement
at which I spoke about my new book.
I wish to thank museum curator Lynn Paxton for
arranging for me to speak, and for his help during the presentation
that day. Lynn located the roll bar from the car that Ralph Liguori
crashed at the 1960 Trenton Speedway USAC champ car race. While I
was still speaking about that day, and that crash, Lynn brought the
worn-through roll bar, evidence of the violent crash that Ralph
called his “worst-ever,” to the front stage to allow everyone to see
a piece of Florida open wheel racing history on display at this
amazing Pennsylvania museum.
The museum also has Dave Steele’s black number 33
pavement sprint car, raced by Dave in Florida pavement racing
competition, and several other cars raced in Florida in
history-making events. A USAC champ car driven by Robert Smith, the
orange number 18 Joe Conroy owned car, is also on display.
As I was examining and taking photos of Steele’s
number 33 car, a young race fan sat on one of the car’s wide racing
tires, and then turned toward me and asked about the treadless
tires, and why these tires were used on this car. I talked to him
about the tires, the car, and its driver, Dave Steele. I believe
that young race fan may have left the museum that day with a new
appreciation of American open wheel racing’s history, and one of the
brave drivers that raced a car with the number 33.
Jim Hanks Begins Pivotal Year for His Must See
Racing Sprint Series
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
May 1, 2019
When the 2019 Must See Racing Sprint Series begins
their season at Indiana’s Anderson Speedway this Saturday, May 4, it
will be one of the most pivotal years for the series and also for
Midwest pavement sprint car racing. A sweeping change was occurring
this year in the Midwest, with significantly more non-wing pavement
sprint car races scheduled. But winged pavement sprint car racing
was hardly going away, and all of the races on this year’s Must See
schedule, assembled by series founder and owner Jim Hanks, will be
winged races, with the exception of the Little 500 on May 25, a
non-point, non-wing series race. The final race count for their 2019
schedule is 13 races across seven states.
Joe
Liguori with his grandfather Ralph Liguori, 2016 Hoosier Hundred,
Indiana State Fairgrounds, Indianapolis, May 26, 2016
There’s another big change coming for Must See
Racing this year, at least as far as Florida sprint car racing fans
are concerned. There will be a Floridian racing regularly in the
series – it’s Tampa’s Joe Liguori. Of course, that’s his hometown,
with his current residence in Lebanon, Indiana. This year is a
transition year for Joe Ligouri, but it’s hardly his first foray
into winged pavement sprint car racing. Back when he was a Florida
resident, he raced a winged pavement sprint car in Florida’s TBARA
sprint car series, with backing from his grandfather, Tampa Indy car
and open wheel racing legend Ralph Liguori. Up until the end of last
year, Joe Liguori was mainly a dirt racer, racing a non-wing sprint
car and USAC champ car on dirt, with some USAC pavement champ car
races thrown in too. There were wins in the dirt sprint car, and Joe
had some top-ten finishes in USAC Silver Crown champ car racing. Joe
will attempt to earn the Rookie of the Year honor in the Must See
Racing Sprint Series this year.
“Well, we’ve added some new tracks,” Jim Hanks
remarked, when asked about changes for the 2019 schedule. “The
reason we do it is we like to keep things new and different and
fresh. Actually, we’ve had more tracks contact us than we’ve got
time for. We’re going to Lake Erie Speedway in Pennsylvania, and
another new track we’re going to is called Hillside Buffalo
Speedway, that’s the old Holland Speedway, up in the Buffalo, New
York area. They will have a full race, full purse on Friday; and
full race, full purse on Saturday. That’s going to be an exciting
event.
“A tradition, we’re going back to Anderson Speedway,
we’re going to sanction the Little 500 and televise it again, and we
have two races at Berlin Raceway [Michigan], which we’ve done every
year, and Birch Run Speedway in Michigan, a first-class speedway.
Then, we’re returning to Jennerstown Speedway, where we had a very
successful race to wrap up our season last year. We had 6,000 people
in the grandstands, 500 in the pits. It was a home-run, no doubt
about it. And then, we are going to wrap the season up as part of
the National Short Track Championships, this has been at Rockford
Speedway in Illinois for almost 60 years. We’ve been there several
times. That’s a two-day show, but not a full race on Saturday. We’re
going to have a speed-trial, with elimination rounds, right down to
when the last two cars do a shootout.”
Jim
Hanks, left, with previous Must See Racing sprint car champion Brian
Gerster, right
After this interview was completed, a 2019 Must See
Racing schedule revision moved some races scheduled for a spring
season Southern tour to the fall season, with Ace Speedway in North
Carolina hosting their double-event on October 18 and 19. An August
25 race at Ohio’s Sandusky Speedway was added. These two tracks are
both new venues for the Must See Racing tour.
“It’s a strong schedule, it’s built for the fans,”
Jim Hanks added, “and it’s built for the race tracks. It’s pretty
much every other weekend – we have three double-events here, so that
when we travel, it’s affordable for the race teams, because our
purses are going to be up a little this year. Traveling to New York,
it starts pushing the envelope of the limits of our travel area.
It’s no secret, everyone’s struggled with car count.”
Proof of Hanks’ observation is seen the low car
counts that some other pavement sprint car series have had in their
recent races: the King of the Wing national series had 10 cars
starting their recent Southeast tour feature races in Pensacola and
Montgomery in mid-April; and the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series
had 13 cars, below the usual average car count, at their most recent
race in Pinellas Park, Florida on April 27.
That’s the reason for the “double-events,” as Hanks
called them. He sees the following benefits in these races: it
allows teams to race more without adding more travel, and they “do
financially better than racing at their local track.” Hanks had
multiple teams, including some new teams, express their support for
this concept, and also assure him that they intended to race in all
the 2019 series races. “We had 49 registered teams last year,” he
said, adding that he believes that car count for his series will be
up in 2019, after hitting an average of 17.5 cars per race for the
2018 season. “We certainly had our best year ever last year, in all
aspects of the business, which means we’re going in stronger than we
ever have.”
One standout event from the 2018 season was the race
at Jennerstown Speedway on September 15. “Our first time there,
magnificent job of revitalizing that race track by the ownership,”
Hanks said. “The attention to detail at that track is second to
none. I’m telling you, they make sure that every blade of grass
points in the same direction. I mean, it’s that meticulous. It’s a
great racing surface, it’s a great facility, and the owners have
done a great job bringing in all the fan base. They get pretty good
crowds all the time.”
The Jennerstown race was also seen on a MAVTV
program that partnered Must See Racing with Speed Sport’s cable TV
production team. In 2019, those partners will produce five hours of
broadcasts, all seen on MAVTV, including a two-hour delayed show for
the 2019 Little 500. When Must See Racing was begun, their original
concept was to televise other series’ races. Hanks then started his
own sprint car series to insure the quality of the racing
entertainment that he was going to televise.
Would the increased amount of non-wing pavement
sprint car racing in the Midwest benefit the groups racing winged
pavement cars, including Must See Racing? “Well, absolutely,” Jim
Hanks replied. “Must See is a 410 series, and the more things
change, and in this case, grow, we’re not becoming an island, but
people are doing other things because of our success. I think it’s a
good fit. It doesn’t serve any purpose to have five winged sprint
car series – that’s too many. Competition is good for all of us. It
creates a better product. I’m happy right now with our product. I’m
proud of our product. It’s all about the quality of our race teams,
and we certainly have got them.”
Hanks related that it wasn’t like baseball, with
three strikes allowed before you’re out. “You either deliver, or
you’re done,” he said emphatically. “That’s the simple, cold, hard
business truth. We haven’t struck out, we have delivered, and we’ve
got a good, entertaining product.” Hanks then pointed out a
convention display in front of where he sat in the Engine Pro booth
at the PRI Trade Show in Indianapolis. It was a winged sprint car
that raced in his series. “We’ve got some really good race teams,
we’ve got some really good owners, and we’ve got really good race
tracks. It’s all about good people, and we’ve got a really good crew
all the way around. I think the excitement’s back – I really do.”

Notes from Showtime Speedway, March 23, 2019
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
March 26, 2019
When the red No. 36 sprint car, which was previously
the red No. 91 owned by Lenny Puglio, crossed the finish line at
Showtime Speedway on Saturday, 33-year-old driver Troy DeCaire still
had three obstacles to overcome to get his car to the track’s
winner’s circle and to be declared the official winner of the
feature race. The car owned by Ken and Theresa Statham with Statham
Construction sponsorship was bounced around in the pinball-like
scrum in turn four on the last lap, after which it sped off at an
angle toward the infield, apparently crossing the finish line below
the yellow line, in the infield grass. A pre-race warning to the
drivers told them that going below the yellow line would result in a
penalty. But if another car pushed Troy DeCaire and the No. 36
machine into the slide toward the infield, any penalty would be
waived, making DeCaire the Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series
feature winner as the first car to cross the finish line.
Clayton
Donaldson with Mac Steele No. 1 car and firesuit worn by Dave Steele
Crossing the asphalt of the infield X, Troy was
approaching the first obstacle, one that might prevent him from
getting his car intact to the nearby winner’s circle. It was a light
pole at the end of a large patch of grass, now moist with evening
dew. After accelerating toward and over the finish line, he’d have
just a few seconds to slow, maintain control on the slick grass,
then come to a stop (and avoid the light pole). He did all those
things successfully, even doing a little bow for the fans after
getting out of his car, causing him to later claim, “I’m no Rowdy
Busch … so sometimes you gotta dance. I knew I won, I just wanted to
let Mickey [Kempgens] know I appreciated him helping me across the
line.”
Obstacle No. 1 was overcome, which involved
accelerating across the finish line and avoiding a collision with a
light pole and other infield impediments.
Even though Troy was certain of his status as the
feature winner, that was not the view shared by others. Mickey
Kempgens’ No. 5 car was the first to be pushed into the winner’s
circle, only to be pushed back out and replaced by the red No. 36
driven by Troy.
Troy described the scenario in that last lap pass
for the lead: “Mickey caught me in the tail … and I wanted to beat
him to the line … so I floored it and as soon as I got across a
couple of those bumps in the figure 8 there, I knew I had crossed
the line.” Race officials, including series president Rick Day and
tech inspector Danny Kramer, ruled that the No. 36 car had been
forced below the yellow line by contact in turn four on the last
lap, and that crossing the finish line below the yellow line would
not result in a penalty.
Troy
DeCaire and winning car No. 36, Showtime Speedway, 3-23-2019
Obstacle No. 2 was now overcome – Troy could
celebrate in the winner’s circle with his car owners, crew, family,
and friends. That gathering included his former car owner, Lenny
Puglio, now wearing a T-shirt bearing the name of Troy’s new team.
Puglio had sold the majority of his racing equipment to the Statham
team, with the exception of a Spike chassis “Little 500 car,” and a
Dave Steele-driven show car on display in Pennsylvania that is
eventually bound for Knoxville, Iowa and the National Sprint Car
Hall of Fame. Puglio rejected being given a title of
“consultant/adviser” to the Statham team, but did not offer an
alternate title despite his visible presence on race day along with
crew chief Todd Schmidt, now part of a “blended crew” of old and new
teams.
A third obstacle to the race win loomed, something
sure to be seen in the post-race inspection. I had noticed members
of competing teams peer into the cockpit of the red No. 36 car
during the pre-race autograph session, then turn away, shaking their
heads. I did not learn what they saw until later, after speaking to
series official Danny Kramer. In the post-race inspection, the car
was found to be missing a required driveline “scatter shield,” a
metal part which covers the driveshaft and is designed to protect
the driver when a driveshaft breaks or fails. The ensuing discussion
between Kramer and Rick Day resulting in the following decision: the
rules infraction did not result in a competitive advantage for the
car, but was instead a safety issue, and would therefore not result
in a penalty. Kramer explained that the car was only racing in the
series for the second time, and was not inspected earlier in the
season when all cars were inspected more closely. The car will be
allowed to race again, as long as the shield is installed.
Obstacle No. 3, the last remaining obstacle to
winning, was now overcome. Troy DeCaire and the Statham team could
breathe easy and celebrate their win.
NOTES: The Showtime Speedway race was the second
2019 race for the Mac Steele brown No. 1 Hurricane chassis. It was
driven by Clayton Donaldson, who was wearing a firesuit owned and
used by Dave Steele, his name still placed on the waistband. The
chassis and its new driver debuted at Citrus County Speedway earlier
this month. The tail of the #1 car will remain painted black. Mac
Steele told me that is a tradition for his sprint cars for now.
* Friends Phil Haddad and John Inman were in a playful mood during
the evening autograph session, with John requesting an autographed
driver card from his friend, then playing the part of his biggest
fan, proudly displaying his autographed card of Phil and his #42
car.
* The Taylor Andrews owned car No. 88 will soon be all yellow and
black, but for now just the top wing shows the new car colors, with
Dayton Andrews Dodge sponsorship and with Sport Allen driving.
* Car owner of the No. 5 winged sprint car Doug Kenny has confirmed
that he will enter a No. 68 non-wing car for driver Mickey Kempgens
in the 2019 Little 500. The second Floridian to have filed an early
Little 500 entry is John Inman, for his No. 59x car. Shane Butler
confirmed that he plans to file an entry for the Little 500 also.
* Five-year old Nicholas, in his down-sized engine-less version of
the No.11 sprint car driven by Joey Aguilar, posed for photos
wearing his driver suit and a big smile. He's about two years away
from getting behind the wheel of a vehicle with an engine, go kart
racing is next, I'm told.
* I have learned that Troy DeCaire and the Statham team may be
heading north for Auto Value Super Sprints or Must See Racing series
races, possibly with a 410 cubic inch engine on loan from Lenny
Puglio. It won’t be with the Spike chassis that was modified and
nicknamed “Half Breed,” which he drove in the 2015 Little 500, as
that car has been sold by Puglio to another car owner. It likely
will be with the sticker currently on the car, a sticker with the
nickname that was seen for the first time on his car at Anderson
Speedway in 2015: Troy “the Rocketman” DeCaire.
* Second-generation open wheel racer Steven Hollinger won his first
Florida TQ midget feature race on Saturday at 4-17 Southern Speedway
in Punta Gorda. He is the son of sprint car racer Rex “Boneman”
Hollinger. Congratulations to Steven on his first win.
Rick Day on Current Status and Future of Southern
Sprint Car Shootout Series
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
March 21, 2019
There were two persons who had the greatest
influence on the BG Products Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series
during their first year in 2016. They were the man who has been the
president since inception, Rick Day, and the racer who would be
crowned 2016 season champion, Dave Steele. Rick Day guided the
series through their first season of competition, which included 17
race events with four different race drivers winning a feature race.
Dave Steele was the only racer to win more than two features, with
13 wins.
After completing their highly successful first year,
the series had its most trying ordeal just a few months later. Dave
Steele was killed in a series race at Desoto Speedway on March 25,
2017. Almost two years after this tragic day, the series has
endured, continuing to race across a variety of Central and
Southwest Florida pavement tracks, and achieving a level of parity
among its racers that has resulted in multiple race winners and
their first championship title fight late last year.
The series is also continuing to change and revise
their operating ideology, planning their first non-wing race since
2016, and looking to add their first race outside Florida as early
as this summer. Rick Day is still the guiding force behind these
changes, as he has been since the original plans for the series were
laid out in late 2015. I spoke to him this week as the series
prepared for their spring season races, which include three races
over the next four weekends, starting with Showtime Speedway this
Saturday. The following two races are at Auburndale Speedway (3/30)
and New Smyrna Speedway (4/13).
“It’s pretty strong,” Rick Day said of the current
status of the Southern Sprint Car series today, “but we’ve always
got room to grow. We’re happy with the level of competition – three
races, three different winners. Car count’s been real good, so we’re
pleased in that aspect.” With nearly two years having passed since
the death of Dave Steele, Day commented, “Well, David will always be
missed. He set the bar for the level of competition for everybody to
strive for and he was an intricate part of the series – as a
sponsor, somebody to look up to, and as a friend. So he is
definitely deeply missed, and it’s hard to believe he’s been gone
two years now.
“We have some well-known drivers that could go back
to run on the national level – Troy DeCaire, obviously, Shane
Butler, Joey Aguilar, Mickey Kempgens – and with the right team and
the right circumstances, could be competitive and win. Dave Steele
was on top of sprint car racing, and everybody that shows up now
knows that they do have a shot to take that checkered flag home at
the end of the day.”
Special events for 2019 includes next month’s
non-wing race at Showtime Speedway, a “Little 500 Warm-Up,” to
better prepare Florida’s racers for that race in May, and the Frank
Riddle Memorial in the fall season. Beyond that, Rick Day mentioned
that “we may end up doing the Senator’s Cup again, we’ve got a few
details to work out on that, and we’d like to do some bigger money
races. We’ve got a pretty heavy schedule, right now there’s 18
races. Citrus County is possibly talking about taking another one.
Crisp Motorsports Park [Cordele, Georgia] has contacted us, they are
interested in a date, and we are in negotiations with them at this
time to do a race possibly in August this year up there in Georgia.
I’ve talked to the PR guy up there a couple of times about bringing
sprint cars back to their facility.”
This would be the first race the series has held
outside of Florida, and there may be even more being considered. “Oh
yeah, we’re always open to branch out,” Day remarked. “It involves
sponsors in order to compensate for the travel expenses, especially
for our guys that come out of South Florida. We’re open to branching
out into Alabama and Georgia and wherever we could go.
“Davey Hamilton has contacted us, wanting to do a
co-sanctioned event with the April 13 date, that weekend, Pensacola
and Montgomery, but we have a date already scheduled at New Smyrna,
and we have asked about rescheduling that event, but nothing has
been done. We’re waiting on New Smyrna to tell us what they want to
do. We have talked to Tim Bryant at Pensacola, and I have talked to
Davey Hamilton about it. But as of right now, nothing’s been
solidified yet. If New Smyrna agrees to reschedule the event, we
would ascertain going to Pensacola as a co-sanctioned race with the
King of the Wing. But as it stands, we have given that date to New
Smyrna, and I’m not going to just take it away. They’ve supported
the series now since the inception, and I’m not going to take
something away from them that we’ve already promised them and agreed
on terms for them to have the event. I gave them an alternate date,
if they’re interested. It’s up to New Smyrna whether they want to
give up the date or not.”
As of today, the series will still be racing on
April 13 at New Smyrna Speedway. If that changes, Pensacola (4/12)
and Montgomery, Alabama (4/13) would be added as points-paying
regular season events if New Smyrna’s date is moved. It seems
unlikely that any more Florida pavement tracks might be added.
Bronson Speedway seems to be in a position where they can’t afford
the cost of a race, according to their own prior statements to Rick
Day, and there was no further effort to add them.
“I would love to do one,” he responded to a question
about the return of a Florida 500, or 400, last held at Desoto
Speedway in December 2007. There are no current plans to try to
organize a Florida sprint car endurance race, as no sponsors have
emerged to make it financially feasible, and most currently active
tracks such as Showtime Speedway don’t have an apron, making for a
dicey safety issue with push trucks going on to the track with cars
at speed. There won’t be a Florida 400 or 500 coming, as least not
for the near future.
Is it too early to talk about the series’ potential
for long-term success? TBARA had a history of success that spanned
more than four decades of dirt and pavement racing, and the Southern
Sprint Car Shootout Series is in its fourth season with stable
leadership, bankable widely-known racers, and committed track
owners, sponsors and suppliers. Fan interest and attendance has
remained stable, and has the potential to greatly improve with the
influx of people and money coming into Central Florida.
Comparing the TBARA’s time of success to current
conditions, Day said, “Our industry is a whole lot different than it
was then. In my opinion, we need to find a way to build a new fan
base that wants to and can associate with a sprint car. We need to
find a way to get the muscle-car people back involved with it,” he
said, with hopes to get more “kids that are more into the ‘fast and
the furious’ street-racing, and don’t know what a sprint car is.
We’ve got to figure out a way to build our brand again in the near
future. We’ve got to figure out how to get the kids back involved in
the sport.
“We’re definitely interested in, and look forward to
growing our brand. BG Products is stepping up a little more, BG
corporate has now stepped up to the plate a little bit, and we look
to promote their brand nationwide, rather than just inside the State
of Florida. That’s what we’re looking at.”
Shane Stewart Talks About His New Team and
Retirement Plans
Story by Richard Golardi
February 28, 2019
Paul
Arch Photo
I spoke to 42-year-old dirt sprint car racer Shane
Stewart earlier this month at Volusia Speedway Park, at the time
when he was preparing for his first World of Outlaws race of the
year. It was the season-opening race with the Outlaws on Friday,
February 8. The Oklahoma native racer already had one Florida
Speedweeks win at Volusia with the All Star Circuit of Champions on
February 6. It was his first visit to the winner’s circle driving
the No. 5 CJB Motorsports sprint car. Prior to 2019, he had been
driving the No. 2 Kyle Larson Racing sprint car in World of Outlaws
competition.
“It’s going good,” Shane replied when asked how his
Speedweeks races had been going so far. “You know, I think as good
as it could go with a new team. Everything’s new for me – the
mechanics, the crew chief, the car, the motor … chassis, everything.
I think it’s going pretty good. It just goes to show just how tough
these races are. All in all, I’ve been pretty happy. We’ve had good
speed, we had good speed in Ocala as well.”
Main goal for 2019: “Win the championship, that’s my
main goal. This team’s capable of doing that. Barry [Jackson] and
[driver David] Gravel have proven that the car’s been fast for
several years. I’m really looking forward to racing with Barry.
Barry’s one of the veterans of our sport when it come to crew
chiefs, and I’m looking forward to it.”
I also asked if he thought his win total for 2019
would improve this year now that he had a completely new team.
“Well, I only had one Outlaw win last year, so I better. My goal is
to get to double digits, and I think we’re capable of doing that.
I’ve never won double digits with the Outlaws, I’ve been close.”
Shane added that he has been into double digits in the win column
with other sprint car series (and has won two ASCS sprint car
championships), but he wants to do that with the World of Outlaws
tour this year. “To win double digit Outlaw wins is tough to do. I
expect us to do that. We’re capable of doing that. We’ve just got to
put each night together and concentrate on this particular night,
and not worry about the next night, and not worry about last night.
I think that’s how we need to approach it.”
Paul
Arch Photo
With a new team that had 18 World of Outlaws feature
wins in 2017 with driver David Gravel (and five in 2018), and having
already put his new team in the winner’s circle once during
Speedweeks, and his determination to get many more wins this year,
Shane was smiling – and he seemed happy with the promise that a new
race season brought.
“Yeah, I’m happy,” Shane remarked. “I’m happy where
I’m at. I hope I can retire with this team, and just do a lot of
good for Chad and Jennifer Clemens and of course, Barry [Jackson].
It’s Barry’s baby. It’s more or less his team. He works really hard,
so that gives me a lot of confidence.”
Since Shane had brought up the “R word,” (retire) it
seemed like the appropriate point in the interview to ask if he had
made any plans for eventually retiring from racing, and if he knew
how much longer he’d be racing. I was somewhat taken aback by his
answer, as he had already made some plans.
“Five years,” Shane said. “I would like to stay
around with this team for another five years. That would mean I’ve
been out here for eight or nine years, and that’s a long time. But I
hope I can put together five really strong years.”
Brady Bacon is Home Again, Back with Hoffman
Racing
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi

February 22, 2019
Back behind the wheel of the renowned white, green
and orange Mean Green No. 69 USAC sprint car, 29-year-old Brady
Bacon had that feeling of being “home again.” The Hoffman Auto
Racing team car was the one he drove to USAC national sprint car
series championships in 2014 and 2016. He left the team after the
2016 season. Hoffman Racing got a second place in the USAC points
and seven wins last year with Kevin Thomas Jr. driving, after which
the team and driver parted ways. With Brady’s rehire, he was back at
Bubba Raceway Park for the season-opening races with the USAC AMSOIL
National Sprint Car Series, which is where I spoke to him last week.
“It’s a little different circumstances this time,”
Brady said, “but it was great when I was there before, and I
anticipate it being great this time around. Richard [Hoffman] is a
great guy and has had a lot of success, and we both like to win, so
it’s usually a good combination.” When asked what was left of the
team that earned two USAC sprint car championships earlier this
decade, he responded, “The driver and the owner, pretty much. We
have the same chassis brand, Triple X. We had Triple X for the full
four years I was there. Different shocks, and some other things.
Obviously, things have changed in those two years, but a lot of
things are the same, more than they have been in the last couple of
years for them.”
Concerning his crew chief and crew, and if any were
returning from the two championship years, “No – different,” Brady
replied. “[Former crew chief] Rob Hoffman, Richard’s son, is retired
from racing. Matt Hummel, with FK Shocks, is the crew chief now.
I’ve been together with Matt for three or four years. For me, it’s
comfortable. We got some momentum at the end of last year, so we’re
hoping to kind of build on what we learned last year, and have a
good, solid year this year.”
Outside of USAC sprint car racing: “I’m going to run
all of the dirt Silver Crown races for Bob East and Terry Klatt; and
in midgets, I’ll run about eight races for the No. 76M [FMR Racing]
that I drove the last few years, the bigger money races, and maybe a
handful for a couple of other people here and there, and then about
20 winged races.”
That winged race total is about the same as last
year for Brady. But it will be a change in his midget race total,
since he ran the full USAC midget schedule last year, and has a
limited midget schedule for this year. That means that Silver Crown
racing takes on greater importance for Brady in 2019. Last year,
Brady had five Silver Crown race starts on the dirt tracks, and had
one top ten finish with a total of 28 laps led while driving the
Terry Klatt Enterprises car with crew chief Bob East. In 2017 Silver
Crown racing, he had two top five finishes in 3 series starts, and
earned the “Hard Charger of the Race” award in the last race at
Eldora Speedway. Brady is seeking his first USAC Silver Crown race
win in 2019, and already has multiple wins in sprint cars and
midgets with USAC. One of those midget wins was undoubtedly his
biggest race win last year – at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Dirt
Track on September 6. He also had four USAC sprint car feature wins
in 2018.
“I’m not running for points in midgets this year,”
Brady said. “We’ll do some local sprint car stuff, and I run 120
races a year usually, so I might just try to back it down a little
bit and maybe not race quite so much. I have three kids, and you
gotta kind of balance it out, and I own my winged sprint car. You
can race as much as you want, but at the end of the day, someone’s
gotta pay the bills. Overall, about a hundred races this year. Our
plan is to try to cut back a little bit – that’s what I told my
wife, at least.”

Main goal for 2019: “Win the USAC sprint car
championship, that’s our goal.” When it was pointed out that his
prior USAC championships were in even-numbered years, and it seemed
to establish a pattern, he responded, “Yeah, but … we’re hoping to
change that.” So, make it an odd-numbered year championship win, and
take whatever part superstition played in his past championship
years, and throw it out the window?
“Yeah,” he replied, superstition be damned. It’s an
odd year, and he’s determined to win it anyway. Brady had that
“championship feeling” once again. “Yeah, just kind of picked up
where we left off,” he concluded.
Justin Grant – Same Guys, Same People, New Sponsor
for 2019

Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
February 20, 2019
California racer Justin Grant, now an Indiana
resident, has a new primary sponsor for 2019, and it is the energy
drink company that has been generous with its sponsorship dollars in
American open wheel racing this year – NOS Energy Drink. “New
primary sponsor, same race team – TOPP Motorsports,” Justin told me
during last week’s visit by USAC to Ocala’s Bubba Raceway Park.
“Same guys, same people are all involved, we just had NOS come board
on as the primary, and we’ve got a lot of other great sponsors that
have come on board as well. Really excited to be carrying NOS Energy
Drink as the primary, and I’m excited to be back with TOPP
Motorsports for another year. Same crew chief, same crew, just
different stickers.”
After winning five of the last eight 2018 USAC
AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series races in the No. 4 car, Justin was
poised to be one the top contenders in 2019. He had a third place
finish in the season opening night of the USAC sprint car series on
Thursday at Bubba Raceway Park. Then Justin put his new primary
sponsor in the winner’s circle there on night two, winning the
Friday sprint car feature, his 14th USAC national sprint car win. It
was a night of surviving a slick, tire-killing track for 30 laps.
The winning driver not only had to advance to the front, but make
his tires last. Several drivers didn’t make it, including Chris
Windom, leading until two laps to go, when he had a tire deflate.
Justin took over the lead, didn’t punish his tires, and took the
checkered flag first, putting the NOS sponsor stickers in the USAC
winner’s circle for the second time in two nights.
His main goal for 2019: “We’re here to win races, so
that’s goal number one, and if you win a lot of races and run well,
then add ’em up, and you can win a championship at the end of the
year. We’re here to do the best job we can every night, if it shakes
out in our favor at the end of the year, then we’d like to pick up a
big check and a trophy at the banquet as well.

“We’re going to focus on the USAC national series
and we’ll run a little bit here and there, maybe a little Kokomo now
and then, just to stay sharp and stay racing and have some fun. I,
myself, will run a limited USAC midget schedule and then the full
USAC Silver Crown schedule, dirt and pavement both. The Silver Crown
cars will be from Hemelgarn Racing, pavement and dirt; and then the
midget will be RAMS Racing; and then the sprint cars, obviously TOPP
Motorsports. I did the pavement and dirt in Silver Crown with
Hemelgarn for the past two years [one Silver Crown win, fourth place
in points, 2017; and one win, second place in points, 2018]. The
sprint car will be the only one we race outside of USAC. There’s so
many great race tracks in Indiana, and right around the Indianapolis
area. We’ll run Kokomo on Sunday nights, probably, and hit and miss
if something pays good, or something’s cool and we want to go run
it, we’ll go run it, but no major commitments outside of USAC’s
schedule. We’ll just pick ’em up when we feel like it.”
Pavement sprint car racing, specifically the Little
500, where he has yet to qualify for his first 500, is on his list
of desired races to run in 2019. “Ahh – yeah, probably,” Justin
replied. “I’m working on some stuff there, making sure nothing
conflicts, but hopefully, I’ll be there as well.” When pressed for a
team or Little 500 car owner name, Justin said, “Not yet, we haven’t
locked anything down for sure yet. Still making sure the schedules
will work, and everybody can do it. I think it looks good – yup.
I’ve run at Anderson a couple of times, but never for the Little
500.”
Video – feature race highlights, USAC national
sprint cars, Bubba Raceway Park, Ocala, Florida, Night #2, Friday,
February 15, 2019:
https://www.facebook.com/usacracing/videos/564000987448058/
Chris Windom Drives New Energy Drink Sponsor into
Victory Lane
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi

February 16, 2019
Their blue and orange colors were highly visible up
and down pit road at Bubba Raceway Park this week. NOS Energy Drink
has been pouring substantial sponsorship dollars into American open
wheel racing, having signed on as the title sponsor of the World of
Outlaws sprint car series and USAC national midget series, and also
primary sponsor of three sprint cars in the USAC sprint car series.
The Goacher Racing No. 5G car was one of those three cars, driven by
Chris Windom. The energy drink company has made a substantial
investment in his 2019 racing efforts.
“NOS Energy Drink came on board for the sprint car
and midget full-time for me this year,” Chris said. “I’m fortunate
for that. New team here at Goacher Racing – I brought Derek Claxton,
my crew chief from last year with me over here. A lot of the same,
but definitely new team and new faces and we came out of the gate
and qualified well, so we’ve got to keep plugging away the rest of
the night to make it a good first night.”
And they did just that. On Thursday night at Bubba
Raceway Park, opening night for the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car
series, Chris made a last lap pass in the feature race and got a win
on the first night out with his new team. It was the first time in a
USAC winner’s circle for Goacher Racing in the past 27 years. He was
looking for his second win in two nights on Friday in Ocala, but
tire punctures seemed to be the gremlin biting a lot of the front
runners that night, and it got Chris Windom’s car too. He was
leading Friday’s feature race with two laps left when he had a tire
let go and had to get off the track. Justin Grant took over the lead
for the last two laps and won, in another NOS Energy Drink car.
Grant called it a “rubber race,” referring to the need to preserve
tires, as well as get to the front, in order to win.
Chris
Windom in USAC winner's circle at Bubba Raceway Park, 2-14-2019
Crew chief Derek Claxton was about the only familiar
thing for Chris Windom’s new sprint car team. “Yeah, everything else
is new,” Chris said. “We’re running the same type of car, same
engine. They’re Mopar, that’s what I’ve run in the years past. A lot
of it’s the same, just new people, and new owners.” Goacher Racing
was not a brand new team for Chris, as he had raced with them
previously in the Little 500, and had his most recent Little 500 win
with them in 2015, beating Florida legend Dave Steele to the finish
in a late-race battle. He has only raced on pavement with Goacher
Racing in the past.
“They ran a few dirt races here and there,” Chris
said of his new dirt racing team. “But we started this full-time
dirt program this year. Joe Brandon with Goacher Racing is a big
part of this deal too. I’m thankful for that.”
Chris’ main goal for 2019: “Win the championship –
all three: sprints, midgets, and Silver Crown. I think we’ve got
three really good race cars to do it. We got a decent start in the
midget last week [finishes of 3rd and 9th in two Florida USAC midget
races]; we’ll see how this weekend goes with this. You know, I’ve
won the sprint car and Silver Crown titles, so I’d really like to
win the midget title this year to make it a ‘triple crown,’ but I’m
out here looking to win all three.” In USAC Silver Crown racing,
he’ll have Matt Goodnight as car owner and Scott Benic as crew
chief. They’ve been racing with Matt driving in USAC Silver Crown,
but this was new for them to hire Chris to drive a second Silver
Crown car.
“Everything – all three. Every single race,” Chris
replied when asked which USAC national series races he’ll be in this
year. He’ll attempt to win all three national USAC titles in the
same year, a feat which hasn’t been done in a while. As to whether
he’ll have time to do anything else, “It’s going to be tough. That’s
about a hundred races right there just with those three. We’re going
to have our work cut out for us. I’m going to run the Little 500
[which he has raced in for five straight years], and the Freedom 100
at Indianapolis in Indy Lights. That, and probably run Eldora in the
truck race, and a few local shows when we can.
“I’m looking forward to it,” he said, as he didn’t
perceive the loaded race schedule of 100-plus races as daunting. “It
gets tiring after a while, but when you’ve got a great group of guys
to work with on all your teams, it makes it a little easier. It’s
what we’re here for, and it’s what we love to do, so I guess the
more races, the better.”
Carson Macedo Teams with Kyle Larson in 2019
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi

February 14, 2019
Earlier this month, California dirt sprint car
driver Carson Macedo explained his reason for being at Bubba Raceway
Park in Ocala. He and his team were getting ready for the upcoming
World of Outlaws sprint car season, due to start the next week at
Volusia Speedway Park. The Kyle Larson Racing-owned No. 2 winged
sprint car team was due to compete in the entire 91-race World of
Outlaws tour with the 22-year-old driver, beginning Friday, February
8. Carson will be racing to earn the Rookie of the Year title in
Outlaws racing this year.
“It’s a little warm-up before we go out and do the
World of Outlaws tour. It’s a long season, obviously, and you want
to get tuned in, have your stuff right, and be sharp for that first
race in Volusia. The KLR team is working really hard to get me
comfortable. It’s not my first sprint car race of the year, because
I spent some time racing in Australia, actually just came back a
week and a half ago.” The racing he did down under in Australia
meant that he missed the Chili Bowl in January.
His main goal in 2019 World of Outlaws racing: “Our
goal is to have speed, win races, and do the best we can. I think
night in and night out, if we can just be the best team we can be,
and always be there at the end, we’ll try to win races and see where
we can put ourselves. The more nights we can get under our belt
before we actually get to race over there [Volusia Speedway on
February 8] is a good chance for us to not only get our car right,
but just get me comfortable in the car, and the team working well
together, and it’s all really important.”
His biggest accomplishment from 2018 that led to
being offered one of the “prime seats” in sprint car racing with
Kyle Larson as his car owner: “I think we just had a pretty
successful year all around, myself and Joe Gaerte together in the
No. 3G car, and I was able to win some races, win a few All Star
races, and do pretty well night in and night out, and then to get in
the No. 41 JJR [Jason Johnson Racing] car and win that prelim night
at the Knoxville 360 Nationals, and come just short of winning that
final night at the 360 Nationals. And then to have a good 410
Nationals … I don’t know, I think there’s a few things – jump in
Tony’s car and run the 360 at Osky [Southern Iowa Speedway in
Oskaloosa, August 7, in a Tony Stewart Racing car] and won that
race. I think that’s what it’s all about – you’ve just got to win
races and the doors will start opening.”
When learning that he was going to be in his current
race car, the No. 2 car driven by Shane Stewart in 2018 World of
Outlaws racing, he was “super-excited. It’s one of the elite teams
on the World of Outlaws tour, and hopefully I can do it justice, do
a good job.”
During his four nights of Florida Speedweeks racing
with the All Star Circuit of Champions, Carson Macedo had feature
race finishes of 21st, 10th (Bubba Raceway Park), and 8th, 15th
(Volusia Speedway Park). With the World of Outlaws during the final
Speedweeks weekend of 410 winged sprint car racing, Carson had
feature race finishes of 9th and 10th (final Sunday night at Volusia
was rained out). He also won heat races on both nights of World of
Outlaws racing at Volusia Speedway Park.
Daniel Miller: Florida Pavement Sprint Car Rookie
is Ready
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
Daniel
Miller, and his father Robbie Miller, with their No. 00 sprint car
February 9, 2019
“I’ve been racing for 17 years,” Daniel Miller said
at the most recent Southern Sprint Car Shootout Series race in Punta
Gorda in January. The 22-year-old rookie sprint car driver from
Tavares, FL, who is behind the wheel of his team’s No. 00 car (yes,
they are fans of the racing Reutimanns), added, “We’ve raced
quarter-midgets, mini-cup, Pro Challenge, and we were in pro late
models last season on asphalt at New Smyrna. This is actually Dude
Teate’s old sprint car, which is very familiar around here, the zero
car. It’s been off the track for a year or two. We acquired it – and
first race out.”
Daniel, who works as a tractor mechanic during the
week, admitted that the car had some problems in the January 19
practice session at 4-17 Southern Speedway in Punta Gorda, but the
team, which includes his father, worked through them. He then raced
to a fifth place finish in his heat race, and had a 16th place
finish in the feature, a race that included two other 2019 series
rookies: Phil Haddad and Chaz Hambling.
“Pro late models were just getting out of hand with
money,” Daniel explained. “It’s supposed to be an economical series,
and you’ve got all the big guys coming down and spending millions of
dollars.”
That’s why his family-owned team made the switch to
sprint cars for 2019. Pavement sprint cars are still very much alive
and well in Florida, and that’s the race car type he’ll be driving
this year. His next race will be on Sunday, February 10 at New
Smyrna Speedway with the Southern Sprint Car series. Sunday will be
a race day that the pavement sprint car series will share with the
NASCAR K&N Pro Series East stock cars on the high-banked, half-mile
track. It’s the fastest track in Florida that the pavement sprint
cars visit.
Daniel has spent many hours in the pits with Dude
Teate and has “grown up around him. I’ve known him since I was five
years old, when I was racing quarter midgets. I’m in a few winner’s
circle pictures with him. I drove a sprint car once before, last
season for Stan Butler in the No. 18 car, the last race of the
season, just to get seat time. We did pretty good, for the first
time out. We’re going to go full-time this season. Robbie Miller, my
father, is the car owner. It’s just me and him, and we’ve got Rob
Mercer helping us. It’s our first time doing it on our own – just
get some wins under our belt and do the best we can.”
The car, previously the No. 0 owned by Ronnie Van
Den Brink and driven by Dude Teate, is now the No. 00, and is
painted a blue that may be considered to be close to the “Chevron
blue” that has appeared on cars driven by the racing Reutimanns for
years, but that was not an intentional color choice. The No. 00 –
that was a deliberate choice, to proclaim their kinship with and
admiration of the racing Reutimann family.
Logan Schuchart Wants to Win a “Big Race” in 2019
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
February 8, 2019

The five Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of
Champions races already completed in Florida this month were not the
first sprint car races of the year for 26-year-old Shark Racing team
sprint car driver Logan Schuchart. “I raced a couple of weeks ago in
Australia,” Logan told me during a recent interview at Bubba Raceway
Park on their Thursday opening night. “We had a couple of good races
over there – we actually won the Scott Darley Challenge in Sydney
before I left. But this is the first race for Shark Racing/Team
Drydene over here in the U.S. We’re racing with the All Stars, so
we’re excited to get the 2019 season started.”
Logan might just be the racer who is at the top of
the list of “drivers who have shown steady progress through Florida
Speedweeks racing, and may be the next to win.” He had a strong
performance in the last Florida All Star series race of Speedweeks
on Thursday, finishing second in the feature to Brad Sweet. That
matches his steady improvement all through the 2018 race season, his
sixth season racing a 410 winged sprint car, when he won two World
of Outlaws feature races: the Ironman 55 in Pevely, Missouri on
August 4, and at Fulton Speedway in New York on October 6. That gave
him eight career World of Outlaws feature wins so far since getting
his first series win in 2016. Logan took sixth place in the 2018
Outlaws point standings, his best point finish yet.
For 2019: “Main goal – we want to take away DNFs.
That’s something that’s been a goal since we started is to get
better about that every year, and have a better maintenance program
and get rid of our DNFs, gain in the points, win races, and the rest
will show. I’d like to win a big race this year. We won the Ironman
55 last year, but I’d like to get some numbers as far as wins go,
and win a big one. I think we get better and better every year.”

Shark Racing, with Logan in the seat of the white
and red No. 1s Drydene sponsored entry, will compete in the full
World of Outlaws race schedule, which begins tonight at Volusia
Speedway Park, and continues on Saturday and Sunday. That is the
same as last year for the team, in addition to “running them all
here in Florida,” a total of eight Speedweeks races through Sunday.
A track where he has won before and would like to win at this year
is Knoxville, but this time he’d like that win to be at the
Knoxville Nationals. “For sure,” he stated.
“King’s Royal, National Open – I’d like to win a big
race. Any of those that would be up there in that list that you
consider a big race as far as 410 sprint cars go, part of the World
of Outlaws, I want to win one of those, if not all of them in my
career. But to be able to win one of those this year – that’s the
goal.”
Logan also has a valuable asset in his team who’s
overseeing things in the garage and in the pits, and that is
Pennsylvania sprint car racing legend Bobby Allen, his grandfather.
The two-car Shark Racing team competing in the World of Outlaws has
Bobby’s son, 24-year-old Jacob Allen, driving the other team car,
the white No. 1a. Last year could be described as a breakout year
for Jacob. He got nine top five Outlaws finishes during the year,
compared to only two top five finishes during his first four years
on the Outlaws trail.
Paul McMahan’s 2019 Goals: Win Races, Have Fun
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
February 7, 2019

Paul McMahan is back to race in the Ollie’s Bargain
Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions for the full 2019 schedule,
including tonight’s final Florida series race of 2019 at Volusia
Speedway Park. The team behind the 48-year-old Nashville resident in
his quest for the All Star championship is the same, with a new
addition to the team – a new chassis.
“It’s the same team as we had last year,” he said on
Friday night as the All Star series raced at Bubba Raceway Park.
Paul, the 1999 All Star series rookie of the year, got two All Star
feature wins in 2018 with this team. “The same guys are back, we
switched to Triple X chassis this year, Ti22 came on board to take
care of all our bolt-on parts for the race cars, and they are our
main sponsor. We’re going to go out and run the All Stars, and
hopefully have some fun.” The car owner of the No. 13 sprint car is
Tom Buch, the same car owner as he had last year. The car colors are
new, the chassis is new, and “a few new parts and pieces.” The new
primary sponsor, Ti22 Performance, provides sprint car parts such as
bolt-on parts, rear arms, radius rods, steering arms, hubs,
spindles, and “all that good stuff,” according to Paul.
Paul’s goal for 2019 is to “go win races and have a
lot of fun. Last year we ran good, we won a couple of races, won the
Ohio Speedweek championship last year, and finished second in All
Star points on the owner’s side. I missed a few races and was able
to get up to fourth in points. It was a good season for us, the
first year for a team that wasn’t even planning on racing the whole
All Star deal at the beginning of the year. To come out and do as
well as we did, we were pretty happy. Aaron [Reutzel, 2018 All Star
driver champion] was better than us and we’ve just got to step up
our game a little bit and try and get ’em this year.”
Tom Buch, who was a first-year car owner in the All
Star series last year, has far greater experience as a car owner
overall, and had another driver fill in when Paul missed two series
races last year. The team made every 2018 series race, and that
earned the car owner a second place in the owner points. “We gave
’em hell, but just came up a little short,” Paul explained. The team
will again race in all the 2019 All Star series races, with some
World of Outlaws races mixed in to their plans for this year.
“King’s Royal, Knoxville, anytime the All Stars
ain’t racing, we’ll be at a race track somewhere racing.” When asked
if he had his eye on any of the “big races” and which sprint car
race he would pick to win if he could choose one, Paul replied,
“Every one of them. We’ve been fast at places, we’ve struggled on
the bigger tracks last year a little bit, but hopefully we learned a
lot last year, and hopefully going into this year we’ll be more
competitive at the big races.”
Paul McMahan and his team plan to be here for “all
Speedweeks,” meaning that they will race in all five All Star series
races, running from last week through tonight, and also the three
weekend World of Outlaws races that begin with the 2019
season-opening World of Outlaws race tomorrow, Friday, at Volusia
Speedway Park.
“Last year at Volusia, we ran really well,” Paul
remarked. “Just had a little bit of bad luck and got a cut tire
while we were leading and ran second. We learned a lot … so we hope
to improve on what we did last year. We’ll go out to Texas and Las
Vegas and run those Outlaw shows, and I think we start back up with
the All Stars in April.”
Spencer Bayston Will Chase a Championship in 2019
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
February 6, 2019
Spencer Bayston is in the third year of his
transition from non-wing midget and sprint car racing to winged
sprint car racing. The 20-year-old racer from Lebanon, Indiana, who
won the 2017 USAC national midget series championship, discussed his
comfort level during each of the first two years of his transition,
and also a goal he has set for 2019, his “big year three goal.”
“I’m starting my third year in a winged sprint car,”
Spencer said during a Friday night race at Bubba Raceway Park last
week. He was driving the sky blue No. 70X sprint car. “I spent my
first whole year [2017] just trying to get acclimated. Last year, I
felt like we were actually finally competing, and then this year,
I’m looking to hopefully chase a championship. So, getting
comfortable here in Ocala – different car, different crew chief, so
we’re building, we’re working on it, getting myself better, and
hopefully have a good night tonight.”
He’s looking to improve on his 2018 racing results,
after spending the last two seasons in a Keith Kunz-owned midget and
Kevin Swindell’s No. 39 winged sprint car. “I really didn’t have a
good year last year,” he said. “I won a sprint car race, I won a
couple midget races. I felt like we competed in the front of a lot
of big winged races with the sprint car. I felt like we were fast
all year, but it never really showed with our results. Hopefully
this year we can have a better year, pick up a lot more wins, and
hopefully get that championship.”

The low point of the year for Spencer in 2018 was
likely on August 23. That’s when he broke his right leg at Grandview
Speedway. A large chunk of dirt shot through the lower panel on his
car and struck his leg, breaking two bones. He had surgery the next
day and recovered quickly.
That championship that he’ll be striving for in 2019
won’t be any of the non-wing open wheel championships. That’s
because he will be racing full-time in a winged sprint car this
year. “I’ll be full-time in a winged car, running for Pete Grove.
We’re running the full All Star schedule, then working in as many
Outlaw races as we can.” He was adamant when asked if he’d try to
squeeze in any USAC races, or any non-wing races. “Full-time in a
winged sprint car,” he replied, leaving no doubt of his mind-set or
goal for the year. He was heading away from his non-wing past, and
would set his mind toward becoming a winged sprint car champion. For
this year, it would mean running the full All Star Circuit of
Champions race schedule, which resumes tonight and Thursday night at
the big half-mile D-shaped oval at Volusia Speedway Park.
“I went ‘back and forth’ last year,” Spencer
remarked. “This year, I’ll be full-time in a winged car only.” He’ll
leave an opening to a run for a Chili Bowl title: “Hopefully – Chili
Bowl would be good.”
With his goal to win the All Star championship this
year, Spencer said he is “confident of my crew chief, Andy, and I
think we’ve got really good equipment, so it’s just a matter of us
clicking well together and me doing a good job behind the wheel.
“Definitely,” he replied when asked if his first
all-winged racing season was something he had been looking forward
to with anticipation. “I’m looking forward to focusing on one car,
one class only, and I think it’ll be good. Last year I struggled a
little bit going back and forth between the two, so now that we’re
focused on just one – it’ll be good.”
Video of Spencer Bayston’s Friday night (2-1-2019)
qualifying laps at Bubba Raceway Park with the All Star Circuit of
Champions is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7hgWX0P0q8
Sonny
Hartley at his final race with his No. 3X car, Punta Gorda, January
19, 2019.
Sonny Hartley’s Final Sprint Car Race … Maybe
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
January 29, 2019
Three generations of Hartley family racers were
there. The patriarch – 73-year-old Sonny Hartley, the 1983 Sunshine
Speedway sprint car track champion, was there. His son, Bo Hartley,
the 2006 TBARA sprint car driver champion, was there. And there was
the grandson, Stephen Hartley. He’s the youngest generation, 13
years old and moving up to Legends car racing this season, about to
graduate from a six-year stint racing quarter midgets into his first
race car. They were there at 4-17 Southern Speedway in Punta Gorda,
Florida to celebrate Sonny’s final sprint car race, after getting
started in sprint cars 48 years ago.
Except, Sonny will tell you that the Southern Sprint
Car series race on Saturday, January 19 was going to be his final
sprint car race before retiring from driving race cars … maybe. His
yellow No. 3X sprint car was at the track, after a hiatus of five
years away. Sonny’s last race was 4 ½ years ago. In addition to the
1983 Sunshine Speedway championship, he also co-drove with Floridian
Ronnie Smith to a second place finish in the Little 500 that same
year. He started in the Little 500 seven times between 1986 and
2008, with one top ten finish from those starts.
Sonny’s current plan (which he admits may be
revised) is to return to Florida racing with the same No. 3X car,
but with Bo behind the wheel. Bo has also had a recent hiatus from
Florida pavement sprint car racing and Florida short tracks, where
he won his TBARA championship thirteen years ago against such
drivers as Dude Teate, the Butlers, Dave Steele, and Troy DeCaire.
“I last drove the yellow car for Dick [Fieler], the
No. 27 in 2013,” Sonny told me earlier this month. “My last race was
in 2014 in Stan Butler’s car, and went out of the park [over the
turn 2 wall] at Inverness. This car I have now replaced the one that
I destroyed at New Smyrna during late 2012 when the rear axle broke
in half, and into the wall we went. We ran it once here, ran up
north twice, and then the car was brought back down here and it was
run at Showtime twice, once with Davey Hamilton, and once with Troy
DeCaire [the yellow No. 68]. And then they put it in the PRI Trade
Show and Dick asked me if he could leave it in my garage for 30
days, and it’s been there ever since.”
Sonny’s reason for making a racing comeback now is
because “the car was there in my garage, and Dick called and asked
me to send the engine up to him, so I took it out and sent it. Then
he wanted the headers. Dick Fieler has Bobby Santos III driving his
cars now. He tried to sell it, and nobody was interested, so he and
I made a deal on it. I tried to get it together to have one of my
very best friends, Dave Shotsberger, in it. He was the rookie of the
year in the TBARA in 2007 or ’08. He had contracted ALS, and I
wanted to get it ready for him to drive before he got to where he
couldn’t, and I didn’t make it [in time], and he’s very sick right
now.”
On his car on January 19, along with the number 3X,
the same number as on the sprint car he drove back in the 1980s, was
a driver’s name. But Sonny didn’t put his name on the car. The
driver’s name on the car read: Dave Shotsberger. It was done to
recognize Dave for all his work in helping to get the car ready,
even while suffering with the symptoms of ALS. Three days after the
race, Dave Shotsberger died on January 22, 2019 in Orlando. He was
57 years old. He was remembered as a kind, selfless man, “Grandpa
David,” whose smile will live on forever.
“So we got it finished,” Sonny said of getting the
No. 68 car renovated and renumbered as the Hartley Racing No. 3X
car, but not without a lot of “teething problems.” He then thought
that “the car is faster than the driver, to be honest with you.” On
the 19th in Punta Gorda, Sonny raced to a 15th place finish in the
feature race. “Whatever abilities I had 10 years ago … I think
they’ve departed,” he said with a chuckle. “But it’s fun, and that’s
why I want to do it. I want to have a little fun with it, and if I
don’t race it anymore after this myself, Bo will drive it. We don’t
have a high-dollar engine, and with those wings up there, it takes a
lot of horsepower to pull ’em around the race track. We know that,
at best, we can be reasonably competitive. But I don’t think we can
be consistent front-runners.” Bo hasn’t driven a sprint car since
2013, according to Sonny.
“It’s Sonny’s swan song. It’s going to be Sonny’s
very last sprint car race of his entire career,” the pit row pundits
were saying at Punta Gorda on the 19th. “Well, that’s the plan,”
Sonny said in response. “I never did admit to retirement before, and
it’s really kind of hard to do. But, I am going to have this fun,
and I’ll reevaluate it after the races, and think about it, but I
think that this will be the last one.” Another comeback race was not
planned. “Most likely, not.”
“They’re not cheap to run,” he added, “and like I
say, I’m not going to kid myself and think I can run with these kids
out here, you know what I mean?” Stephen was nearby, listening to
his grandfather declaring that his near half-century sprint car
racing career was about to end that night. The 13-year-old
proclaimed that he needed “about another year,” and then he’d be
ready for a sprint car. After all, Sport Allen, who was racing the
No. 88 sprint car that same night, had started his time at the wheel
of a sprint car when he was only 13.
“Not Stephen – no, he’s not ready yet. It’ll be a
while,” grandfather said to grandson. “Nope … not yet,” he added,
meaning the teenage racer was going to spend the season in a Legends
car, not a sprint car.
Stephen was readying for his first Legends car test
session next month. “He’s never even sat in a car with a clutch in
it. The Legends – they’ve got a motorcycle transmission and all
that, so you’ve got to clutch it and change gears. So, we’ve got
that learning curve first, before we can go out and try that,” Sonny
said, motioning toward the family sprint car. Stephen had the last
word, though, insisting that he already had experience shifting
gears, while playing video games. Soon, he’d get to try the real
thing, and the next generation of Hartley family racers would head
out onto the track in Florida.
Pete Walton and USCS Expand Presence in Florida
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
January 25, 2019
Pete Walton and his USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour, a 360
c.i. engine dirt winged sprint car series that tours in the Deep
South and Southeastern states from the Carolinas to Florida, have
expanded their presence in the Sunshine State for 2019. That begins
tonight, Friday night, at the one-third mile dirt oval at Hendry
County Motorsports Park in Clewiston. The series will also race on
Saturday in Clewiston as part of its 10-race “Winter Heat Series,”
then will move on to races at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, and
Southern Raceway in the panhandle near Pensacola.
Pete
Walton of USCS at All-Tech Raceway FL on April 1 2016.
This marks an expansion of their Florida racing
plans, and means that their races in Florida will be a larger
percentage of their race schedule this year than any recent year.
The race at Hendry County tonight also marks the first time that a
national sprint car series has raced in South Florida since the
World of Outlaws sprint cars raced at Charlotte County Speedway
(Punta Gorda) on pavement on February 11, 1992. That’s nearly 27
years ago.
After Hendry County, a midget/sprint car
doubleheader will be next on the schedule, with USAC’s NOS Energy
Drink Midget National Championship Series running along with the
USCS sprint cars at Bubba Raceway Park on February 8 and 9. This
will be the first time that the USAC national midget series has
raced in Florida since February 2013, when they raced at New Smyrna
Speedway. The last two Winter Heat Series races are at Southern
Raceway in Milton on February 22 and 23.
“We’re going to a few new tracks,” 70-year-old USCS
founder and president Pete Walton told me recently, when asked about
the 2019 schedule. “We also have a lot of existing tracks we go to
every year, a lot of the same tracks again. We don’t have any
Saturday nights left, we kept one or two weekends open for rain
dates. We’ve got about 60 races, again. We’ve got some new
facilities that want races, and I’m trying to figure out where I can
put them. There’s a schedule right there – it’s finalized,” he said
in early December.
Tony
Stewart celebrates a USCS feature win at Bubba Raceway Park, Nov. 9,
2018.
“There used to be a lot of tracks down there, didn’t
it? Hialeah, and all those places,” he said of the former Southeast
Florida racing community, with multiple short ovals, mostly
pavement. One of the two remaining South Florida short ovals (none
in Miami/Dade) is dirt, which is where the USCS sprint cars will
begin their season tonight.
New tracks for USCS: “East Alabama wasn’t on our
schedule last year, they’re coming back on,” Walton said. “We’re
going to Hendry County for the first time. We’re going to Chatham
Speedway in Chatham, Louisiana, first time ever. We’ve been going to
Southern Raceway for only one year, we went there before, but we had
a long absence. We’re going back Travelers Rest Speedway this year.
We hadn’t been there in about three years. We weren’t on Smoky
Mountain Speedway’s schedule last year, and we’re going back there.
We’re kind of shuffling our regions around a little bit, to include
the Florida races and the Deep South region and move that a little
further south.”
Then there’s the effort to add more Florida races to
their 2019 schedule: “Well, there’s quite a few cars down there that
would like to race with us more, and just trying to give them the
opportunity to be a little more involved with our series.” His
biggest 2018 racing accomplishment: “I’d say, just growing the
series, maxing out what we can actually accomplish as far as the
schedule. I don’t think we can do any more races than we’re doing,
do you? We’re out of weekends, right? Unless we race in December –
or do indoors somewhere.”
How would Pete Walton rate getting Tony Stewart more
involved with and seeing him win with the USCS series in the past
two years? “I think that’s a 10! I think that’s one of our proudest
achievements that Tony feels like he can come race with us and enjoy
himself. I was talking to David Gravel, it’s the first time I ever
met him, and he said, ‘Tony’s been racing with you quite a bit,
ain’t he? Man, he’s doin’ OK, he’s getting his groove back, isn’t
he?’ I said, ‘Yeah, he won two out of the last three races.’ He
said, ‘Man, that’s really good for your series. He’s helping draw
people, right?’ I said, ‘Yeah.’ People walk up to me and say,
‘Aren’t you that guy that Tony Stewart races with? You got to feel
pretty good about that!’ I said, ‘Tony Stewart’s a good guy! He’s
done a lot for racing.’ ”
And yes, Pete still feels the same about what he
would like to be remembered for: “Being a great papaw (Southern for
grandpa). That’s my number one goal, and that my grandsons admire me
and never forget me … and know I’ve been a good influence on them –
my children and my grandsons. That’s more important than the racing,
that’s for sure.”
Troy DeCaire Starts Anew with a New Team in 2019
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
January 24, 2019
Troy DeCaire, who had his 33rd birthday this week,
has multiple Florida pavement sprint car championships (TBARA, 2007
and 2008; and Central Florida Wingless Sprints, 2009) and multiple
national pavement sprint car championships (Must See Racing Sprint
Series, 2010 and 2011). All were big challenges, with Florida’s
TBARA loaded with pavement racing talent, and the Must See series
attracting the best from the Midwest and elsewhere.
Troy
DeCaire at 4-17 Southern Speedway, 1-19-2019.
He has a new challenge for 2019. He has lost his
ride with a trusted and well-liked sprint car team owner, Lenny
Puglio, who has apparently made plans to sell his pavement sprint
car team equipment and retire from being a car owner. That means he
must adjust to competing in 2019 with a new team (Ken and Theresa
Statham owned Statham Construction team), a new car, and a new car
number (36).
“All of a sudden Lenny [Puglio] just woke up one day
and said, ‘Man, I think I’m out.’ First they were teaming up,” Troy
said, referring to his current car owners, Ken and Theresa Statham,
and his most recent former car owner, Lenny Puglio, whose black
number 91 sprint car Troy had most recently driven, and won in,
during 2018. “They were going to run a car down here, with me, and a
car traveling, and then whenever that wasn’t happening, they were
going to run the [car number] 66 with Ray [Bragg], from what I
understand. And when Lenny woke up one day, and said, ‘Hey, Ken –
come buy everything.’ And we’re in the process of working all that
out, us getting everything that Lenny has, so that we can run that
Mobile deal, some of the King of the Wing, and I’ll run full-time
down here. It just all came together in the last month. Lenny is
going to be on as support. Todd Schmidt – he’s going to be coming to
the track with us. I’ve got Big Mike here with me, who was with me
on the 91. Big Mike’s my guy, he’s my ‘comfort zone.’ He traveled
with me with Ron Koehler, he traveled with me with Dick Fieler.
“It’s just me, Big Mike, Kenny, and his son, and
we’re doing it right now,” Troy said, referring to the team at Punta
Gorda on Saturday for the season-opening race with the Southern
Sprint Car Shootout Series. “Lenny and Todd will be around,” he
added. Troy was adamant about his claim that he was not “replacing”
Ray Bragg (or “taking his ride”) in the team car he drove on
Saturday. In fact, it was renumbered as number 36 for Troy (last
year it raced as number 66, with one win), leaving open the
possibility that there might be another number 66 team car for Ray
Bragg to drive at a later date. Bragg was out of town on Saturday,
“so I was going to run it anyway,” Troy said. The drivers and number
of cars that will be raced by the Statham Construction team this
year are still pending, as is the deal for Ken Statham to purchase
all of the cars currently owned by Lenny Puglio. Troy has confirmed
that he will be driving the Statham Construction number 36 car for a
full season with the Southern Sprint Car series. In his debut with
the team on Saturday, he won his heat race, even stating that he
backed off when the second place car dropped back, and then he
finished in fifth place in the 40-lap feature race.
For the immediate future, Troy was predicting, “For
New Smyrna, I think you’ll see a big change. I can’t really speak on
it yet …” Plans for the Little 500 in May were uncertain: “I don’t
know. We’re talking about doing some Must See [Sprint Car Series],
and I’m still talking with Wayne Stickney, the 99 up in Michigan. He
wants me to run some of the King of the Wing.
“So … here we are!” Troy exclaimed after his
Saturday heat race win. “Got a little bit of a fuel issue, got it
ironed out. My dad sold the 41 to Ken, so he also owns that.
Depending how things shake out with purchasing Lenny’s equipment,
which is a pending total buy-out, but there’s things that Ken wants,
and doesn’t want, and there’s a lot of stuff there [referring to
Puglio’s Tampa race shop]. There’s three cars, seven motors, 86
wheels, there’s like $15 grand in titanium bolts. There’s a pit box,
a four-wheeler.”
So Lenny was “wavering” for a little while, and then
he decided to sell everything? “Yeah. Hey – it’s Lenny. He’s sold
out two or three times in the last 10 years, so…”
Since there were tentative 2018 plans for Troy to
race in both Florida and Midwest winged and non-wing pavement races,
later abandoned, he laughed slightly when confirming that his team’s
plans for 2019 were close to those originally outlined for him for
2018. What’s changed is his car owner. This new team is not wavering
on their plans for 2019, and is not thinking of selling everything
and getting out of racing.
“I’m one week at a time right now,” Troy said
cautiously, not wanting to put too much confidence into plans for
2019, as he did for 2018, only to see those plans slip away. “The
only difference between the last two years and this year is I’m on
board. I said, ‘I’ll drive. I’ll go – we’ll run the whole year and
do what y’all want to do.’ ”
There is a family relationship with Ray Bragg, the
driver who put the Statham Construction car in the winner’s circle
in May 2018 at 4-17 Southern Speedway. Troy explained: “My brother
married Ray’s mom’s sister’s daughter. So … how ’bout that?” If your
head is spinning just about now, Troy offered this: “Ray’s mom has a
twin – her daughter’s married to my brother. Me and Ray are family;
I’ve known him my whole life. I’m not here ‘taking Ray’s ride,’ ” he
said emphatically, expressing his displeasure at the pit road rumors
that tried to claim he had done so, and had “taken Shady’s ride.”
“This is supposed to be a team deal. I didn’t go in
there and take nobody’s ride,” he declared stridently. The number 36
was chosen by the car owner – it matches the uniform number that
Ken’s son wears when playing baseball. “It’s going to be a
combination of Classic Corvettes [Lenny Puglio team] and Team
Statham [Statham family team], Big Mike will be the car chief, me
and Kenneth will do the maintenance. Ken and Theresa [Statham] are
the sole owners.”
And those are Troy DeCaire’s pavement sprint car
racing plans for 2019, pending the unknown and the always-present
variables of fate and luck. If present plans (and the presence of
luck) are realized, you’ll likely be seeing him on track (and in the
winner’s circle) more frequently this year.
Florida’s (and America’s) First Sprint Car Race of
the Season is Saturday
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
January 15, 2019
Florida has the first North American sprint car race
of the new year, and appropriately, it is a pavement sprint car
race, with the BG Products Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series on
January 19 at Punta Gorda’s 4-17 Southern Speedway. The series just
ended its 2018 season six weeks ago at that same Punta Gorda track,
with Johnny Gilbertson earning the 2018 series driver championship.
It was his third title as Florida state pavement sprint car
champion. He had previously won the TBARA driver championship in
2011 and 2012. Shane Butler dominated the win column in 2018
Southern Sprintcar series racing, taking six feature wins during the
year. Three of those wins were consecutive during August through
October, and he won three of the four races at New Smyrna Speedway.
Top
Three Finishers in 2018 Southern Sprintcar Points - 1 - Johnny
Gilbertson, left, 2 - Shane Butler, center, 3 - Dylan Reynolds,
right 9-29-2018
There were four first-time winners in series
competition during 2018: Joey Aguilar, Ray Bragg II, Johnny
Gilbertson, and Tommy Nichols. The feature win by Aguilar in the
season finale on December 8 was his first sprint car feature win
since 2015. The late Dave Steele still sits atop the all-time
Southern Sprintcar win column with 14 wins, and is trailed by Shane
Butler with eight feature wins. Steele also is in first place on the
All-Time Florida Sprint Car Win List, and may stay there for many
years to come. Most of the drivers near him on the list are either
retired or deceased. The active driver who is nearest to Steele on
the All-Time Win List is Sport Allen, who is in eighth place with 74
career Florida sprint car feature wins.
I recently confirmed that the Daytona Antique Auto
Racing Association (DAARA) series directors have approved the
inaugural "Florida Vintage Sprint Car Classic," to be held at Citrus
County Speedway in Inverness on Saturday, November 9, 2019. This is
the night of the Frank Riddle Memorial Sprint Car Race, making this
night a doubleheader of two sprint car feature races, one with the
current cars (Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series), and one with
vintage/classic cars (DAARA).
If you are like me, you remember the nights when
this same sprint car doubleheader made for some exciting racing at
both Desoto Speedway and Citrus County Speedway in the past, and are
looking forward to its return this year. Stan Butler is sure to be
one of the favorites in the DAARA sprint car feature, as he has won
several recent races in the number 0 “Mac Steele Auto Craft” car.
On the national pavement racing scene, the King of
the Wing national sprint car series recently announced that they
would return to Florida and stage a Southeast regional racing
weekend in April. Originally announced to have three races at three
tracks, the weekend series now has two races. The Florida race is at
Five Flags Speedway in Pensacola on Friday, April 12, followed by a
Saturday, April 13 race at Montgomery Motor Speedway in Alabama. The
previously announced race at Mobile International Speedway has been
removed from the 2019 schedule. Mobile has released their 2019 race
schedule, with eight sprint car races at the half-mile, banked track
that was known mostly for stock car racing before the debut of a
monthly winged sprint car series in 2018. Only three of their 2019
races conflict with races on the 2019 Southern Sprintcar schedule,
so it is likely that some Florida racers (likely small in number)
may go to Mobile with cars in tow, as they did in 2018.
The first sprint car races of Florida Speedweeks
will be on the weekend of January 25 and 26, when the USCS Outlaw
Thunder Tour goes to Hendry County Motorsports Park in Clewiston for
two races. Then on January 31 to February 2 (Thursday to Saturday),
the Top Gun Sprint Series will race at East Bay Raceway Park in
Gibsonton, and the All Star Circuit of Champions will have three
races at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala. That visit by the All Star
series will be the first of three national sprint car series to
visit the track in February, followed by the USCS Outlaw Thunder
Tour (paired with the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Series)
and the USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series.
With Return of Midgets, USAC Now in Florida with
Two National Series
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
December 20, 2018
With the confirmation that USAC was adding Florida
dates to its 2019 NOS Energy Drink Midget National Championship
Series, at Ocala’s Bubba Raceway Park on Friday and Saturday,
February 8 & 9, 2019, that meant that two of its national series
will soon be racing in Florida during February Speedweeks. USAC’s
AMSOIL National Sprint Car Series had earlier been confirmed for
three race dates at Bubba Raceway Park the next week, the
traditional “Daytona 500 weekend,” on Thursday, Friday, and
Saturday, February 14-16, 2019.
The weekend before the Daytona 500 weekend was used
by the POWRi national midget series and the USCS Outlaw Thunder Tour
sprint cars at Bubba Raceway Park in February this year. Next year,
the USCS national sprint car tour will return, and will be paired
with the USAC national midgets on that weekend. USAC isn’t the only
one to have expanded its participation in February Speedweeks
racing, as USCS head honcho Pete Walton also recently announced a
10-race “Winter Heat Series,” with the first six races all in
Florida, beginning on January 25 at Hendry County Motorsports Park
in Clewiston. That race will make some Florida open wheel racing
history as the first national sprint car series race in South
Florida in nearly 27 years, since the World of Outlaws raced at
Charlotte County Speedway (Punta Gorda) on February 11, 1992.
The USAC national midgets will be racing in Florida
for the first time since 2013, when they raced for two nights on the
pavement at New Smyrna Speedway on February 10-11, 2013. The
significance of those races to Florida fans is that it marked Dave
Steele’s last two USAC national series races. There’s no pavement
this time around, as the USAC midgets are now a 100% dirt series, as
are the USAC national sprint cars. It’s no surprise that they are
going to Bubba Raceway Park’s dirt, as track co-owner Bubba Clem is
a big fan of dirt racing and sprint car racing, and makes a habit of
loading his February race schedule with national sprint car racing –
he’s got the All Star Circuit of Champions, USCS national sprint
tour, and USAC national sprint cars coming to race at his track.
That’s eight nights of February national sprint series racing (the
next closest – Volusia Speedway Park with five nights).
USAC has made a significant change to its national
racing schedule with a big expansion of its national midget series
schedule for 2019. With 34 events at 28 tracks in 11 different
states in 2019, this compares to last year’s announcement of a 2018
USAC national midget schedule of only 23 events. In comparison, the
2019 USAC Silver Crown Champ Car Series is only adding one race to
its total, compared to the 2018 series schedule.
Bryan
Clauson in the USAC winner's circle after his sprint car win at
Bubba Raceway Park February 18 2016.
I recently spoke to USAC Race Director Kirk
Spridgeon at Indy’s PRI Trade Show, with the USAC national series
schedules freshly printed and being viewed by drivers and car owners
nearby. As we discussed the 2019 schedules, he was feeling very
upbeat about the schedule release and that there was even more USAC
national series racing coming in 2019.
“Sprint cars – almost identical,” Kirk said about
the 44-race USAC national sprint car schedule. “We have the same
race tracks, the same amount of races, big event at Knoxville which
is two days and $20,000 to win, Grandview bumping up, just a few
places bumping up purses. We’re still working with Ocala [Bubba
Raceway Park] on building up the sprint car portion more, building
up those three days at Ocala.” You mean making it something bigger
than what it has been in the past? “Right. This will be our ninth
year straight at Ocala, so they’re kind of wanting to ramp it up a
little bit.
“Silver Crown – Phoenix obviously is out for ’19,
possibly back for ’20, we don’t know yet. Memphis is the addition on
the pavement side in March – new management trying to get things
going again, trying to get some new races there. And then Williams
Grove is back – from sprint car back to Silver Crown again, so they
swapped back. There is an idea of swapping year to year – we’ll see
how that goes from here. We did just Silver Crown in ’16, we did
both for a year [sprint cars and Silver Crown in ’17], and then we
did just sprint cars last year [2018]. And part of that too is that
we ran six straight nights of sprint cars – it was pretty brutal. So
now, it’ll be five races over six days, with Williams Grove in the
middle, as a Silver Crown race. Eastern Storm will be five sprint
car races and one Silver Crown race now. Twelve [2019 Silver Crown]
races – six pavement, six dirt. Last year was eleven.
Chase
Stockon at Bubba Raceway Park, USAC sprint car series, February 19,
2016.
“Kody Swanson is with a new team, Chris Windom with
a new team, there will be some others bouncing around. Justin Grant
is kind of the only guy, at least the only one in the top three,
that stayed firm with what he had. Guys from every corner of
motorsports would like to try it [Silver Crown], ’cause it’s cool
and different. I’d love to get Terry McCarl in one – we’ve talked a
lot. We thought we had Joey Saldana in, at least for the Indy mile,
but we haven’t gotten that done. I thought he was going to do it.
Those are guys that have been around a long time, and have watched
their dads race. When I was a kid, Silver Crown races were kind of
like an ‘All-Star game.’ You had Ron Shuman, Leland McFadden, and
you had Jeff Swindell and Dave Blaney, or Sammy … That really is the
next step for Silver Crown is for more of those characters, and more
of those ‘name drivers’ from ‘parts unknown’ to come in. We had
Stewart Friesen run Syracuse, and he was great. Guys like that –
from all different areas.”
Maybe Silver Crown once was like this, and can get
there again, to be that gathering place for champions and legends
from many different types and classes of racing? “Yeah – it’s
getting there. For sure, that’s the goal, for Silver Crown
especially,” according to Kirk.
Concerning the 2019 USAC national midget schedule:
“And then the midget schedule is up quite a bit, it’s grown
substantially. We added the two in Florida, we added Western World
as a midget race with the sprint cars in Arizona, we added
Placerville, California for two days before Turkey Night, we added
Granite City, Illinois and Pevely, Missouri will now be
doubleheaders with sprint cars in May. And then we added Haubstadt,
Indiana for a midget race in October; we added Joliet, Illinois is
on their Cup weekend at Chicagoland Speedway. And then we added one
to our Pennsylvania midget week to make it five races now, it was
four before. We’re going to add a rain date, because rain’s been
rough out there on us. All together, that’s 11 added, so that’s 34
now for the midget schedule – up from 23.”
Why such a huge increase in the number of USAC
national midget races? “A lot of interest in midget races,” Kirk
replied. “We had quite a few tracks interested in midget races that
we couldn’t make it work, also. Just midgets are popular right now,
kinda ride that wave. This will be the biggest midget schedule since
1997. Sprint car schedule these past two years has been pretty
similar – the past few years and 2019 are all similar size.
“We’ve had a lot of places ask for midget races
outside of our core there in Indiana, but obviously, this is a
pretty big jump in one year. Just a few years ago, there were not as
many places interested in midget races. It was honestly a struggle
to piece together a midget schedule, I would say four to five years
ago, we had maybe 20 races, and some of those were on the fence. For
whatever reason, the tide’s turned on that. It goes hand-in-hand
with the influx of competitors. Our midget car counts have been up
steadily the last few years, especially the full-time competitors.
For whatever reason, midgets are kinda riding a wave. Some of the
ones we weren’t able to work into that schedule, just too far out of
our circle, especially at this point when we’re trying to link two
or three races together for anything we add.”
I asked Kirk Spridgeon about what he is personally
looking forward to seeing in 2019? He mentioned this year’s title
fight for the USAC sprint car driver point title between Kevin
Thomas Jr. and Tyler Courtney (Courtney won it), which went down to
the last regular season race at Perris Auto Speedway, California
during the Oval Nationals.
“Especially how guys chased championships,” he said.
“It’s always a little bit different when you run for points. I think
we saw that this year, especially on the sprint car side, with
coming down to the last race and ending in a tie. It is an
interesting situation, we had two guys racing for the sprint car
championship this year that hadn’t won a championship before, hadn’t
really been close before. To watch people go through that, to watch
teams go through that over the course of the year as they’re trying
to chase that is always interesting, to me, because it is such a
test on people. It was pretty cool to see that, both of those guys.”
I got the sense that it was the intensity of the
competition in this year’s USAC national series racing, and the
display of high levels of racing skill, that Kirk Spridgeon
remembers as a highlight of the year for him. For him, this was
epitomized by that fight for the national sprint car driver
championship, and that is what he hopes to see again in USAC racing
in 2019.
2019 USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget Schedule:
http://www.usacracing.com/schedule-and-results/midget/national-midget-dirt
2019 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Series Schedule:
http://www.usacracing.com/schedule-and-results/sprint-car/amsoil-national-sprint
Conner Morrell’s Year as a Traveling Sprint Car
Racer
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
December 4, 2018
When a then 13-year-old Conner Morrell posed for a
photo in April 2017 with three other members of a small group of
dirt open wheel racers from Florida who had met with success racing
in USCS, they were dubbed “the Florida Young Guns of USCS Racing.”
Sixteen-year-old Danny Sams III, from Englewood, FL, the 2016 USCS
Sprint Car Rookie of the Year; and Conner, from Bradenton, FL, the
2017 USCS 600 Sprint Series driver champion in the mini-sprint
division are teammates.
“We’ve been driving together for a long time. We’re
good friends and we’re teammates,” Conner said in November 2017. His
USCS mini-sprint races that month were planned as his last in a
mini-sprint, and 2018 was planned as his year to move up to sprint
car racing, again in a car owned by his father, Allen Morrell. Now
14 years old, Conner has a full season of sprint car racing under
his belt, topped off by lining up on the front row and racing
against Tony Stewart (and holding his own against him) in a USCS
national sprint car feature race at Bubba Raceway Park last month.
He finished in eighth place in that race on November 9, which Tony
Stewart won.
Florida
Young Guns of USCS Racing, L to R, Conner Morrell, Danny Sams III,
Tyler Clem and Nicholas Snyder, 4-1-2017
Most of Conner’s first year of sprint car racing
took place outside of Florida, as the Morrell family team, along
with family team of Danny Sams, headed north to race during the
summer with the Great Lakes Super Sprints (GLSS), a Michigan-based
360 winged dirt sprint car series that ended its racing in
mid-October. In the 2018 final series points, Danny Sams was ranked
fourth and Conner Morrell was 13th in his number 28M car.
“His first race was at I-96 Speedway (Grand Rapids,
Michigan) in the spring this year,” Allen Morrell said. “We worked
out of the Amalie Motor Oil racing shop, out of Terry McMillen’s
shop in Elkhart, Indiana. That’s the reason we were able to do ‘the
Northern stuff.’ If it wasn’t for those guys, we wouldn’t have been
able to do it.” Conner’s year ended with the 2018 USCS finale at
Bubba Raceway Park on November 9 & 10, his first sprint car races in
Florida.
“Couldn’t pick a harder race to come to – there’s a
lot of good talent here tonight,” Allen added. “We were qualifying
for most of the [2018 GLSS] features and he got a couple of top five
finishes and a couple of top ten qualifying times. Up there, you
qualify not through heat races, you qualify on time. His best
feature, he got a fifth place, and Danny came in sixth (Hartford
Speedway, August 3). It was a good night for him, because he beat
his teammate. He did great at Thunderbird Raceway, in his heat he
was second (August 18). We had a great time – he did fantastic. Both
of them did fantastic, all year round. We had a lot of fun.”
Plans for 2019 racing aren’t finalized yet, other
than plans to race in February’s 360 Winternational Sprints at East
Bay Raceway. “After that, I’m sure we’ll run some USCS stuff,” Allen
said. “Where else? I don’t know.” The family teams did race with
USCS throughout the Southeast before 2018, and may possibly do the
same again in 2019. GLSS and NRA Sprint Invaders races in the
Midwest may also be added to their 2019 race schedule, to allow them
to remain with 360 racing.
Prior to Conner’s first GLSS sprint car race, “I
didn’t have any experience in a sprint car,” he said recently at
Bubba Raceway Park. Without prior sprint car practice laps, “I just
hopped in it and went, and I won my B-main first time and I did
pretty good this year. I came 13th in points out of 30-some cars,
which is pretty good for a first year in a sprint car and I improved
a whole bunch. Right now, I’m starting next to Tony Stewart on the
front row.”
Conner did miss “a couple of days of school” for the
traveling required to follow the GLSS tour, and once school was out,
racing took priority. “After the races were done, my dad flew back
[to Florida], me and Danny and ‘Big Danny’ stayed back and worked on
the cars, finished and went home on Monday, stayed there the rest of
the week, and whenever we had to go back up, we went back up and
finished whatever we needed for the next race. That’s basically what
we did for the whole summer, which was really fun.
Conner
Morrell at Bubba Raceway Park with USCS sprint car series,
11-9-2018.
“We didn’t want to run a lot of races, we just
wanted to get me and Danny a little bit more experience with some
really good cars, and we saw this series – GLSS. They only had like
28 races, which was pretty good for my first year.” The shorter warm
weather racing season in the far North also meant that the GLSS had
a compressed racing season, which pushed most of their racing into
the summer, perfect for an out-of stater like Conner who didn’t want
a series that raced far into the school year.
“We didn’t want to go overboard, and push me too
far,” Conner said. “We ran pretty much like all of them, except for
three at the beginning of the year, ’cause we had a little bit of
motor problems.” But his first time behind the wheel of a sprint car
was on his first race night. Whatever limited hot laps he got that
night were all he had to prepare for his first sprint car
competition laps.
Conner is a high school freshman at Braden River
High School in Bradenton. He would like to go to college to study
engineering, but “if NASCAR gets in the way, hopefully I’ll make it
to NASCAR,” which he thinks could change his plans for college. He
has the advantage of a more-experienced teammate by teaming with
Danny Sams, who is two years older and two years further along in
his progression through the open wheel racing ranks.
Conner’s goal for next year is “to win a race,
hopefully come top five in points, and finish every race without
wrecking. I almost got a heat race win; I won a B-main.” Since he’s
won a USCS mini-sprint feature previously, getting a sprint car
feature win certainly seems like an attainable goal for Conner
Morrell in 2019.
December Races Decide Florida’s Sprint Car Champs
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
November 28, 2018
The driver championships for all three of Florida’s
sprint car championships – the BG Products Southern Sprintcar
Shootout Series, the Top Gun Sprint Series, and the East Bay Sprints
track champion (limited sprints) – will be decided during upcoming
races in the month of December. Two races on Saturday, December 8 at
East Bay Raceway Park and 4-17 Southern Speedway will also be the
last sprint car races nationwide.
The Southern Sprintcar driver champion, racing in a
series that this year consisted of all pavement races with wings,
will be decided with a 40-lap feature race on Saturday, December 8
at 4-17 Southern Speedway in Punta Gorda. The championship will be
decided by two drivers, both of whom have already earned multiple
TBARA championships: Shane Butler (2002, 2010 and 2014) and Johnny
Gilbertson (2011 and 2012). Neither has garnered a Southern
Sprintcar series championship. Going into the final race, Gilbertson
has a 13-point lead over Butler, and also has the advantage of
having gone into the last race of the season at Punta Gorda in a
points showdown once previously, and coming out the champion (2012
with the TBARA). Butler’s advantage: he’s been very fast this year
and consistently ends his night in the winner’s circle, which he has
done six times this year in series competition, compared to
Gilbertson’s two wins. There have also been some on-track meetings
this year between the two fierce competitors.
Johnny
Gilbertson, left; and Shane Butler, center; (with Dylan Reynolds) at
a recent Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series race on 9-29-2018.
The Top Gun Sprint Series will hold the Inaugural
Don Rehm Classic at East Bay Raceway Park this Saturday, December 1,
honoring a sprint car racer, sprint car racing promoter, Top Gun
series founder and owner, and small business owner who worked
tirelessly to promote and build Florida sprint car racing. The race
will be a 25-lap non-wing race sponsored by Boomtrux.com, which is
owned by Carlton Calfee, a former Florida sprint car racer and close
friend of Don Rehm. This last race of the 2018 season will pay
$2,000 to win. Although the series website has not updated their
point listing, Hayden Campbell is the likely current point leader,
and the only series driver to have finished in the top three in each
of the past three feature races. Hayden’s 2018 season win total sits
at eight wins (seven with Top Gun) after his most recent win on
October 20 at East Bay Raceway Park. His consistency may well reward
him with his first Top Gun series driver championship when
Saturday’s race is done.
East Bay Sprints, the East Bay Raceway sprint car
track championship using limited 360 cubic inch engines, will
conclude their season on Saturday, December 8 at the Gibsonton
one-third mile dirt oval. Joe Zuczek has a comfortable point lead
going into this race, with 381 points over second-place Dylan
Colding with 307 points and third-place Frank Beck with 297 points.
Billy Boyd leads in 2018 feature wins with three followed by Dylan
Colding with two wins.
Danny Smith: 44 Years of Winning … and Counting
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
November 20, 2018
His friendship with legendary Florida sprint car
owner Jack Nowling is something that has lasted decades. Danny Smith
has been coming to Florida for just as long, staying at “Jack’s
Place,” down at the end of a dead-end road in the working-class town
of Gibsonton. It’s a town that’s the winter home of the carnies, as
well as the home of East Bay Raceway Park and Nowling’s home, with
its “Cracker House,” a place where racers like Danny gather each
February for East Bay’s sprint car Winternationals. Danny has been
coming there for so long, each February and many other months of the
year, that’s he’s practically a Floridian (even though he actually
lives in Ohio).
Danny Smith was back in Florida in mid-November, to
see his Florida friends and to race at Ocala’s Bubba Raceway Park
for the last weekend of USCS national sprint car series racing, also
his last weekend of racing in 2018. Except for those few weekends of
the Winternationals and racing with the USCS series in Florida and a
few other states, Danny spends the rest of the year racing in Ohio.
Atomic Speedway in southern Ohio is his home track. He was the
sprint car track champion there this year, his third consecutive
year as track champion. It was also his 44th consecutive year with a
sprint car feature win. He’s 61 years old now – do the math and
that’ll tell you that he was a teenager when that annual tradition
of winning began.
Danny
Smith in his car painted as a tribute to Jack Nowling's Quickload
team car February 2015.
And it is showing no signs of ending in the
foreseeable future. Danny Smith intends to be back in Gibsonton in
February 2019 to start another year of sprint car racing. He’ll be
back at East Bay, and he’ll be back at Atomic, and all those other
tracks that he likes and where his fans like watching him throw
dirt.
And those 44 years of winning – it makes him feel
good. “It’s good, it’s a feather in your cap. Not many people that
can say that, so ... I’ve been blessed to always be in some pretty
good equipment over the years, and winning’s what it’s all about, so
that makes it a lot more fun.” He’s been racing his own equipment
for “the last 15 years, plus maybe a few wins in the years before
that. About 15 years in my own car.” Track championships earned in
his career? “I don’t know, but …”
It’s more than a dozen, probably less than two
dozen. It’s safe to say there are a lot of them.
“I know I’ve got six at Chillicothe [Atomic
Speedway], one at Lawrenceburg, one in Australia, Champaign,
Illinois, and Skyline a couple of times, and an All Star
championship – owner’s. Car owner’s, yeah. I missed the driver’s
[championship] by two points in 2007. Around a dozen, probably. Next
year? Probably just pick and choose, do what we’ve been doin’. Just
go where we think we can have the most fun and win a race now and
then.”
At Bubba Raceway Park on Friday for the first night
of two with Pete Walton’s USCS 360 sprint car series, he described
the odd-shaped three-eighths mile surface as “a tough little track
to get around. I’ve been coming here since ’78-ish, on and off. Best
I’ve run is second – it’d be nice to get a win here, to add to my
list. I think we have 109 different tracks that we’ve won at
(including East Bay and Jacksonville in Florida).”
His time racing at Ocala goes back to when it was
Ocala Speedway and it was dirt, before it was covered with asphalt,
and before it then went back to dirt. The guys racing had longer
hair, and the track had less banking. Danny’s seen it all in the
world of sprint car racing in those decades, including one pavement
race win that will forever tie him to Florida racing history: he was
the co-winning driver of the Little 500 in 1979, the year that a
Florida sprint car driver (Zephyrhills legend Wayne Reutimann)
finally, after many Floridians came close, won the “Lil’ Five” for
the first time.
About Atomic Speedway: “Yeah, home town track, suits
my style, always loved the place even before I married Steph and
moved over there. So, it’s always been one of my favorite tracks.
Won some All Star races there, a lot of weekly shows. It’s one of
the ‘fun tracks.’ It’d be my favorite track – yeah.”
Danny
Smith at Bubba Raceway Park, Ocala, November 9, 2018.
Can retirement be in the near future, or will he
strive to be the “ageless racer,” with many more years left? “Oh, I
don’t know,” Danny replied. “We’ll just take it a year at a time and
see how it goes, you know. As long as I can stay healthy, it’s just
going to depend on the desire, and how long you want to do it. As
long as you can be competitive and win a race now and then, I’ll
keep going and … sky’s the limit.”
Could he find happiness with retired life – a
recliner to relax in, with a TV remote in one hand and a cold drink
in the other? “Ahh – yeah, that’s my life now, just add in a few
races,” Danny said, laughing. “We’ll see – not right now, no.
Definitely not next year. You know, I’ve thought about that a lot in
the last year or two and people want me to go work for them, and I’m
sick of workin’ on ’em. I’m sick of all that stuff, but still, the
driving part is the part you enjoy and it makes it fun.
“There’s nobody that’s going to tell me when I have
to quit, it’s just gonna be up to me and when that day comes, I’ll
know it, and everybody else will too. I wouldn’t mind the recliner
right now, with the remote … and some racing!”
Notes from the
Frank Riddle Memorial Race at Citrus County Speedway
Story and Photos
by Richard Golardi
November 13,
2018
Car owner Lenny Puglio arrived
with a new Hurricane chassis sprint car, intended to be his winged
pavement car for driver Troy DeCaire. With its first race on
Saturday at Citrus County Speedway for the 8th annual
Frank Riddle Memorial sprint car race, it was the second new sprint
car that he debuted this season. Lenny arrived at Anderson Speedway
earlier this year with a new car designed for non-wing racing and
the Little 500.
John
Inman and family, Frank Riddle Memorial race winner, Saturday,
November 10, 2018.
Still No. 91, the new Hurricane
chassis had a bright red body (instead of the usual black) and it
was new to Troy DeCaire, who took his first laps in the car on
Saturday. In his heat race, while fighting for position with the No.
18 car of Shane Butler, he reached for his brake bias adjuster, only
to discover that it was mounted differently than what he was used
to. After turning the knob, a surprise was waiting for him when he
braked for the next corner: he had just turned the brake bias in the
opposite direction than the one he desired. It produced a tense
on-track moment for the two all-out racers, but all was OK later in
the pits when Troy offered Shane his explanation of what happened.
They smiled, shook hands, and hugged it out.
DeCaire took to the quarter-mile
track and garnered a second place finish in both his heat race and
the 40-lap feature race, which was won by the 2017 BG Products
Southern Sprintcar champion, John Inman. It was Inman’s first
feature win of the year, a year in which he also made his rookie
start in the Little 500 and ran a partial schedule of races in
Florida. Leading every lap of the feature, it was John Inman’s first
victory in the Frank Riddle Memorial, and he shared the winner’s
circle with his wife Amanda and his young son. Series officials took
tire samples from all top three finishers upon the completion of the
feature.
Prior to the night’s main event,
Shane Butler accepted the come from the back challenge, to attempt
to win the feature from the back of the field for a $500 bonus from
BG Products. The feature race started with a multi-car crash on lap
2 that sent Sport Allen’s car across the track and into the turn two
tire barrier. He was uninjured. The cars of Keith Butler and Johnny
Gilbertson got locked together while racing down the front straight
a few laps later, and Butler continued without a front wing to end
the race in fourth place. DeCaire pressured leader Inman, but never
was able to make a pass, as Inman always kept low in the turns and
seemed to have better power coming out of them. He was second to
Inman, with Shane Butler in third.
Riddle
brothers, Frank Riddle Memorial Sprint Car Race, Citrus County
Speedway, Saturday, November 10, 2018.
Shane’s top three finish allowed
him to overtake Johnny Gilbertson in the Southern Sprintcar point
race by 20 points with two races remaining: Saturday the 17th
at Showtime Speedway and the season finale at 4-17 Southern Speedway
in Punta Gorda on Saturday, December 8. Gilbertson did clinch a
driver championship at that Southwest Florida track previously, back
in 2012 when it was called Punta Gorda Speedway and the pavement
sanctioning body was the TBARA.
In the winner’s circle, Inman
gave the credit to his engine builder for the horsepower on display
in the feature race. “I’ve got to thank everyone that stands behind
me,” he said. “Phil Gressman really put a motor on this thing – wow!
It could have went faster. It was awesome to run with the 91 and the
18 there at the end of the race.”
His share of the purse was
$2,300, with $800 of that coming from Ronnie Van Den Brink of
Mammoth Machines Racing. Ronnie told me that he will be entering a
car for driver Carlie Yent in the near future, one that will have
the No. 63 that Carlie used earlier this year. Carlie was injured
(not seriously) in a Little 500 qualifying crash and missed the
classic race last May, and has not raced in a series feature since
then.
After race day, news from the
Southern Sprintcar series confirmed that the 9th annual
Frank Riddle Memorial Race will be held on Saturday, November 9,
2019, again at Citrus County Speedway. It is hoped that the DAARA
sprint car division will also return for a “Vintage Sprint Car
Classic” that same night, as was done previously at both Desoto
Speedway and Citrus County Speedway. A proposal was made to the
organizers of the Golden Gate Speedway Reunion to hold their annual
reunion on the same weekend as these “sprint car nostalgia” races.
Some out-of-area racers travel to Florida for the reunion, and also
prefer to race in the vintage sprint car race, if held on that same
weekend. At the time that this story was sent to be published, a
reply had not been received from the organizers of the reunion, but
the proposal appears to be gaining support.
Video of the Frank Riddle
Memorial heat races and offer to the heat race winners to take the
BG Products come from the back challenge, November 10, 2018:
https://youtu.be/PEYUpeUDQ8c
Video of the Frank Riddle
Memorial 40-lap feature race held at Citrus County Speedway on
Saturday, November 10, 2018:
https://youtu.be/ILScTtwO7Vs
Frank Riddle Memorial Returns to Citrus County
Speedway on Saturday
Story by Richard Golardi
November 7, 2018
The Frank Riddle Memorial, which is scheduled for
its eighth annual edition this Saturday at Citrus County Speedway,
is being held to honor a man who is a sprint car racing icon and a
Florida racing legend. This memorial race was held at Desoto
Speedway three times previously, in 2007, 2008 and 2014; and at
Showtime Speedway once in 2016; and also at Citrus County Speedway
in 2013, 2015, and 2017.
Who is Frank Riddle, you may ask? He was a family
man, a working man, a businessman, and a racer. Frank Riddle was
elected to the Little 500 Hall of Fame in 1996, and also the
National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2010. This last honor came three
years after he died in 2007, at age 78.
Frank
Riddle at Golden Gate Speedway in the '80s, Bobby Day Photo
Frank is known for winning the Little 500 twice in
the 1980s when he was in his mid-50s. The Little 500 is known
worldwide as one of the most prestigious and grueling auto races. It
is a test of both man and machine. Frank had always wanted to race
and win in the Midwest. In his first attempt at the Little 500 in
1978, he started fifth and finished in fourth place, earning Rookie
of the Year. In just his fourth try in 1984, he qualified on the
pole and won the 500-lap race. He came back the next year and
repeated the same feat, this time at age 56. In his first five
attempts through the 1980s, he was the fastest qualifier each time.
In his career at Anderson Speedway, he had sixteen starts in the
Little 500, with two wins, five top ten finishes, and seven top five
starting positions.
Frank Riddle’s status as a fierce and talented race
car driver was initially earned in Florida while competing at tracks
around the Tampa Bay area. These tracks included Phillips Field,
Golden Gate Speedway, and the half mile dirt oval at the Florida
State Fairgrounds. Early in his career, Frank raced stock cars,
modifieds, and supermodifieds, which ran with wings back in the
1960s, well before their use in Formula 1 and Indy car racing. He
would run two or three supermodified races a week, frequently ending
his night in the Winner’s Circle. During this time, Frank also raced
all over Florida, from the Southeast coast to Pensacola, and also in
the Deep South. Some of the races would be as long as 300 laps, and
Frank would show his expertise at taking care of his car and making
it to the checkered flag.
When sprint cars replaced the modifieds at Golden
Gate Speedway in 1969, car owners sought out Frank to drive their
car, as he had already shown his abilities at “the Gate” and in IMCA
sprint car races at the Florida State Fair dirt track. When the
Tampa Bay Area Racing Association was formed, Frank was a regular
sprint car competitor on both the dirt and pavement with his fellow
Bay area racers. He had 95 lifetime Florida sprint car feature wins
during his years of racing in the Sunshine State, which places him
third on the overall winners list, behind only Wayne Reutimann with
97 wins and Dave Steele with 100 wins.
Frank
Riddle's plaque awarded for the 1980 USAC Rookie of the Year title,
sprint car division, Richard Golardi photo
Tall and lanky, Frank’s friends called him “Bones.”
During the 1980 season, he ran the USAC National Sprint Car Series
in the blue and yellow number 11 J.W. Hunt Produce cars, and earned
the Rookie of the Year title at 51 years old. At that time, it made
him the oldest ever USAC Rookie of the Year.
A popular story from Frank’s career involved a
frightening crash and fire at Anderson Speedway in 1993. His car
caught fire after coming to rest in turn one, where a fan crawled
under the fence and ran to the car to tell Frank, who appeared to be
stunned from the crash, that he was on fire, and to get out. Frank
would meet with the fan when he returned to Anderson to race,
remembering the good deed for many years after that fateful day.
After he retired from his job as a CSX railroad engineer in 1987, he
spent his time farming when he wasn’t at the track.
After starting his racing career in 1948 and getting
his first feature race win on March 3, 1951 at Phillips Field, Frank
Riddle racked up 250 feature wins over the next 49 years. His wife,
Margaret, and his family, and a small farm in Thonotosassa became
his life after he retired from racing in 1997 at age 68. That year
was his last trip to Anderson to drive in the Little 500. To this
day, he is credited with being one of the first racers from Florida
to make an annual trek to Central Indiana each year to race in the
Little 500. Each year, the highest finishing Floridian at the Little
500 earns the Frank Riddle Award. This is why the Southern Sprintcar
Shootout Series and Citrus County Speedway are honoring Frank Riddle
on Saturday, naming the race the “Frank Riddle Memorial”.
The Southern Sprintcar series has announced that the
Frank Riddle Memorial this year will pay the winner of the feature
race $2,300; with an additional $500 available to the winner if they
accept the “come from the rear challenge.” This bonus from series
sponsor BG Products is available to the heat race winners who agree
to start from the rear of the field in the 40-lap feature race. In a
recent series race at Showtime Speedway, Shane Butler accepted this
challenge and then won the feature race and the bonus. Shane will be
one of the favorites to win on Saturday, as will his brother Keith
in the number 7 entry owned by Lee Sisson. Other drivers to watch
will be Johnny Gilbertson in the number 22 car out of the Steele
Performance race shop in Tampa, and two drivers who also have series
feature wins this year, Tommy Nichols in the number 55, and Ray
Bragg in the number 66 car.
With only three races remaining in the series
schedule this year, the driver point race is a close one. Two
drivers appear to be positioned to have the best chance to win their
first Southern Sprintcar series title, and they are both former
TBARA champions: Shane Butler and Johnny Gilbertson. Gilbertson (two
wins in 2018) has a two-point lead over Butler (five wins) going
into Saturday’s race, the closest point race in the three year
history of the series.
The Frank Riddle Memorial Race,
Race Winner History
1) 9/29/2007, Desoto Speedway, Winner - Dave Steele
2) 9/27/2008, Desoto Speedway, Winner - Troy DeCaire
3) 10/19/2013, Citrus County Speedway, Winner - Joey Aguilar
4) 10/18/2014, Desoto Speedway, Winner - Shane Butler
5) 10/3/2015, Citrus County Speedway, Winner - Jason Kimball
6) 10/29/2016, Showtime Speedway, Winner - Dave Steele
7) 10/14/2017, Citrus County Speedway, Winner – Mickey Kempgens
Next running of The Frank Riddle Memorial is at Citrus County
Speedway on Saturday, November 10, 2018.
(NOTE: the race was not run from 2009 to 2012.)
“Little 500
Warmup Race” is Back in Florida in 2019
Story and Photos
by Richard Golardi
October 12, 2018
BG Products Southern Sprintcar
Shootout Series president Rick Day confirmed late Thursday that the
series would revive a race that had been a traditional part of
Florida pavement sprint car racing for many years, the “Little 500
Warmup Race.” This non-wing race will be held in late April, prior
to the Memorial Day weekend classic race. The race will take place
at Showtime Speedway in Pinellas Park, Florida on Saturday, April
27, 2019, four weeks prior to the Little 500 at Anderson Speedway,
Indiana, which is set for Saturday, May 25, 2019.
Non-wing
race at Showtime Speedway in April 2016
This “warmup race” will be the
only non-wing race currently planned for the 2019 Southern Sprintcar
season, and will be a regular season, points-paying race in the
series. In the 2017 and 2018 series races, a decision was made to
run all the races with wings. There has not been a non-wing race in
the series since 2016. This was done to satisfy the race fans, who
wanted the higher speeds and excitement that racing with wings
produced, as Rick Day stated previously.
“It will be a non-wing race, a
40-lap deal,” Rick Day said. “It’s a tradition to help our guys get
ready to go hopefully dominate like they used to, in the old days.”
When asked if any of the tentative dates listed in the just-released
2019 race schedule might be an additional non-wing race, Day
replied, “As of right now, no. The only non-wing race we have
planned is the April 27th race.” And this race is a
non-wing race so as to help Floridians get non-wing competition laps
at a track that has similarities to Anderson Speedway, and help them
prepare for the Little 500?
Sport
Allen at a Showtime Speedway race in May 2014.
“Yes, right,” Rick Day said.
“Specifically for the Little 500 – for the Florida drivers. It’s a
tradition [in Florida], yes. My father was best friends with David
Smith and Robert Smith and worked on their cars. I was five or six
years old, and I remember him going to the races with David Smith,
and then to the Little 500 for years. That was always a tradition,
and my dad always said that that’s probably one of the biggest and
best races he’s ever been to as a sprint car fan. He worked on the
cars – so for me it’s a tradition and a family thing, the whole nine
yards. I have never gone, but my dad always went. I have never been
to the Little 500. I want to go, and I never made it, but I
definitely want to go. I want to try and go next year.”
Day confirmed that the series
intends to make this an annual event held in late April at Showtime,
just a single non-wing race event held a month prior to the Little
500, so that all teams will have almost a full month to repair any
crash damage before leaving for Anderson. This year, seven cars and
drivers from Florida arrived in Anderson, and six made the field for
the 500-lap race on May 26. The qualifying results were less than
satisfying, as four of the six cars started in the last two rows.
In the past, Florida tracks and
promoters made an effort to schedule one or more non-wing pavement
sprint car races in the weeks prior to the Little 500. Many of the
Little 500 Warmup races were also won by drivers who were Little 500
winners, such as when Frank Riddle won the Little 500 in 1984 and
1985, and then won the 1986 Little 500 Warmup race at Citrus County
Speedway on May 10. Drivers from this time also had weekly pavement
sprint car racing at Golden Gate Speedway during the 1970s. Then the
Little 500 Warmup race and the track at Golden Gate both disappeared
from Florida.
That’s about to change with the
return of the Little 500 Warmup. “We don’t run that many non-wing
races down here,” Rick Day said, “so this gives them at least one
race to prepare and shake cars down.”
The Florida Superspeedway That Never Happened
(Fortunately)
Story by Richard Golardi
October 11, 2018
The Florida International Motor Speedway was planned
to be built in Fort Walton Beach, Florida, which is about halfway
between Panama City and Pensacola in the western Panhandle. Opening
in October 1972, it was to have a 2 ½ mile superspeedway that
mirrored the recently built Pocono Raceway, with a triangular shape
and three turns. It was also going to have a road course, drag
strip, and of interest to Florida sprint car and short track racers,
a small oval, likely a half-mile or three-quarter mile asphalt oval.
To show off their meticulous planning, the track investors announced
in early December 1970 that they had signed long-term agreements
with USAC and the International Hot Rod Association (IHRA) for four
major annual events: a 500-mile USAC Indy car race, a 500-mile USAC
stock car race, and Spring and Fall IHRA three-day national drag
racing events.
They even had some big names at the press conference
that day in Fort Walton Beach. Tony Hulman, president and owner of
Indianapolis Motor Speedway, was there, as well as race car drivers
LeeRoy Yarbrough and Jim McElreath. They had everything going for
them – the right people, the right circumstances, and the right
location, along “the Miracle Strip,” which is between Pensacola and
Panama City.
Tony Hulman seemed especially happy about the
project, and said that he thought there wasn’t a better spot in the
world to build the track. Of course, the project had its critics,
whose major concern seemed to be that the USAC Indy car series
didn’t need a fourth 500-mile race on the schedule so soon after the
second 500-miler was added (Ontario Motor Speedway, California in
1970), followed by the third (at Pocono Raceway, Pennsylvania in
1971). The investors were all Northwest Florida businessmen, and
they seemed capable of handling any criticism or roadblocks they
might encounter. It seemed a sure bet to succeed.
Then they encountered some problems. A referendum in
Santa Rosa County in November 1971 was going to allow the voters to
decide if they wanted to back revenue bonds to build the track. An
interest in the speedway was sold to an investment group, and an
effort was made to try to move the track to Alabama, which would be
negated by a clause in the contracts with USAC and IHRA that the
track be located in Northwest Florida. The effort to build the track
in Santa Rosa County was abandoned, the referendum never went on the
county ballot, and everything just seemed to go downhill from there,
including the effort to move it to Alabama. The track was never
built.
Maybe that was a good thing – especially with what
happened later along that part of the coast of Florida, the
Panhandle. Add this: the fact that too many race tracks were built
or renovated during the track building boom of the late 1960s and
early ’70s. Ontario Motor Speedway, Langhorne Speedway, and others
later disappeared, and the Indy cars later left Pocono and Michigan
International Speedway, two tracks built during this time. Indy car
owners, drivers, and fans had a change of heart about racing at big,
fast ovals and those races were limited to just a few each year.
Four 500-mile races each year wouldn’t have lasted for long. And
that location near Fort Walton Beach, with no major cities nearby,
might have had a big struggle with filling up the 60,000 seats at
the track.
At the time the track was in the planning stages,
there hadn’t been a major hurricane (Cat. 3 or higher) that had made
landfall in the Panhandle since 1950. The planners just weren’t
concerned about hurricanes. Why would they be concerned? It seemed
to be a non-issue. Why worry the investors or the voters who needed
to vote for the bonds? If the track had opened in 1972, here’s what
they would have faced: the first in a string of major hurricanes to
make landfall in the Panhandle arrived in 1975, Hurricane Eloise.
Here’s what would have happened to the track: major damage to
structures such as light poles, buildings and grandstands (only
three years after they were built), because the hurricane struck
Fort Walton Beach with a direct hit and had devastating effect.
But Hurricane Eloise was just the beginning. Then
came Opal in 1995, another devastating major hurricane that struck
close to Pensacola; and Ivan in 2004, another Cat. 3 major hurricane
with landfall just west of Pensacola; and Dennis in 2005, again a
major hurricane, and again with a landfall near Pensacola in the
western part of the Florida Panhandle. Every one of these four major
hurricanes caused major damage after striking the western part of
the Panhandle, right where the Florida International Motor Speedway
would have been built.
Maybe that’s a fortunate thing that it wasn’t built.
The track would have faced a lot of problems, and being in a place
that was about to get struck by one major hurricane after another
wouldn’t have been helpful to its ability to succeed. In addition,
USAC later left sanctioning stock car racing, and Indy car racing
too, after the mid-’90s. The track’s success was heavily tied to the
success of these two USAC series. Hoping that it could be “the
South’s Greatest Auto Racing Spectacle” wasn’t enough. It needed a
suitable location safe from major catastrophes too, and the western
half of Florida’s Panhandle wasn’t that place. There’s no way to
know if the track, if it had been built, would have survived after
getting pulverized by the first of the hurricanes in 1975, or to
know if the investors would have bailed out later after the big
hurricanes starting arriving with chilling frequency. Perhaps things
worked out for the best …
To bring this story up to the present day,
yesterday’s latest in the list of major hurricanes to make landfall
in the western half of Florida’s Panhandle (just barely in the
western half), and the first Cat. 4, was named Michael. It caused
varying degrees of damage to some of the nearby auto race tracks:
Possible Moderate Damage: Crisp Motorsports Park
(aka Watermelon Capital Speedway), Cordele, Georgia;
Possible Minimal or No Damage: Southern Raceway, Milton, Florida
(track came through storm in awesome fashion, they stated), and Five
Flags Speedway, Pensacola, Florida (which became a staging area for
power company work trucks)
With no tracks located in the central Florida
Panhandle area, or in the Tallahassee / East Panhandle area, there
is only one track in South Georgia which might have significant
damage done by Cat. 1 winds.
Notes from Showtime Speedway, September 29, 2018
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
October 3, 2018
• With four pavement sprint car races in the South
and Midwest during October, and only one of them in Florida, some of
Florida’s pavement sprint car racers are heading out of state to
participate in two of those races. Shane Butler is going to start
the mini-exodus this week by heading to Anderson Speedway in Indiana
to race in the Tony Elliott Classic, a 125-lap non-wing race this
Saturday, October 6. The car he will drive, the Chuck Castor and
Buddy Lowther owned black No. 3 car, is the same car that he drove
in the Little 500 in Anderson on May 26. After the visit by the BG
Products Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series to New Smyrna Speedway
on Saturday, October 13, the last of the four races will be at Baer
Field Motorsports Park, Indiana on October 20, and Mobile
International Speedway in Alabama on Saturday, October 27. The story
leading up to this Alabama race goes back to early this year, with
the announcement by Mobile that they (specifically the father/son
owner/promoter team of Charlie and Kody Lyons) would have a
track-run winged pavement sprint car series this year, which seemed
odd due to the severely limited number of pavement sprint car racers
based in the deep South states. That’s an area that has had its
sprint car racing heavily weighted toward the dark (dirt) side. The
Lyons have tried to recruit teams and drivers from Florida to come
to Mobile (a 1,070 mile round-trip from Tampa) to race in their
series, so far mostly unsuccessful. Charlie and Kody Lyons then
showed up at Showtime Speedway last Saturday, the day of a Southern
Sprintcar race, to try to stir up interest in their season-ending
sprint car race. This time, it appears likely that they will be
successful in convincing Floridians to go to Mobile, mainly due to
one reason – a guaranteed $5,000 first place prize. In addition, the
engines in use in Florida, the “TBARA 22-degree 360 c.i. engine,”
are legal for Mobile. I was told that at least one Midwest racer
inquired about a different variety of 360 engine, used in USAC
sprint car racing up north, and was told that this engine is not
legal for Mobile. This increases the likelihood that a racer from
Florida, where the drivers have a great deal more pavement racing
experience (but haven’t won at Mobile yet this year), will be a
winner on October 27.

Shane Butler, feature race winner, Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series,
Showtime Speedway, Pinellas Park, FL, Saturday, September 29, 2018
Top Three Finishers: (1) Shane Butler, center; (2) Johnny Gilbertson, left;
(3) Dylan Reynolds, right Richard Golardi photo
• After finishing first and second in both their heat race and the feature
race at the prior series race at New Smyrna on August 25, brothers Shane and
Keith Butler seemed destined to renew their rivalry at the front again at
the next race. With Keith starting fourth in last Saturday’s race at
Showtime, and Shane starting at the rear of the field (by way of winning a
heat race, and taking the “come from the rear challenge” to earn a $500
bonus with a feature win), followed by Shane’s methodical drive through the
field to second place behind his brother, who was in Lee Sisson’s No. 7 car
(a new ride for Keith this year), the critical point of the race was reached
– Shane would have to pass his brother to win. On the last feature race lap,
both brothers moved toward the same piece of the Showtime Speedway back
stretch asphalt, bumped, and only one reached the last turn and passed under
the checkered flag – younger brother Shane. With both cars stopped on the
front stretch, Shane leaned into the cockpit of his brother’s car to offer
his apology, as he didn’t want to win the race by a bump that spun out his
brother’s car and dropped Keith to a sixth place finish. Keith’s reply: “I
understand.”
Dude
Teate (left) and Mac Steele at Showtime Speedway, 9-29-2018
• The most significant reunion of Saturday’s race was the one with
car owner Mac Steele and driver Dude Teate, who teamed up to win the
TBARA championship in 1999. Although they did race together in later
years, that was their only championship year together. Dude’s later
TBARA driver championships (2003 and 2004) were earned behind the
wheel of George Rudolph’s sprint car. Mac “bought three new skins
(tires)” for his No. 2 Beast chassis sprint car, had recently
renovated and wrenched on the car and motor, and as a final step,
put Dude in the seat for Saturday’s race, their first race together
in 16 years. “That is a long time. Sixteen years ago. It feels great
… so far,” Dude exclaimed on Saturday. “He’ll tell you more after
the feature,” Mac added (they had a fifth place feature finish).
“I’m happy to be back out, period,” Dude stated. He was back racing
in the series after sitting out for a while without a ride. “Dude’s
a professional,” Mac stated with a smile, as driver, owner and crew
laughed and joked in their trailer, at ease being back together at
the track. Next stop – New Smyrna Speedway, a place where Dude won
the feature when he last raced there.
• Sixteen-year-old Steven Hollinger, son of Southern Sprintcar
owner/driver Rex Hollinger, had his most impressive open wheel race
night at Showtime on Saturday when he raced in his third TQ midget
feature race. In his prior two feature race starts, both at 4-17
Southern Speedway, his best feature race finish was a third place.
In Saturday’s 20-lap “Florida Outlaw midget” feature race, he led
the first eight laps and impressed the fans and his fellow TQ midget
racers with a second place finish, and now seems to be on the verge
of getting his first open wheel racing feature race win in the near
future. Most of Steven’s prior racing experience was in Space Coast
area go kart racing.
• Phil Haddad returned to pavement sprint car action with his No. 42
car, which arrived at Showtime with new vinyl numbers but lacking a
primary sponsor. He had current Southern Sprintcar driver champion
John Inman as his crew chief on Saturday, who seemed to be hinting a
return to racing his own sprint car in the near future.
• With four series races remaining, which include the season finale
on December 8, a close race for the 2018 Southern Sprintcar driver
championship appears to be happening between two drivers: Johnny
Gilbertson, who is in first place with 530 points and two wins, and
Shane Butler in second place (four wins), only eight points behind
Gilbertson. Both drivers have multiple TBARA driver championships.
• An upcoming video on the Florida Open Wheel channel, recorded at
the track on Saturday, will involve each of the Butler family
racers. They each brought a helmet to the pits on Saturday, and told
the story of how that helmet played an important part in their
racing careers, along with showing their “old school helmet,” and
the helmet they wore in Saturday’s race.
Video of feature race from Showtime Speedway,
Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series, Saturday, September 29, 2018:
https://youtu.be/ImGMyvVgU7s
Florida Open Wheel channel (for other videos from
Saturday at Showtime Speedway):
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSdPdgmUo6WfkfR6Eo__QBA
The Lost TBARA Champion
Story by Richard Golardi
September 19, 2018
Larry
Brazil in the winner's circle.
It was “Florida’s sprint car series” – the Tampa Bay
Area Racing Association (TBARA).
Through the 1960s and ’70s, it was a group that had
a habit of forming, fading away, and then reforming. During this
time, it wasn’t always solely organizing and promoting sprint car
racing (“TBARA early model division” stock cars raced at Golden Gate
Speedway and Winter Haven Speedway) – that came later. After the
first sprint car champion of Florida’s modern era (1969 to present
day) was crowned, which happened when Wayne Reutimann won the 1969
Golden Gate Speedway sprint car track championship, the TBARA later
changed to exclusively promoting and sanctioning sprint car racing.
When the Tampa Tribune had articles in December that
reviewed the year in sprint car racing, which was done up until the
1990s, or named a Driver of the Year, which was done up to 1992,
they sometimes printed a list of “TBARA Point Champions.” This list
was included in a year-end article in 1990 (Source: Tampa Tribune,
“Rodriguez Caps Sprint Season with TBARA Championship,” December 7,
1990) that reviewed Sam Rodriguez’s domination of the 1990 TBARA
racing season. This list showed the 1973 and 1974 TBARA champions,
followed by a gap of no named champions from 1975 to 1981, and then
resumed with a listing of the TBARA driver champions from 1982 and
later (the last TBARA champion was Shane Butler, 2014 champion).
This list of TBARA champions was reprinted in other
publications, and also uploaded to the official TBARA website, which
was active until 2015. The TBARA website also showed (in 2015 and
earlier years) the champions from those same years as the December
7, 1990 Tampa Tribune article, with no champions listed for the
years 1975 to 1981, and then resuming the listing of driver
champions from 1982 onward.
Unfortunately, this widely circulated list failed to
recognize that a TBARA driver champion was named in 1981, and in
addition, this was the only TBARA championship that this driver won
during his career. This lost TBARA champion, whose championship
achievement that year seemed to have disappeared from Florida’s
sprint car racing history, and who won the 1981 TBARA driver
championship with six series feature race wins, was Larry Brazil
(Source: Tampa Tribune, “Brazil the Champion of Racing Association,”
December 3, 1981).
This was Brazil’s only TBARA driver championship,
but was only one of the sprint car driver championships that he won
(he was Golden Gate Speedway sprint car track champion in 1973, 1974
and 1976 to 1978). I can’t offer an explanation for why he was left
off the list of champions, other than the tendency for reporters,
statisticians, and promoters to use and reprint the information
released in prior years, and the Tampa Tribune had a history of
accurate reporting of Tampa Bay area auto racing. It was not a
common occurrence for this newspaper to make this kind of mistake.
But the mistake did deprive Larry Brazil of decades of the
recognition he deserved for what may have been his most significant
and hardest-fought battle for a major sprint car championship.
Brazil won the 1981 TBARA championship by only 10
points over second place point finisher Hardy Maddox, who won two
features at Golden Gate, and one feature at Sunshine Speedway in
Pinellas Park. In Brazil’s 35 TBARA series races in 1981, all of
which were at Golden Gate and Sunshine, he won two features at
Golden Gate and four at Sunshine Speedway. The group of drivers and
teams that competed for the 1981 championship was rich in racing
legends: Brazil drove the legendary No. 68 sprint car of car owner
George Rudolph; and defeated Hardy Maddox, Sonny Hartley (3rd in
1981 TBARA points), Stan Butler (4th in points), Robert Smith (5th),
Jim Childers (6th), and Frank Riddle (7th).
Larry Brazil’s greatest racing skill was his ability
to learn the tracks and competitors in Florida pavement sprint car
racing, and then rack up consistent wins and championships during a
time when the Tampa Bay area had weekly pavement sprint car racing,
which was the 1970s and early ’80s. Many pavement sprint car racing
legends emerged from Florida during this time, and this group
garnered seven Little 500 wins between 1979 and 2000 (Wayne
Reutimann, 1979; Frank Riddle, 1984 and 1985; Dave Scarborough,
1986; and Jim Childers, 1992, 1994, and 2000). Although Larry Brazil
never had the level of success that these other legends had in this
annual gathering of the nation’s best pavement sprint car drivers,
his achievements in Florida sprint car racing have earned him his
status as one of Florida’s greatest sprint car racing legends, and a
rightfully earned entry on his racing resume as a TBARA driver
champion.
He is no longer Florida’s “lost TBARA champion.” He
is Larry Brazil, TBARA champion
Credit Davey Hamilton for Getting Short Track
Oval Racing in Indy’s Infield
Story and Photo by Richard Golardi
September 4, 2018
As I walked down the sidewalk on Main Street in
Speedway, Indiana on Tuesday, September 8, 2015, I observed Davey
Hamilton crossing the sidewalk as he headed toward his parked car.
Next, I watched as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway management team
of Doug Boles and Mark Miles exited a restaurant on Main Street.
They had just completed a lunch meeting at the restaurant with
Hamilton, during which they discussed a range of topics, including
one that I had reported on previously.
Davey
Hamilton holds the restrictor used by sprint cars in the King of the
Wing series, January 2015.
The IMS management team and Hamilton discussed the
subject of using a temporary infield short oval at the speedway for
winged sprint car racing with Hamilton’s King of the Wing sprint car
series. The 3/8 mile flat oval was going to use a portion of the
current road course near turn four of the big oval. A wide sweeping
turn in the road course is located there. At that time, Hamilton
wanted the new short oval to have its first race in June 2016, as
part of the Midwest race weekend with the national King of the Wing
Series.
Therefore, when you enjoy the USAC dirt oval racing
at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s new open wheel racing short
track this week, remember the person that put that idea into the
speedway management’s heads – Davey Hamilton. He was the first
person to make a formal proposal to speedway management to hold open
wheel racing on a short oval in the speedway’s infield. It was his
idea.
Remember to give Davey Hamilton the credit for being
the first one to come up with the idea.
Earlier in 2015, Speedway President Doug Boles had
revealed some details about his talks with Davey Hamilton while he
was at an informal Q & A session in Crawfordsville, Indiana during a
community event. Boles revealed that he and Davey Hamilton had been
discussing the possibility of using the infield roads at
Indianapolis Motor Speedway to construct a temporary short oval for
pavement sprint car racing. Boles made it clear that racing winged
sprint cars on an infield short oval was a possible future event,
and that he liked the idea and was considering it, and that Davey
Hamilton had spurred the idea to make it happen.
Davey Hamilton gave me some more details in 2015:
“Doug and I spoke for maybe eight or nine months on this subject.
The new road course for the Indy cars was just finishing up. I went
in there just as a driver to give some input on the track – where
the curbing should go and the design of it. While I was doing that,
I accidentally found a perfect semi-oval race track. Three eighths
of a mile long, it’s super wide. So I started driving around it, and
I went and grabbed Doug [Boles] and a few other folks at the
speedway and we all went down in my truck. I said, ‘I found a
perfect short race track. You don’t have to do anything.’ And so we
made some laps, and the discussion started. We continued the
discussion with Mark Miles, and especially Doug. He’s really looking
forward to trying to put this program on. I’d like to do it next
year [2016], obviously because of the 100th Indy 500 race. I’m
proposing to run King of the Wing there.
“It’s part of the old Formula 1 road course, and the
new IndyCar road course,” Davey continued. There is a big, wide
oval-type turn that if extended out, it looks like it could be made
into an oval about one third of a mile in length.
“It’s actually exactly three eighths of a mile. It
has some uniqueness to it, which is always good for a race track.
The front straightaway and the back straightaway are absolutely
parallel,” he added. The logistics of constructing a temporary short
oval seemed daunting, but Hamilton was determined to see the race
event on the speedway’s schedule for 2016.
In the subsequent months and years, several events
happened that appeared to lessen the possibility of a pavement short
oval being constructed, and also resulted in the eventual
construction of a dirt oval with dirt open wheel racing.
First, Davey Hamilton left the USAC management
position he held from March to June of 2015. The status of this Indy
infield pavement short oval was unknown for a short time, but
Hamilton later held the lunch meeting in September 2015, and then
assured me that the planning for this 2016 race was still moving
forward. The King of the Wing pavement national sprint car series
still had a Midwest race weekend at this time, planned for three
June races (this year, the series didn’t have any Midwest races).
Then, Davey Hamilton revealed on May 30, 2016 that
he had sold the King of the Wing series, stating on Twitter:
“Bittersweet selling the King of the Wing but knowing the new owners
will take it to the next level makes it all good.” It was later
revealed that Tom Hartsell Jr., of the Auto Value Bumper to Bumper
Super Sprints, along with three others, had purchased the series
from Hamilton. Not only did it appear that the possibility of
pavement sprint car racing at the speedway had stalled, but Davey
Hamilton, the driving force behind it, had exited the business of
promoting pavement sprint car racing.
As the popularity of pavement sprint car racing
diminished in the Midwest, dirt sprint car racing grew stronger,
with USAC eliminating pavement racing from both its sprint car and
midget national racing series. USAC, Tony Stewart, World Racing
Group, and various media organizations that openly favored reporting
on dirt sprint car and midget racing, and seemed to almost ignore
pavement sprint car racing, helped accelerate this trend. Several
dirt events like the Chili Bowl and Knoxville Nationals have
received attention that seemed closer to worship than it did to
unbiased reporting.
If there was ever going to be a short oval in Indy’s
infield for open wheel racing, it now seemed like it was going to be
a short track with the Midwest’s favorite form of open wheel racing
– the kind on dirt.
In 2016, IMS built a temporary dirt track in the
turn three infield area to honor the final NASCAR racing season of
Indiana racing legend Tony Stewart. They ran midgets around the
small track during an exhibition that year. NASCAR had been
struggling to draw fans to the Brickyard 400 at IMS and needed to
make some changes to attract more fans. Their ideas for 2018 were to
move the Brickyard 400 to September, and host a USAC national dirt
midget race at a new quarter-mile dirt oval to kick off the NASCAR
weekend, now on the weekend after Labor Day.
So, do you like the idea of short track oval racing
finally making it to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and a national
open wheel series throwing some dirt there this week, starting on
Wednesday? Then give some credit to the guy who made the first push
to make it happen – Davey Hamilton.
Notes from New
Smyrna Speedway, August 25, 2018
Story and
Photos by Richard Golardi
August 28, 2018
Shane
Butler at New Smyrna Speedway, 8-25-2018.
·
Shane Butler’s
demonstration of speed with the Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series
on Saturday night at New Smyrna Speedway began with the second heat
race, when he started in the last row, passed the other five cars on
the front straight at the start, and took the lead going into the
first turn of the first lap. After winning that heat race, he took
the lead in the feature race on lap 10 and then led the last 20 laps
to win by a straightaway over the second place No. 7 car driven by
his brother Keith.
·
Lee Sisson, owner of
car No. 7 and also owner of Knights Air Conditioning in Riverview,
confirmed that he has replaced driver Clayton Donaldson with Keith
Butler for the remainder of the 2018 races with the Southern
Sprintcar series, through December. Keith has recently been
concentrating on dirt sprint car racing in Florida, but has
considerable pavement race experience and pavement wins. He finished
in second place to his brother Shane in both the second heat race
and the feature, and showed good speed with a motor that Lee told me
has upped their horsepower numbers from their previous motor.
·
I asked series
President Rick Day if the disqualified original listed winner of the
feature race on August 11, Jason Kimball, had any recourse to appeal
the series decision to take away the win due to a tire test,
conducted by Blue Ridge Labs for the series, which showed that his
tire sample did not conform to the benchmark from Hoosier Tire. I
was told that Jason may request a detailed copy of the test results,
but there is no appeal process for a series decision of this type.
His DQ, and the decision by the series to award the race win to
Tommy Nichols, can’t be appealed.
·
Although tire samples
were taken from the cars that finished in the first three positions
at Citrus County Speedway on August 11, this will not necessarily be
the procedure used by the series in all future races. Rick Day
informed me that the series may take a tire sample from any car,
finishing in any position in the feature race, and a car suspected
of using “tire prep” may be included in this group. The previous
method used in Florida, when a durometer was used to test tires,
along with the good ole “sniff it and note if the tire smells
strange” method, is no longer used in pavement sprint car racing. On
Saturday at New Smyrna, only the winning car driven by Shane Butler
had a tire sample taken to be sent to the lab.
·
Shane Butler, who had
a frightening high-speed crash destroy his car during the last
series race at New Smyrna Speedway in April, had a rebuilt car and
used it to win the next race at the track that had caused him so
much trouble four months ago. It was his first feature race win
since that wreck; he had two early season wins in February and
March. “We’ve been struggling the last four races with this car that
we had to put together,” Shane said, “but we found something after
the last race, the gearbox was gone on it. We needed this after
destroying that race car.”
·
Ray Bragg’s day got
off to a bad start when a push truck went over the back of his car
with enough force that it went airborne and struck the top of his
wing somehow. He had been trying to signal the push truck driver
that he was stopped, but the driver apparently did not see his
signal. He had a backup wing ready and went on to win his heat race
in impressive fashion, as well as take a fourth place finish in
Saturday’s feature race. “The car wasn’t firing on all cylinders,”
Ray said, “as we were only running on seven but still managed a
fourth place finish. Tough day for Team Statham, but we got through
it as a team …”
·
Not only will sprint
car racing be missing from New Smyrna Speedway’s Governor’s Cup late
model championship weekend in November (a sprint car race originally
set for Saturday, November 10 has been moved to October 13), but so
will Ty Majeski, who has won the last three straight Governor’s Cup
races. He has a NASCAR race scheduled with Roush/Fenway Racing at
Phoenix (ISM Raceway) in the XFINITY Series. That means he’ll miss
the Friday and Saturday practice and qualifying days, and that will
leave him out of a chance to get into Sunday’s championship race.
With Majeski’s talent behind the wheel of a stock car, it seemed
inevitable that he’d eventually leave his days of late models and
the Governor’s Cup behind and head to NASCAR.
Top
3 finishers 1st -Shane Butler center 2nd - Keith Butler left 3rd
Sport Allen right Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series New Smyrna FL
8-25
Video of feature race from New
Smyrna Speedway, Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series, Saturday,
August 25, 2018:
https://youtu.be/FHTwfqt8IQY
Video of heat races from New
Smyrna Speedway, Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series, Saturday,
August 25, 2018:
https://youtu.be/hOgdHLys8JY
Rusty Marcus Brings Smiles to New Smyrna
Speedway, Part 2
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
August 24, 2018
Rusty Marcus, now living and working in New Smyrna
Beach, is the new track manager at New Smyrna Speedway. He was close
to Kim Brown, the track’s General Manager who passed away in late
February. “I came down to help during the World Series,” Rusty said,
“but then I went back home to Texas on a Tuesday, and on Saturday I
got the call that Kim had passed away. I was talking to Jane and
Robert [Hart], and they had been trying to get me to come back. It
never seemed right – I told them I didn’t want to come back just to
fill a position.”
That’s when the Harts ratcheted up the intensity of
their effort to get Rusty to return to Florida and work for them.
There had been another big change for the track shortly before Kim’s
passing. Robert Hart had announced at the Living Legends of Auto
Racing banquet in Daytona Beach on February 14 that he was retiring
from active management of New Smyrna Speedway.
Dave
Steele at New Smyrna Speedway, on 2-18-2013 with USAC National
Midget Series.
“Here’s the thing,” Rusty said. “God puts you in
places, and if you’d have told me a year ago that I would be back
here, I’d probably have said, ‘Yeah … not so much,’ because I want
to make sure anywhere that I go that I can make a difference. I
couldn’t see where I could make a difference here, all the positions
were filled. I’m not here to step on anybody’s toes.”
When things at the track changed, Rusty made his
decision in late March, told the Harts that he was returning to
Texas to tie up some things, and by April he was in his present job
at New Smyrna Speedway, and has been there ever since. This
weekend’s sprint car race is the second there since his return and
expect more next year, according to Rusty.
“I’ve always been a race fan … always,” he said. “On
Sundays when I was a kid, we lived in a rural area down in West Palm
Beach, and we’d go to Palm Beach Fairgrounds Speedway. Every Sunday
afternoon, that was our family thing in the mid-to-late ’60s. Then
Palm Beach decided to go from Sunday to Friday night, well I was
born and raised Seventh-day Adventist, which means from Friday night
sundown to Saturday night sundown, you don’t do anything. So I lost
racing altogether except for one race a year, and that was the
Orange Blossom 100. That was at Palm Beach Fairgrounds Speedway,
they held it on Sunday in January every year. That was the one race
I got to see each year. The Orange Blossom 100 is now here.”
After that race went dormant for a while, he brought
it back to Orlando Speedworld during his time managing that track
and now it’s at New Smyrna, and he gets to enjoy a happy memory from
his childhood and his part in reviving a decades-old Florida late
model racing tradition. The Orange Blossom 100 now has a home at the
track he calls home.
Winged
sprint cars at New Smyrna Speedway.
Moving to Okeechobee for a job with the state in the
South Florida Water Management department in the 1990s, he opened a
car lot at the same time. After becoming friends with a mini-stock
race car owner, he put his business name on his friend’s car, and
they’d go to Bradenton every weekend to go racing. He had a new
racing habit – but this one was weekly, not limited to just once a
year. That led him to buy his own race car, now that a dirt track
had opened in Okeechobee. “It was called Thundercross. I bought a
’73 Dodge Charger. Very consistent – dead last every time we took it
out,” he said.
A ’77 Dodge Aspen was added later, and so was some
track marketing, promotion, and announcing experience to add to his
resume, sometimes wearing the brightest, craziest fluorescent colors
that he could find, again at Thundercross. People came to the track
“just to see what he was going to do next.”
The lesson learned was that “every position at a
race track, it doesn’t matter if it’s the flagman, the concession
people, or the front gate guy, everybody here is part of the show,
and that’s the way that it needs to be. People need to go, ‘Hey,
that’s the corner worker. He’s great because he puts a lot of energy
into it.’ That’s what we need. We need that high-five energy all
over the place.”
Rusty was at Orlando Speedworld, during his tenure
as manager, for one of the last major USAC pavement racing events in
Florida, the PRI Sprint & Midget Classic, which was held in 2005 and
2006 in conjunction with the PRI Trade Show when it was based in
Orlando. “Orlando has its problems, it doesn’t drain real well,”
Rusty said. “I said, ‘You’re going to think it’s a little hokey.’ ”
Then he told the PRI Trade Show management about his track-drying
idea. They were concerned about rain and standing water
necessitating a race cancellation. Not to worry – it was time for
“Rusty to the rescue.”
He had an idea, one that would probably only work in
Florida. He had some fear that after “comin’ down to redneckville”
that they might look upon his idea with doubt. He told them, “I’m
going to do something a little hokey, but it’s going to work, or I
think it will work. So he [PRI show head honcho Steve Lewis] said,
‘You do whatever you got to do.’ So, I called a bunch of guys with
airboats, I’d seen it done at Palm Beach. You leave the airboat on
the trailer, you fire it up, and it dries the track. At 10 minutes
’til 10, I went to him and said, ‘Steve, the track will be yours at
10 o’clock.’ It was race-ready.” The most redneck of all redneck
methods of track drying had saved the day, and the Orlando
Speedworld PRI Show races were a big success.
Rusty also spoke about a possible big change coming
for New Smyrna Speedway, something that would dramatically change
the appearance of the track facility. “I’ve got to get some
engineers here,” he said, “because I’m looking at putting a smaller
track here, and we have a verbal agreement with U.S. Legend Cars
that if we build the small track here, the Legend Winternationals
will move to New Smyrna Speedway. The size is going to be
three-eighths or less, because they can’t run anything bigger. We’re
trying to figure out the configuration. The Winternationals are held
at the same time as the World Series of Asphalt, two huge shows, we
fold those shows together. Legends, Bandoleros, super lates,
modifieds, all right here. Either use the existing backstretch,
three, four, front stretch, and then make a new one and two
connecting – the corners are going to be different than the other
two corners. Because it’s going to go down there by the
quarter-midget track, it won’t have the banking that three and four
have. Eventually, we will put the small track in.”
Rusty’s proposal (nothing has been engineered or
designed yet) means that a new turn one and two, plus the entrance
and exit off of the existing half-mile, would need to be designed,
approved and constructed for a future February Speedweeks, likely
not until 2020 or later. It’s one of Rusty’s long-term projects for
the track: first the new smaller oval is constructed, and then
Legend and Bandolero racing are brought back and made a major part
of the February Speedweeks racing.
The kids and families involved in Legend and
Bandolero racing will always his pet project, and Rusty spoke of
those racers who he helped through the ranks of those series, and
who then made it to the big leagues of auto racing (including NASCAR
Cup racing). “Anywhere you run the Legends Winternationals, there
will be a hundred plus cars out there. You can be eight years old to
get in a Bandolero, and if you’ve got experience, you can get in a
Legend car at 12. They’re great cars, they’re safe cars, but they
teach the kids so much,” he said, his eyes beaming.
Overseeing several generations of racers, seeing
them move up the ladder of success … somehow, Rusty Marcus seems to
be in the right spot. He’s right where he needs to be.
Rusty Marcus Brings Smiles to New Smyrna
Speedway, Part 1
Story and Photos by Richard Golardi
August 23, 2018
Rusty Marcus, track manager at New Smyrna Speedway
since April this year, seems to be perpetually happy and always in a
good mood. Why? Well, he gets to be at a track that is a special
place to him, he loves racing (which is apparent in every story that
he tells), and his spiritual faith – something he doesn’t talk about
in an interview, but discusses in social media posts – is also
important to him. You can tell that he loves racing and seeing fans
enjoy their time at the track – “What did you think of the racing?”
he’ll ask – and it motivates him in all he does.
The small administrative offices at New Smyrna
Speedway, consisting of several cramped rooms and located right
behind the main stands, aren’t necessarily where you will find Rusty
Marcus, and neither are the control tower or spectator stands the
place to find him on a race day. He’s going to be everywhere – even
roaming the pits, talking with owners, drivers, and crew. Need to
track him down for an interview? – Best just look everywhere.
Rusty
Marcus at New Smyrna Speedway, August 4, 2018.
“My job duty here is track manager, which means you
do a little bit of everything,” Rusty Marcus said. “I started back
here in April, I was with the Hart family [owners of New Smyrna
Speedway] for years before with their Orlando track and ran it for a
number of years down there.” In 2008, he left Florida for a track
management position in Monroe, Louisiana, after he felt that he had
taken the Orlando track as far as he could take it. Other positions
in racing management followed, some involving Legend car racing with
U.S. Legend Cars, located in Charlotte, North Carolina. They needed
a manager to take over their Texas branch, and he was off to Texas
Motor Speedway, where he stayed for six years until January 2018,
when the Texas branch closed.
“The Harts had been trying to get me to come back
since I left, nine years ago,” Rusty said. “I would come back and
help them with the big shows and we talked all the time. Here’s the
thing – I don’t burn bridges. We’re like family. They’d fly me in,
and I’d come down here and do whatever needs to be done. I’ve worked
for them for so long, and they know what to expect out of me. You
have to get the show on for the fans; you can’t be a prima donna at
the race track. You’ve got to be ready to do anything and
everything. They [Hart family] kept wanting me to come back. When
U.S. Legend Cars closed down the office at Texas Motor Speedway in
January, I had already planned on being here for the World Series in
February.”
New Smyrna Speedway’s popular and personable General
Manager, Kim Brown, passed away in February 2018 due to a long
illness. The Hart family wanted Rusty to come on as the track
manager, and he took a couple of months off after returning to
Florida in January and working at the track’s World Series in
February. He accepted the job offer in March, began in April, and it
was like he was a member of the Hart family once again, or rather,
like he had never left, and he dove head first into his new job
managing New Smyrna Speedway.
Sprint
cars at New Smyrna Speedway, April 28, 2018.
Rusty Marcus is also a supporter of Florida sprint
car racing, and the half-mile high-banked track at New Smyrna will
once again host pavement sprint car racing on Saturday with the
Southern Sprintcar Shootout Series. It will be the third visit by
the series this year, and since the shutdown of Desoto Speedway last
year, it plays an important part as the only high-speed, high-banked
track left, rounding out the mix of bullrings, intermediate tracks,
and high-speed tracks used by the series.
“Whether you like ’em [sprint cars] or not, it’s
very important,” Rusty said. Even though he had earlier referred to
New Smyrna Speedway as “a stock car track,” he acknowledged that
sprint car racing was important to his track and to Florida racing.
“There’ll probably be more [races] next year,” he added. “The fans
love ’em. It doesn’t matter how anybody else feels – you do stuff
for your fans. I want people to look at New Smyrna Speedway, and
have it be the beacon that everybody’s shooting for. I don’t think
New Smyrna needs to be a chaser. New Smyrna needs to be a leader.”
Rusty wants to have four or more sprint car races at the track again
next year, and also into the foreseeable future.
Rusty spoke about his time at Orlando Speedworld,
working with TBARA in 2008 and earlier years, when he felt that
sprint car racing had a “purse that was very high, and we had a lot
of start-and-parks, back in ’06, ’07, they would bring 20 cars, and
five laps in, you’d have 10 cars. It lost its luster. It went
through a little lull, and the purse was so high.” Now he wants to
keep sprint cars as part of February Speedweeks, because “there’s
people that look for that, and we’re looking to add more stuff for
February Speedweeks.” Regarding the Southern Sprintcar series race
originally set for Saturday, November 10, the night before the
Governor’s Cup late model championship race, he said, “We moved that
up, because we had too much stuff on Governor’s Cup for Saturday and
Sunday. It was so heavily loaded, and none of those classes are
cheap. We talked to the sprint group, and they said, ‘It’ll work
better for us if we move it,’ and it was moved to October. He [Rick
Day] was all in agreement with it, and I was like, ‘Hot Diggity!’
But here’s the thing: the sprint cars always bring their own crowd.
Sprint cars aren’t a sideshow.”
The Southern Sprintcar series race originally set
for New Smyrna’s Governor’s Cup weekend on Saturday, November 10 was
moved to October 13. That left an opening on that date that has now
been filled with a second date for Citrus County Speedway, which
held its first sprint car race of the year two weeks ago. That
series feature race on August 11 was originally credited as a win by
Jason Kimball. His win was later rescinded when a tire test,
conducted by Blue Ridge Labs for the Southern Sprintcar series,
showed that his tire sample did not conform to the benchmark from
Hoosier Tire. That resulted in the feature race win being awarded to
Tommy Nichols, his first series race win of the year and first with
the Southern Sprintcar series.
Rusty Marcus has plans for the future at New Smyrna
Speedway, he’s just not going to divulge all of them right away:
“We’re working on some things, and I don’t know if they are going to
come through, but if they do, it’s going to be great. Stay tuned … I
can’t tell ya! I don’t know if it’s going to work out yet or not,
but if it does … I guarantee you there’s a lot more coming.”
More of the Rusty Marcus interview coming tomorrow
in Part 2.
E-mail Richard Golardi
floridaopenwheel@gmail.com