O'Neal and Hearn Flex Their Muscle in VSP Finale

The big money was on the line as the World of Outlaws Late Models and the Super Dirt Series Big Block Modifieds wrapped up the short track portion of Speedweeks on Saturday night, February 25th at the Volusia Speedway Park.

On a gorgeous  Saturday night, another big crowd was on hand to witness both the Late Models and Modifieds slug it out as they hoped to wrap up their Florida campaigns with a win and give them momentum as racing begins farther North. While the crowd was very big, I have to say that it was not quite as large as Friday night's crowd was which was just monstrous

Both divisions were missing a few cars going into the finale as a few drivers opted out due to mechanical issues. The Late Models fielded forty four cars for the last night and interestingly, a couple of the cars that pulled out after Friday ended up running another race in Tennessee on Saturday with both ending up in the top ten in that event. They were Donald McIntosh and Stacy Boles. Surprisingly, Hudson O'Neal and Austin Hubbard did not race on Saturday and G.R. Smith loaded up and pulled out of the pits after having trouble in qualifying. Several of the Late Model teams also rolled out back up cars rather than fix some of the major mechanical issues that some of the top teams had faced on Friday.

In the Big Blocks, Joseph Watson, Randy Chrysler, Yan Bussiere and Vic Coffey all failed to return after they were either involved in wrecks or suffered major mechanical issues. However, the division gained a big name when Stewart Friesen, done with his duties in the Truck series at Daytona, rolled out his Halmar sponsored Modified for Saturday's show.

While track prep and racing conditions had not been much of an issue at the other tracks visited during February in Florida, Volusia Speedway Park continued to be the exception to the rule. The Late Models had been forced to run on "bad fast" tacky conditions all week which has produced some awesome speeds but not much passing or side by side racing and has been a strain on the racing equipment. Last night the track remained in the status quo as the Big Blocks also felt the wrath of the water truck and tiling operators. The complaints have been universal and vocal, to the point that most in the stands have been dreading driver interviews due to the expected "whining" that was sure to follow.

So, either the track prep people got tired of the complaints and decided to shut everyone up or they just had an honest misjudgement of the racing surface, but Saturday the track took a violent 180 degree turn, as the track was as dry as a popcorn fart, right from the start. Only a few laps into the heat races and both the Mods and Late Models were smoking their right rear tires and drivers were worried that their tires wouldn't last for the heat, much less the main event! So, perhaps rightly so, the litany of complaints from the drivers started once again; same song, different verse.

They did rework the track before each of the main events, digging the surface and then watering and rolling it in and it did help for about half the race. Still, the track was just not up to the standards that people expect to see at VSP and nothing compared to what last year provided. Series officials also made a move by cutting the mains from fifty to forty laps, something they felt needed to be done to help the tire situation but not a positive statement on the health of the track.

Dominating performances were put in by the two feature winners on Saturday. Don O'Neal had never won a main event at Volusia before Saturday but he put that chink in his armor to rest on Saturday. He came storming up from the thirteenth starting spot to quickly race into the top five and he then set about picking off driver after driver, finally passing Dennis Erb for the lead.

Once in front, he pulled out to a fairly comfortable advantage, and while Tim McCreadie looked like he might have something for the "Real Deal", after a lap twenty five yellow, O'Neal pulled back away. Things got a little dicey in lapped traffic with just a few laps to go and O'Neal had to throw a pretty wild slide on Jason Fitzgerald to secure the lead which ruffled up the quarter panel on the blue #5 but didn't damage the car significantly. Billy Moyer Jr, who had looked pretty bad through most of Speedweeks, came out of no where to secure a top three finish and point him in the right direction.

Brett Hearn was just as strong in the Big Block Mod main event. He had the advantage of starting in the front row and he led all forty laps. He was never seriously challenged either with Tim Fuller having a strong run for his new team in finishing second and the grizzled veteran, Danny Johnson, made the best charge up from fourteenth to third.

Both divisions highlighting some very professional driving in their mains with the Late Models only having two yellows and the Mods three. Even more impressive, twenty seven of the twenty eight starters in the Big Blocks were still around at the finish with only two having been lapped.

An interesting procedure used by the Big Blocks found them not using the "Delaware Double File" restarts but instead allowing the second place car to start wheel to wheel with the leader.

Darwin Greene is quite a unique guy. The Big Block veteran managed to maintain a cheerful disposition even though he tore his car apart on Friday night and endured a violent trip into the turn one railing. Full of enthusiasm, with the first heat race lined up on the front straightaway, Darwin climbed up on the roof of his race car to have a direct view of the American flag as the National Anthem was sung. It seemed like he was legitimately doing this and not to just put on a show but several photographers spotted him and some photos were taken which probably have showed up somewhere on the internet by now.

Wrapping up Speedweeks, I have to thank all three tracks that I worked with. Volusia, East Bay and North Florida all had excellent folks working in their offices and all were most cooperative and friendly. I saw Late Models, Modifieds, Big Blocks and two different divisions of Sprint Cars and all had strong fields featuring some of the best in the business behind the wheels. I think the best race of them all was the last lap pass by Brandon Sheppard at Bubba Raceway Park. The seventy five lap feature at East Bay that saw Jeff Mathews and Kevin Adams battling for the lead on the last lap was my second choice and the charge from deep in field, also at East Bay, by Tim McCreadie was rated third.

Twenty one hours later and I was back home in Wisconsin and guess what, our snow has all melted and all we have is brown ground! We could race tomorrow if some promoter would put a show together.

Clanton and Haers Post Wins on a Bizarre Night at VSP

After two consecutive rainouts, Volusia Speedway Park was back in action for racing on Friday, February 24th with the Craftsman World of Outlaws Late Models in action along with the Super DIRT Car Series big block Modifieds. both groups had been idling away time with the Late Models not having raced since Tuesday night while the Modifieds have yet to turn a wheel on the track since they got practice laps in on Tuesday.

There was plenty of mud to be had around the VSP grounds and crews were busy all day scraping both the pits and trying to help out as they could in the lower sections of the parking lots. Much sawdust and wood chips had been brought in to fill the low spots on the grounds and many of the race teams had obtained some also. It was a little gooey in spots but not too bad really, considering the amount of rain that has fallen in the last two days.

More importantly than the pits and parking lots was the condition of the track racing surface. WoO officials lauded the draining characteristics of the track but with all the rain having fallen in recent days, even this was put to the challenge on Friday. Track officials had opened up the racing surface to let the sun, wind and heat get to it in their best efforts to dry out the surface. But later, as the sun would set and the moisture and humidity level would rise, the track would continue to be "bad fast" with "hammer down" conditions producing blazing speeds but also made it tough to pass as well as putting a strain on the race cars with power plants, suspension parts and drive trains all being put to the test. And despite their claims that they were trying to slow down the track surface, even as wet as it was the track continued to be pounded by the water truck  and not just to mist the top of the track that might be drying out but instead they were dumping water heavily on the track. For some reason this year, all the tracks visited in the last few weeks seem to be transfixed on producing very heavy racing surfaces. All through the evening, the battle cry from the drivers interviewed to a man in both the Late Models and Modifieds was their hope that the track could be slowed down so it could produce better racing and some went further in stating that someone should hide the keys to the water truck so they couldn't wet down the surface any more!

Four new Late Models were on hand for racing action on Friday including Earl Pearson Jr as we mentioned in a previous post, along with local driver Win Ingersoll, Paducah Kentucky's Dylan Thompson and Justin Ratliff who's team unloaded a second car for Ratliff who has been having Jason Jameson drive his car this week. Later, Ratliff would change his mind and scratch from the show while Ingersoll would be done early after his motor went up in smoke. 

Meanwhile, Donald McIntosh and Illinois driver Jeff Beyers had pulled up stakes and headed home after tiring of waiting out the rains.

The Modifieds should be lauded as all forty two that practiced on Tuesday hung around for the racing action on Friday. The only driver missing was Stewart Friesen as he was carrying out his duties in the Truck Series at the big track while his Modified remained trailered here at VSP.

If you recall, Michael Norris was one of the drivers that suffered motor problems on Tuesday and there was some question whether or not he would return to action. They did discover some serious issues with the motor so they unloaded a second car and he set a blazing time trial mark which was the quickest of the first group. Unfortunately, just as he crossed the line at the end of the run the motor let go and he was forced to give up his pole position for a heat race. Even worse, he was out of motors and his efforts during the week had come to an end.  Rambo Franklin also had motor problems during qualifying which ended his night.

The set up for the Late Models was the same as on Tuesday with six heat races and three B Features setting the field for the fifty lap main event. With a lot of series regulars not making the main event, two extra provisionals were added in Frank Heckenast Jr and Joey Coulter so twenty eight cars took the green. However, with the taxing condition of the race track, officials opted to lower the number of feature laps from fifty to forty but forgot to tell announcer Rick Eschelman so it was only during the race that we all discovered the change.

The feature was a grueling contest with the cars flying around the track had great speed but with also the problem that they couldn't keep the cars from breaking or wrecking. No more than nine consecutive laps were able to be completed at any one time as slowing  and spinning cars continued to break up the flow of the race. Among the drivers that had issues and either went to the back or to the pits were Brandon Overton, Donald Bradsher, Devin Moran, Morgan Bagley, Donny Schatz, Dale McDowell, Steve Francis, Chris Madden and Tyler Erb.

Shane Clanton was extremely fast and after setting quick time, he jumped into the lead and everyone was chasing him. Steve Francis, Rick Eckert, Erb, Brian Shirley and Justin Wells were all among the pack of cars chasing him but Clanton was able to pull away from the pack on each green flag.

Meanwhile, almost unnoticed at first but then suddenly a huge factor, the fog started rolling in over the race track and it quickly started to envelop the entire facility. On several of the restarts, it actually became somewhat difficult to identify the cars on the back chute. Finally, after a lap twenty three yellow for a slowing Erb, track officials huddled and the race was called complete, a decision that seemed to be the only logical and safe one. Clanton took the win with Wells having worked his way up to second. Wells actually caught a huge break as his getting sideways in turn four triggered a multi car accident on lap one but since he kept going he retained his third row starting spot which was huge for him. Tim McCreadie fought his way up to third after starting tenth with Eckert and Brian Shirley completing the top five. Clanton and Shirley continue their record of both speed and consistency as they are the only ones having raced to top five finishes in all events. Also, local driver Jason Fitzgerald had another top ten finish as he has been impressive throughout Speedweeks.

The Modified feature was a wild one that could have been historic if they could have kept the race going for any length of time without the yellow flag waving. Much like the Late Models, the track and the speeds generated proved to be very demanding on the cars and they would just seem to get going when the yellow would wave once again, robbing the event of any kind of flow. In fact, eight yellow flags flew during their thirty lap main and the most straight green flag laps they were able to produce was nine.

Mario Clair, the French speaking Quebec driver, led for most of the early going with Alan Johnson and Jimmy Horton pressuring him. On the many restarts, Clair would opt for the high side and then used the cushion in turn one to pull back in front.

The Modifieds, which raced their feature first,  were putting on a show as they sliced and diced all over the track, with much three wide racing taking place in the short bursts of racing they had between yellows. Later, attrition would start to take place when Clair broke while leading and then Horton inherited the top spot. Later, with only a handful of laps remaining, he would suffer a huge oil leak that would set his car a blaze and he would have to call it a night.

Justin Haers would inherit the top spot and he would fight off defending DIRT champion Matt Sheppard in a three lap sprint to the finish. Sheppard was almost unnoticed as he quietly worked his way up from twenty second into second, using the bottom groove almost exclusively as he used the yellows to his advantage.

Sheppard made an all out charge on the final laps but Haers was strong on the final restart and pulled away for the win. There was an almost untold amount of carnage to many of the cars in the field with nearly as many non finishers as drivers that crossed under the checkered flag and much work will need to be done by many to fill out the field for Saturday's show. It was a rough night all around for many in both classes.

The shortening of the show made me feel like I was back home again as fog is often a problem at three tracks I visit quite often in my region.  The Proctor Speedway in Minnesota, AMSOIL Speedway and ABC Raceway in Wisconsin all have lost or had shortened many special and weekly events over the years. At all three tracks, close proximity to Lake Superior is the issue with a changing breeze off the lake under certain weather conditions a guarantee that "pee soup" fog will shut down any racing program.

Friday night's program marked the first time that drug testing has been done by the Outlaws for their drivers with a number of them being selected for testing. Hardly anyone knew it was going on and that is just as it should be.

It seems like the Modifieds have been singled out for the worst bad luck of Speedweeks to date. Making the long pull from the Northeast with absolutely no local competitors, they provided a strong field of their best drivers for this series. Having lost half their shows and being on hand for four days before they could finally turn a wheel in competition, DIRT Motorsports tried to give them an extra break by scheduling a non qualifiers event to be run as the last race of the night as a sort of "thank you" to those Modified drivers that didn't make the main event. Of course, by then the track was obscured by fog and that race didn't take place, but at least the thought was there.

Speaking of VSP, this has been far from their best Speedweeks, mostly caused by things out of their control. Their many rainouts certainly hurt the series, with them resorting to one doubleheader to try and get more of the Sprint Car shows in and the rains causing all classes to lose events. The injury wreck during the Sprint Car show on Sunday was a very bad thing, and the two Sprint Cars that got out of the ballpark will no doubt lead to some major changes at the facility for next year. On the bright side, the events I have attended at VSP seem to have all been well attended with a huge crowd on hand Friday night for the Late Models and Modifieds.

We will be traveling after Saturday night's finale at Volusia so the wrap up report on the action there will likely be delayed by a day or two.

Smith Posts Impressive Win at East Bay

We're back at it after a couple of days of very wet weather here in Florida. Wednesday was a complete washout with all day heavy rains and storms whipping out the few choices that existed in terms of racing with a couple of practice sessions for new cars coming in to start racing at midweek also cancelled.

Thursday was not much better but with some digging we were able to find one race track still running. After all, we didn't drive all the way to Florida just to sit in the motel room and watch the rain fall. Volusia was forced to cancel again on Thursday as the wrap around showers just would not stop falling and their track was very wet. It must be a great disappointment for particularly the Big Block Modifieds to drive all the way down from as far away as Quebec and then sit for two days, watching it rain instead of being able to race. Just before we left the grounds at Volusia, Earl Pearson Jr. pulled into the pit area as the strong Lucas Oil supporter made a surprise appearance. Perhaps there will be more surprising entrants for the higher paying WoO Late Model events when they restart on Friday. One thing quite clear is that the make up doubleheader race programs are apparently a thing of the past as now both Volusia and East Bay have opted out of rescheduled rained out races when they have lost Late Model shows. It used to be that it was almost a guarantee that if shows during the week were lost, they would be made up at some point, particularly when multiple shows were lost. Apparently that is not to be the case anymore.

With Volusia canceling, we started to get excited about seeing the USAC Sprints at Bubba Raceway Park as they were scheduled to start a three night start at that track. I thought they would be pretty exciting at Bubba's, particularly after just seeing our best race of Speedweeks at Bubba's last Sunday. However, we drove in rain most of the way to Ocala and by the time we arrived in that city, the USAC show had also fallen to the wet weather.

We had one more chance and that was to head further south and try for the ASCS Sprint show at East Bay Raceway Park in Gibsonton. We hit just a little rain after we left Ocala but it started to look better and better as we neared Tampa as the low pressure area and accompanying rain was spinning away from us.

For the past few years 360 Sprint Cars have wrapped up the final week of the month long Speedweeks presentations at East Bay and this year they would be sanctioned by ASCS. So, while the track was wet and pits a little muddy in places, the sun was shining and the race cars packed the somewhat cramped pit area at East Bay. They had been rained out of their practice session on Wednesday also and were more than anxious to get going. A big field of sixty two cars had signed in to race and they would be sharing the program with the Mini Sprints and Micro Sprints, both of which had drivers entered from a great distance away.

The ASCS field had drivers from all over the country on hand with a strong contingent of New York and New England drivers along with several Texans and deep South racers. And more and more, some of the top 410 drivers have taken to switching motors and running these events with their higher paying purses. Such 410 stars as Jason Sides, Greg Hodnett, Lucas Wolfe, Terry McCarl, Parker Price Miller, Rico Abreu, Chad Kemenah and Tim Shaffer were in the field and were joined with very little hype by Tony Stewart, who I would not have expected to be on hand, given the activities going on at Daytona on this very night.

One of the very pleasant side notes of attending an ASCS race is that there are no time trials to wear out the track and bog down the start of the program. They simply draw numbers, line up for heats and qualify using passing points with, on this night, the top sixteen moving on directly to the main. The rest of the field ran in three B features with the top two moving on for a twenty two car main event starting field. With over sixty car on hand, a bunch of really good drivers were left in the pits come feature time, including Stewart who was one spot short of making the main.

Isn't it interesting that ASCS, certainly one of the most successful sanctioning bodies around both in terms of races run and average cars per show, is able to make the passing points system work with no muss and fuss, yet none of the other, so called major sanctioning bodies will even give the passing points format a shot? The format that requires drivers race their way into the main event certainly leads to some very interesting heat races and last chance race drama.

Rookies competitor and fan favorite Harli White and Lucas Wolfe both suffered from some badly smoking engines in their heat races, although both held on to take the wins. Later However, both would drop out of the main, perhaps as a residual effect of their earlier smoking problems.

The main event was a quick twenty five lapper with points earned on Thursday to be combined with the show on Friday and the top six automatically moving into the ten grand to win show while everyone else would have to race their way into the culminating feature. Fan favorite Abreu started on the pole but he was beaten to the first turn by Texan Travis Rilat who took the early lead. Pennsylvania driver Mark Smith, who has become known in recent years as one of the best in the 360 class, came storming to the front after starting in row three. He slipped past Rilat to take the lead and would maintain that advantage the rest of the way. One red and one yellow would slow the contest with Manitoba's Thomas Kennedy being the only 360 driver to dump his car all night.

Iowa veteran Terry McCarl would make his presence felt as he moved up from the fourth row into second and was closing on the leader but ran out of time. He seemed to be the only one that could have had anything for Smith. Rilat hung on for third over Sides and Ohio's Phil Gressman. Abreu dropped all the way to seventh and many of the big names in the field found the going tough. Defending ASCS national champion Sam Hafertepe Jr looked particularly woeful as the best he could generate was a seventh place finish in a B feature.

I was a little bit disappointed in both the track prep on Thursday as well as the administration of the program. Granted that the track was quite heavy but they never really seemed to do too much to widen out the groove and the racing surface remained quite narrow all night with much of the wide, East Bay track not even being able to be used and limiting passing as the cushion was dominant.

Also, compared to the quick and snappy programs that this track and others had been presenting for both Late Models and Modifieds during our visit to Florida, Thursday's show seemed to be presented at an almost leisurely pace. Despite the fact that there were no time trials, getting the cars on the track for warm ups seemed to take way too long and the main division of cars never saw the track for competition until around 9 p.m. So, we got the added bonus of attending a night/day doubleheader racing event. In other words, it was well after Midnight when the final checkered flag waved. I guess we had been getting spoiled but all the shows that we had seen so far that wrapped up before or close to 10 pm made this show seem even longer and further solidified just how nice it is to run off a quick show and get the fans on the road early. Rolling into the hotel at 2 p.m never was fun and even more so now.

The biggest excitement of the night was caused by former ASCS National Champion Aaron Reutzel who refused to line up repeatedly in his B feature and kept jumping the restarts to the point that he infuriated the crowd. Finally, after multiple attempts that went badly, the starter threatened him with the black flag and he finally straightened out.

It's hard to believe but this weekend's activities at East Bay wrap up the forty first edition of Winternationals. Special thanks go out to the folks in the office at East Bay as even though I showed up on Thursday a little "out of the blue", they were most gracious and got me signed in quickly.

Sheppard Follows Advise to VSP Victory

Night number two of the Late Model events at Volusia Speedway Park took place on Tuesday, February 21st. It was scheduled to be one of he busiest nights of the racing series with triple features for the UMP Modifieds plus a full show for the UMP Late Models and extended practice sessions for the Super Dirt Big Block Modifieds.

It was another excellent night for racing with more cloud cover keeping it just a little bit cooler than Monday night but still an excellent night for February racing.

Most of the Late Models that had opted to watch Monday night's racing unloaded and ran on Tuesday. Joining the show were the two Bowyer cars driven by Don O'Neal and Darrell Lanigan plus entries by Dennis Franklin, Austin Hubbard, Kenny Pettyjohn who rolled a new car out of the trailer and Ivedent Lloyd Jr. The only driver not running on Tuesday was Brian Ruhlman who had driven the car of Zeke McKenzie on Monday. McKenzie had left the grounds as he did not race his Modified either. Cars for Larry Baer and Ray Cook Jr. have been packed away and it appears those two machines won't hit the track while the car of Colton Flinner remains in the pits but as yet hasn't been unloaded from its trailer.

With the forty eight car field now on hand, DIRT Motorsports officials responded by giving the Late Models an extensive program on Tuesday. The field was divided into six heat races with the top three from each heat moving on. Three B features set the rest of the field, there were no provisional starters and twenty four took the green.

Brian Shirley continues to be lucky on the redraw as for the second straight night he started right up front and led the first laps of the main. However, while he has shone plenty of speed, he still has been unable to seal the deal as again on Tuesday he got tracked down from behind and passed. Tuesday it was Brandon Sheppard who charged past him and then opened up a healthy margin on the field.

There was only one yellow in the main when Kyle Bronson stuck his car into the turn four guardrail and following the slow down, the driver on the move was Shane Clanton. It took him quite a while to get past Shirley but after he did, he quickly reeled in Sheppard and suddenly we had a race for the lead. Clanton showed his nose under Sheppard in turn one and almost made the pass but couldn't quite get it done. That was his best opportunity as the next time they charged into turn one, Brandon dropped lower on the track and kept Clanton behind him. Brandon no doubt figured this out himself but if he didn't, the sight of Mark Richards hanging out over the inside wall with a signal to go lower certainly would have helped!

After that, Sheppard maintained his lead over the last few laps to get his first ever win at VSP over Clanton, Shirley and Lanigan. Two drivers really picked up the pace on Tuesday and that was Rodney Sanders and Donny Schatz. They finished fifth and sixth respectively while Tyler Erb faded back in the field after starting on row one. The key to Sanders' and Schatz's improved finishes was the fact that they qualified much better as laying down a good qualifying effort is the biggest part of the battle for the whole night.

Lloyd and Michael Norris both "smoked" motors badly in heat race action and it remains to be seen if either has a backup power plant to continue their racing efforts this week. Other than that, it was a remarkably clean night for the Late Models with the yellow flag only waving three times in a total of ten racing events for the class. The track was a little bit dryer on Tuesday night and I think that had something to do with the lack of wrecks and attrition as even though they were still flying around the half mile, they were having to ease off, if just a little, for the dryer corners.

The UMP Modifieds run a marathon schedule here at VSP with them running eight straight nights with everything from the Sprint Cars to the Late Models running as a companion class to one night when they run a "stand alone" program with other cars just practicing. Tuesday, they wrap up their portion of Speedweeks with a "features only" format. In a clever concept, with well over seventy different Modifieds racing during that time period, there are plenty of drivers that never qualify for a main event. Tuesday, who ever is left on the grounds and wants to race, is allowed to run a main event with the field evenly divided into three groups. Interestingly, the groups are not staggered by point totals but instead divided into the low point totals, the medium point totals and the highest point totals. What is especially interesting is that all three features pay the same purse and even more interesting, for the first and only time during Speedweeks, the races are not run "straight up" but inverted with the first ten in points in each race inverted! What a concept!

Most years only about thirty or so cars stick around for the final night of racing as their big money event has already been held but this year, there were still forty drivers left around to race on their final night. However, points are still tabulated for the final night, and with the big "gator" trophy for the point champion to be decided, there was plenty of drama in the final race of the night.

Nick Hoffman maintained a slight lead over Jacob Hawkins but the point title was still very much in doubt. As it turned out, Hawkins won the battle but Hoffman won the war. Hawkins jumped to the cushion as he likes to do and went motoring to the front, where he started to run away. Meanwhile, Hoffman was running a little more conservatively but when he saw Hawkins started to check out, he got up on the wheel himself and used both the high and low groove to drive up to second.

Hoffman tried to run down the leader, but unlike Monday night when the top side gave up on Hawkins, Jacob remained strong on the berm and drove home for the win. Hoffman remained firmly in second and the title would go to him by the slimmest of margins. Hawkins did the most passing by anyone seen in this class here, as he started ninth in the fifteen lap finale.

In an interesting turn of events on Tuesday, the Late Model feature was the first main event run and I thought there would be a mass exodus from the grandstands after their driver interviews were completed, but surprisingly, most of the crowd stuck around for the Modified feature too.

Interspersed during the evening's activities, the Big Block Modifieds ran off three practice sessions and they had well over forty cars take to the track for testing and tuning. Their events which are scheduled to start on Wednesday promise to be very exciting also. I must admit that while I don't get to see this class race very often, I have developed an affinity for these huge horsepower, oddly handling cars that seem to lurch and bounce all over the track but always put on an interesting show and they certainly have some interesting personalities among their drivers too.   

Madden Snookers Shirley for the Opening Night Win at VSP

I'm back at the keyboard after a couple of days off. Saturday night was a double rain out and I managed to get soaked to the skin for no good reason. Sunday, the best race of Speedweeks was held so far at Bubba Raceway Park but since I was on no one's "list" for that one, I just sat and enjoyed. It was a nice comeback for Bubba's, as their 2016 race was the worst of the entire Speedweeks and they made a complete turn around for this year.

Volusia Speedway Park started out their portion of the Late Model racing on Monday, February 20th with the first of three consecutive nights of UMP sanctioned racing to be followed up by three nights of World of Outlaws points racing. It was a spectacular weather day and I think the best that we have had so far in Florida. Along with the Late Models, it was the big night for the UMP Modifieds with their most prestigious and highest paying event of the entire long week plus they have been racing at VSP. The Mods started out racing way back when the All Star Sprints started their run here, and they have been racing every night since. Following up their big night on Friday, which was set up through duel qualifying sessions on Sunday, they will wrap up their time in Florida with a "features only" format for Tuesday.

Of course, much of the prerace talk on Monday centered on the events on Sunday night with the bad wreck that saw a Sprint Car get into the pit area and hit three people injuring them. When I walked into the pits, the track crew was very busy replacing the fence that had been knocked down and setting up new barriers to establish a "safe zone" outside the first and second turn. A set of bleachers used by pit personal outside turn two had also been removed.

Looking at the fence in question, it is not a spectacularly strong or especially high one, but is also similar to many others seen at race tracks all across America. The triple guard rail that rings the outside of turn one and two is also not near as high as some retaining fences but again doesn't strike one as especially dangerous either. However, the race cars at VSP really get up a look of speed and with the way that Sprint Cars tend to vault into the air when they run over each other, the distance that the wrecking car traveled is not surprising. Certainly some changes will have to be made for 2018 with some kind of fence like Knoxville's the likely answer.

It was sickening the amount of TV coverage that this incident received. Camera crews from TV stations all over the area were swarming the grounds and helicopters hovering over the track all after noon. Camera crews roamed the grounds, looking for people to interview. I was asked by two different crews to offer my thoughts but when they found out that I wasn't at the track on Sunday, they were no longer interested in my thoughts. Someone close to me let one of the crews "have it" when she asked if they would have been at the track to interview people if the race had a spectacularly close finish, but when the camera crew admitted they would not be there if not for the accident, she told them to come back and interview her when they had something positive to say about the races. I'm a bit surprised with the attitude taken by the TV people as with Daytona so close, I would have thought that the racing might be looked a little more favorably on and that TV might  have taken a little more forgiving attitude toward the accident, given that NASCAR and Daytona are the "straw that stirs the drink" in and around Daytona Beach. Apparently I'm wrong in that belief.

To me, the biggest news was the large number of racers that were missing for one reason or another as their absence was almost as large as the number of drivers in the Late Model class that were on hand to race. With the Bowyer cars of Lanigan and O'Neal, along with Steve Casebolt, Dennis Franklin, Austin Hubbard, Kenny Pettyjohn, Colton Flinner and a car provided for Ray Cook all sitting parked on Monday, along with the four suspended drivers(Bloomquist, Satterlee, Owens and the Best Motorsports Team), there were as many good racers missing as there were on hand. Certainly the field wasn't near as powerful as some seen at VSP in other years. By the way, the "smart money" in the pits is being wagered that the lawsuit against World Racing Group by the four racers will be refiled soon in another state.

As another example of how humbling motorsports can be, look no farther than Donny Schatz. Less than twenty four hours after he had one of his greatest days ever, winning both ends of a WoO Sprint Car doubleheader at this same track, he qualified terribly in his Late Model as was no where near able to make the main event, even though he had his highest hopes ever of really running competitively in the Late Model. 

At a track that if anything is too fast for a regular show to begin with, for some reason track officials continue to prep a track that is extremely tacky and blinding fast. It produces some awesome speeds but I think fans are here to see passing and that is very difficult to do with the tremendous speeds that these "Indy Cars of the Dirt" can produce. The cars are bolted down so hard to the tracks now and create such a force of air around them that they are really hard to pass, especially on a track like VSP that doesn't offer up particularly wide straightaways and has walls and barriers close by that offer no margins for error.

Brian Shirley was fast right at the start of the main event and opened up a nice early margin. Chris Madden, who has been impressive in early season runs also, worked his way past Tyler Erb and closed on the leaders and when Chub Frank had bad luck and shredded a tire, Madden used the outside lane to power around Shirley and take the lead. Shirley then adjusted his line and started to close back up, but Madden had the field covered by then and with no yellow flags over the last seventeen laps, Madden drove on for the win. Shane Clanton probably passed as many cars as anyone as he came from tenth to fourth at the finish with Dennis Erb also gaining a number of positions. My hope is that they will slow down the track some for the rest of the week.

Fifty two Modifieds were left out of a field that numbered nearly seventy in total over the course of their long stand here at VSP. Two last chance races set the final field and then twenty eight cars went thirty laps for their five grand to win "Gator" title race.

Jacob Hawkins took the lead on lap eight and built up a nice advantage but then Nick Hoffman, as he has been doing here all week, came charging to the front. He gradually caught Hawkins, and with the last half of the race running nonstop, he drove under Hawkins and took over the lead as the top side started to give out just a little.

As with the Late Models, the Modifieds were flying around the track at high speed and with the low groove holding much moisture, most of the field lined up on the bottom groove with Hawkins one of the very few able to keep up using the long way around the track.

Hoffman pulled away in the late going as he stretched his advantage over Hawkins but Jacob held off Will Krup for second with a remarkably consistent Kenny Wallace and Tyler Nicely completing the top five. The race had only three yellow flags and only a half dozen cars failed to finish the race distance.

VSP had been closed for the later half of 2016 and it is showing that it could use just a little bit of sprucing up. Compared to the other tracks that I have visited so far in Florida, it is slipping behind some of the others just a bit. Track lighting for both the racers themselves and in the grandstands could use some updating and the scoreboards at VSP are really quite second class compared to any of the others I've seen so far with the ones here being out more often than they work. And the one really unique aspect of VSP, the "Gator Pond", has failed to produce so far with no reptiles being spotted to this point.

Bloomquist Get Serious at East Bay

The preliminaries are over. The money grows larger and the Lucas Oil Series points are back on the table for Friday and Saturday night's events at East Bay Raceway Park. Not surprisingly, the cream rises to the top on nights like that after after a few days to shake down everything, the top notch teams are ready to get to work.

Scott Bloomquist dragged himself out of a hospital bed and to the track last night where his effort was less than stellar. But as he noted himself, last night gave him the opportunity to try a few things with his car and those points were noted for Friday night's event as he grabbed the lead early and held off several strong challenges from Josh Richards to win the fifty lap main event and bank another ten grand.

The evening started off with forty ten cars signing in to race in round four of the series here at East Bay, with one round lost to the weather. Three drivers pulled out after Thursday night's racing with both Craig Wolford and Greg Oakes heading for Screven and the World of Outlaws show were neither would make the main event, just as they had been also failing to accomplish here. Stephen Breeding was also missing and apparently headed home.

Two drivers had trouble in hot laps and failed to race after that. John Gardner Jr. had undisclosed issues while Freddie Carpenter was seen in the pits after the show changing a motor on the Kryptonite house car. Local driver Shan Smith was also in the pits although he didn't enter Friday night's action as he was also busy changing a motor throughout the evening.

One notable addition to the field was the appearance of Bobby Pierce who was driving a second car for the Gordy Gundaker stable. Of course, Gundaker also races Pierce cars so the addition of him to the field made perfect sense. Frankly, it was a bit of a surprise that Pierce wasn't entered with his own car down here at East Bay anyway.

Of of the young stars of this week's action was laid low by mechanical problems also as Michael Lake had a motor lay down on him in his heat after qualifying poorly as he drew a very early number. They then parked the car and Doug Horton, who was driving the back up car for the Lake team indicated in victory lane after winning the Dirt on Dirt dash that they would likely pull the motor out of his car and swap it into Lake's car for the final night of action. Afterward in the pits it appeared that they were doing exactly that.

As has been the case for much of the week here, the preliminary qualifying events have been among the best races of each night. Friday the heats were good and the two B features were exceptional with drivers desperate to make the main events pulling off wild slide jobs and racing three wide to try and get into the main. Both the B's had the crowd up on the edge of their seats as the action was nonstop and spectacular.

Unfortunately, this would be the highlight of the night as the track seemed to give up for the main event, taking rubber by the halfway point and driving the racers to line up and follow each other around the track with passing at a premium and those attempting to run the cushion found themselves in reverse.

It seems like all week the preliminary events have been first class racing but the track has been spotty all week for the main events with it being good for one night(example on Thursday when the surface was icy and allowed much passing) and then it would tail off for the next night such as Friday. There is no doubt though that when the track is "on", the racing here is among the best around.

Kentucky's Dustin Linville, after much spectacular driving during the week that usually ended up with bad things happening, finally made a main event Friday as his bold move to the cushion in a heat race event finally worked out for him. Unfortunately, he was the first car out of the feature race and shortly after the show's completion, his hauler was headed out the gate and he was presumably headed back to his "olde Kentucky home."

Things got wild during one of the feature race restarts when a track official placed the restart cone quite far out into the track and leader Bloomquist cut under the cone as did many of the field behind him. Several drivers clobbered the cone and Kenny Pettyjohn dragged it for a lap around the track with the rope wrapped around his air cleaner. The cone was then placed much closer to the inside of the track with a considerably shorter rope!

Richards and Tim McCreadie made the most progress in the main event, passing a number of cars in the first half of the race before the track started to lock down and Richards had actually maneuvered himself to a point that he was just ready to make a pass on Bloomquist when the yellow came out on lap thirty. After that, Bloomquist adjusted his line and the track's surface took car of the rest.

Don O'Neal made the save of the week when he got turned sideways by Jonathan Davenport as they battled for the third position. O'Neal slid sideways nearly the length of the back chute but somehow saved the car and only lost one position. I'm sure this move will be on the highlights package of every TV show in the upcoming months.

The house was packed on a beautiful Friday night with a huge crowd but as usual, the folks in attendance played "second fiddle" as we had to wait around for the winner's interview until TV was done doing "their thing." Some day, if this sport turns into another of the many "TV sports" it will look a little bit silly when the Dave Argabright's of the world interview the winner in front of an empty grandstand! But that's the way they treat the paying customer; as a second class citizen.

People coming to Speedweeks are carrying lots of cash and dying to spend it. That's why it absolutely amazes me that very few of the race teams have their shirts done and Lucas Oil doesn't even have a program to sell. There are lots of misses opportunities to make a buck here and a lot of marketing people are really missing the boat here.

Iowa Dirt Late Model Hall of Famer Ed Sanger was spotted roaming the pits on Friday night along with Wisconsin Hall of Famer Pete Parker.

McCreadie Rim Rides to East Bay Win

Finally, after almost two weeks of racing action at East Bay Raceway Park, the kind of track we have been hoping for developed. With a long reputation for producing highly competitive races with much passing, for the most part we have not seen that so far through four days of Modified racing and now, a couple of days of Late Model racing. However, Thursday night, February 16th brought all that to an end with a very interesting Lucas Oil Late Model race that saw four different leaders, much passing, drivers running multiple grooves and just a bit of controversy as a couple of drivers dropped "the dukes" and got aggressive.

Forty five Late Models signed in to race on Thursday with the fields now for the point shows on Friday and Saturday appearing to be established as the drivers appear to have made their final moves as to which direction they will be showing their allegiance when it comes to running for series points.

Eight drivers that raced here earlier this week have left with just about all of them heading up the road to Screven for the first World of Outlaws shows that will commence on Friday. Seven drivers also made their first appearance of the week here at East Bay with Don O'Neal, Lanigan, Zack Dohm, Flinner, Bloomquist, Davenport and Horton all turning laps for the first time here. On balance, it would appear that East Bay at the least came out even on the trade offs with the "star power" probably still held by Lucas. However, that means nothing if the racing isn't good and on this night, all events were top notch, starting right with the first heat and continuing all the way through the checkered flag in the main event.

Michael Lake and Hudson O'Neal seem have been attracted toward each other like magnets this week and once again, in their heat race they again put of a spectacular show as they battled for the race lead. Lake would get the upper hand and go on for the win but that was only one of four heats where the intensity level was through the roof. Early on, both Corey Conley and G.R. Smith had their best runs of the week and Conley would carry that on into the main event until mechanical problems ended his evening.

Is there even an event where Scott Bloomquist is entered that he doesn't end up being right in the center of controversy?  He just seems to have that knack of making himself the center of everything, sometimes even when he's not trying to. Thursday he was quick qualifier for his heat but when that group rolled on to the track, guess what? No Bloomquist! The word was that his battery had failed and he couldn't get his car started. He just made it on the track before the green waved, had to start in the back and failed to transfer. He did make it through a B feature, although after starting on the pole he got dusted as both McCreadie and Davey Johnson blew past him and he barely held on for a feature spot.

He used the main event as a practice session, twice stopping for tires under yellow and with all the scrambling of positions and cars dropping out, he did end up seventh.

A driver that has been spectacular this week but has no finishes to show for it has been Kentucky's Dustin Linville. Again Thursday he attacked the cushion and made a great run to the front, only to jump that same cushion and pound the wall, effectively ending his night without a main event appearance again.

The main event saw the track turn great as it was like ice and drivers were all over the surface, trying to find the best line. Some worked well up top and others were right on the inside line while yet others were rolling through the middle. Drivers would hit their marks and move up, then turn a bad lap and lose several positions. It made for great racing as drivers would rise and fall then rise and fall again. Two of the top five finishers, Josh Richards and Jimmy Owens, were both up front early with Richards in fact leading laps and then both fell back to ten or worse before making charges back up into the top five.

There were four different leaders during the race including Richards, Lake, O'Neal and then finally McCreadie, who started all the way back in eighteenth after having to run a B.

Included in the jostling of position were two hard battles that likely will carry further on this week. Lake was trying to hold on to a top five after leading a number of laps, a situation that nearly brought the house down. However, young Michael got into turn three too hard, clipped Dennis Erb, and took both of them out of the running.

Two nearly identical looking blue cars of O'Neal and Kyle Bronson also got together but both lucked out when they were able to keep going and retain their positions while O'Neal's son Hudson was the big loser when contact during the same scrum wrecked his front end.

The yellow flew four times in the first half of the race but following the lap twenty three problem by O'Neal, the rest of the race went nonstop with McCreadie jumping up on the cushion at this point, going from third to first and then pulling away from the field as no one could master the top side to equal him. Owens finally got rolling with his best finish of the week and David Breazeale impressed with his first top five.

The best official of Speedweeks here so far has been starter Ronnie Lucock. Coming out of retirement to do this series, the seventy seven year old still has plenty of spirit and he really gets excited on the flagstand, putting on a show that many other starters would be wise to emulate. Many forget they are part of the show and a little flair and flash never hurt anyone, as long as they still competently do their job, which Ronnie excels at. Plus, he seems to have a good sense of humor as series announcer James Essex likes to throw a few barbs his way.

Speaking of Essex, he has been more than frustrated all week with the remote microphones that just don't seem to ever work, thus making his job of trying to interview the race winners more of a task than a fun experience. Plus, many of the drivers get so soft spoken when they are interviewed; they need to speak up louder. East Bay Raceway Park is looking a little "long in the tooth" in many regards such as their sound system. For instance, the burned out lights on the scoreboard are the same ones that were burned out last year too! However, much of that can be forgiven if they can consistently produce a racing surface to match Thursday's.

Yes, It Does Also Rain in Florida

Round three of the Winternationals at East Bay Raceway Park administered by the Lucas Oil Racing Series was scheduled for Wednesday night but the elements had much to say about that. About 4 pm a line of showers with a little embedded thunder rolled through the area. It didn't rain that long but it did come down quite hard. Soon the sun was back out and track officials set about trying to get the raceway back into acceptable shape.

An announcement was soon made that racing was still on and series officials continued to check tires for the evening's racing action, even though most race cars remained buttoned up in their haulers. Grading and other activity was going on as a few cars finally unloaded. As it got later, they attempted to turn on the track lights and the light bank in turn three failed to work.

Suddenly, activity ground to a halt and an officials' huddle was formed. Soon after it was announced that the program had been canceled due to the light problem and the fact that as the evening cooled after the sun set, the moisture was bleeding back up on to the track from below. Some in the crowd earlier were hoping for a postponement with it being kind of damp and the hour growing later, favoring a doubleheader at some point during the week. East Bay has been famous for attempting to get in all their shows possible, with day/night doubleheaders often held in the past. I'm not sure what changed their thinking in 2017 but tonight's show ended up being a cancellation, not a postponement and the show won't be made up. That made some of those hoping for a quick postponement rather than trying to stick it out and get the show in looking a bit foolish.
It was noted that before the haulers were buttoned up that several drivers including Frank Heckenast Jr, Brian Shirley, Brent Larson, Kenny Pettyjohn,  Billy Moyer Jr and Nick Kurtz had already left the grounds and with several others also slated to do so after Wednesday night racing, unless there is a large influx of different drivers at East Bay for the final three programs, it could be hard to muster up even forty cars for their highest paying shows. Don O'Neal, Darrell Lanigan and Zack Dohm were scheduled to join the field on Wednesday while Bloomquist, Flinner and Horton planned to wait one more day.

With rain in the forecast for Saturday, many are now wondering what, if any, the contingency plan will be for the biggest race of the week, should the worst happen.

Richards In Control at East Bay

Josh Richards may be driving for a different team in 2017, but the results produced by both the Best Motorsports team and himself look very much like they did last year. Richards started in the front row and after trailing Davey Johnson for a few laps, Josh blew by the leader and led the rest of the event, comfortably in control as night two of the WinterNationals at East Bay Raceway Park were concluded.

With some of his toughest competition either dropping by the wayside during the event or remaining sitting in the pits, Richards is getting valuable time to shake down his new ride and at the same time haul in a little more cash before the pits for the Lucas Oil Series fire back up on Thursday.

Forty Six cars signed in to race for Tuesday night's event with every single driver that raced Monday back for the second night along with two new entries. They included Michigan driver Nick Kurtz who was last seen at Lake City on Sunday and local weekly driver Shan Smith. However, two drivers did drop out after hot laps with both Brian Shirley and Todd Frank parking their entries. Shirley is getting dangerously low on motors already with well over a week of World of Outlaws point racing yet to do while Frank broke in warm ups and was not seen the rest of the night.

Earlier I talked to the Southeastern Iowa driver who still has ties to his native Wisconsin with most of his business interests being in the Green Bay area. He did tell me that he now has in place a good crew of workers running things there and that he doesn't have to make weekly trips back to the Badger state as he was having to do after he moved to Iowa.

As far as his racing plans for 2017, it looks to be a busy season for both him and his racing sons. Todd has a second son who will join Gunnar driving crate Late Models and it sounds like both sons and Todd will race weekly at the Lee County Speedway in Donnellson Iowa. The sons also plan to race their crates at Peoria and Quincy while Todd will run his Super Late Model at those two tracks when the Super Lates are on the schedule.

Fans are still waiting to see several of the cars in the pits actually hit the race track. Bloomquist's car remains in the hauler as he seeks medical assistance for an infection while the Bowyer cars were unloaded earlier this afternoon for maintenance and then bundled back up in their trucks. Colton Flinner continues to wait on a motor for his car and the back up car of Michael Lake, slated to be driven by Doug Horton, remains under wraps. Rumors continue to circulate that Jonathan Davenport may make an appearance later this week and that Brandon Overton is being pressured to come race with the Lucas Oil group, given that he is the current point leader after racing in Georgia last weekend.

Dustin Linville was able to get his car repaired to race on Tuesday after slamming the wall in time trials last night. However, there were plenty of other drivers that will have much work to do before Wednesday. Gregg Satterlee had to roll out a back up car after hammering the wall and local favorite Kyle Bronson also tried to knock down the wall in his heat which caused extensive damage to his Rocket chassis.

The track was much heavier than it was on Monday which forced track and series officials to conduct extensive track packing and hot lap sessions that resulted in the first race not hitting the track until about forty five minutes after the scheduled starting time. There also were more wrecks during the racing action that produced a number of torn up race cars including the most spectacular that saw Steve Francis park his new car on top of Frank Heckenast's mount in the middle of a multi car wreck on a restart during the feature event.

It was so humid during the night that the track never did even begin to dry out and one positive of that was that there was none of the dust of Monday night's show to be had in the grandstand on Tuesday. This also resulted in some real "hammer down" racing throughout the night and the feature race saw about as many DNF's as there were cars that went the distance.

It was interesting watching the pre race activity in the pits, particularly as it pertained to the tires used by the teams. All teams had to bring their tires to the tech area where they were inspected, serial numbers recorded and they were then spray paint marked by series officials. All teams are allowed only four tires for qualifying and heat race action and if they damage one, it must be brought to the Lucas Oil officials for an OK before a replacement can be used. The teams are then allowed four new tires for feature race action. All this is done in an effort to keep a handle on the whole tire issue and attempt to curb costs somewhat.

Veteran Tim Dohm always seems to run well at East Bay and he did so again Tuesday with a strong second place finish. At one point he seemed to be making up time on Richards but then in the last half dozen laps or so Richards once again picked up the pace and pulled away.

David Breazeale has one of his best runs ever against major competition on Tuesday as he raced in the top five throughout the event and did indeed nail down a top five finish, edging out Tyler Erb for the spot.

Off the top of my head, a few drivers that were expected to do good here this week and so far have not shone too much would include Mason Zeigler, Tim McCreadie, Boom Briggs and Dennis Erb.

I continue to be very impressed with the fifteen and sixteen year old duo of Michael Lake and Hudson O'Neal. Both of them were in the top ten again Tuesday and for O'Neal, this came despite the fact that he rolled to a halt on lap two after starting in the fourth row and came back up through the field. Both of these young drivers show absolutely no fear with O'Neal being an absolute "chip off the block" of his hard driving father Don.

Sheppard On Top of East Bay Opener

With the open wheel cars now vacated East Bay Raceway Park, it was time for the Late Models to take center stage for  the opening round of the historic Winternationals at this venerable facility. With the Lucas Oil Racing Series administering the action here, the first few nights are non points races for Lucas so a few different things generally take place. Drivers use the opening few nights to do some experimenting while others prefer to leave their cars parked(as if five grand to win for only twenty five laps is nothing more than chump change).

Forty four cars signed in to race on the opening night with cars for Bloomquist, O'Neal, Lanigan, Horton, Flinner among others that remained parked on Monday. According to series announcer James Essex, Bloomquist was at the hospital to have his hand examined after injuring it while the Bowyer cars always seem to just watch on the opening night.

There were however, a lot of different drivers on hand that have never before ran at East Bay and the mix was rather interesting and much more of a cosmopolitan field than most series races, no matter what the sanctioning body.

Among the most spectacular car entered was that of the Kryptonite house car driven on Monday by Tyler Carpenter. The car was wrapped entirely in a spectacular gold color and certainly stood out from the crowd. This car was one of the highlights of the PRI show and many were surprised to see that it was not just a "show car" but a real race car also.

When one enters a race car for the Winternationals at East Bay, they had better have their "stuff" together. The action starts quickly and doesn't slow down with things coming fast and furious. Any race team had been be prepared to take on the field here. Once the cars are called to stage here, things move quickly with one race quickly followed by the others and the intensity level being high from start to finish. There is no waiting for anyone here and if you're not ready to race, you get left at the gate.
The field is split into two groups for qualifying here with the fast cars starting up front in the heats and the heat race finishes determining the main event order. So, as you can imagine, qualifying is hugely important to having a good  and successful night.

The heat races are often the best events of the night with a surprising amount of passing. With so many strong cars and the track still fresh for the heats, drivers use different grooves and the sense of urgency to get to the front produces some dramatic racing. The results will show that the front row cars won all four heats but don't really tell the tale on how entertaining the short events were.

As per usual, once the show begins at East Bay, other than to perhaps pack in the outer groove with some work trucks, the track crew never touches the racing surface. Sometimes that's good, sometimes not so much. Monday, the humidity seemed to increase just before main event time with the bleachers and other items in the grandstands actually feeling moist. I thought this would be a good thing and lead to a memorable main event. However, with this track being extremely difficult to "read", I was totally wrong. Other than a few half hearted attempts to try the outside in the early going, everyone dove right to the bottom and followed each other around "the ditch" and the main event proved to be anti climatic. It also produced one of the dirtiest tracks in recent memory as the fans in the stands got blasted in a big way.

Brandon Sheppard was clearly the fastest car and after he got past Brian Shirley, he cruised home for the rest of the feature and at only twenty five laps, the racing hardly gets started before its time to throw the checkered flag. Josh Richards was one of the few to move up the track and he passed several cars before he felt the top starting to go away and he dove to the inside also.

My biggest takeaway from the opening night action was the performance of two young drivers in the field. I had read about the results produced by young Pennsylvania driver Michael Lake but I had never seen him race before. It didn't take me long to realize that the moon faced youngster was the "real deal" as he raced hard three wide in his heat and gave no quarter and was hanging in the top ten for most of the feature until slipping back slightly at the end. Looking hardly the part of a race car drivers(who said a race car driver had to look like an athlete anyway), the fifteen year old clearly has a ton of talent and appears to also be well supplied with top notch equipment.

The other young driver who impressed was Hudson O'Neal. I suppose that no one should be surprised that with his last name, race car driving would come naturally to him. Again, he has top notch equipment to work with but he can clearly drive. And we should not be surprised that he shows absolutely no fear, sticking his nose right in the action against the biggest names in the sport. He started nineteenth in the main and on a track that didn't produce a lot of charges to the front, he worked his way all the way up to ninth at the finish. 

As usual the East Bay crew along with the officials of the Lucas Series cranked off the program in spectacularly prompt fashion and the final checkered flag waved just after 9 pm. The crowd was also very good for a Monday night opener for this week's series.About the only thing missing from the opening night was an appearance by Jean Lynch but she's apparently back home this year.

Erb and Hoffman Top North Florida Mains

The racing action moved North about two and a half hours on Sunday, February 12th to Phil and Elizabeth Guadagno's North Florida Speedway near Lake City. The Sunshine State Mod Tour had spent three days last week running at Lake City and they returned on Sunday for one last non point show. Joining them were the UMP Late Models, many of them on their way to other destinations for further racing this week and next along with the local Thunder Stock class.

Last year this event was scheduled to be my first race of the Florida series but heavy over night rains caused this event to be cancelled so the local track management was very eager to get the Late Models in particular on the track.

Before we begin with this report however, there are a few things that must be cleared up from last night's East Bay finale for the Mod tour. And for whatever reason, it seems like there were several big announcements relative to important finishing positions that were never really publicized for the public. Kyle Strickler's surprising non appearance for the Modified feature was explained due to the fact that his car was disqualified after he won a B feature event. Mufflers were an issue all week at East Bay and after warning the drivers at three straight drivers meetings, the rule was enforced on Saturday and Strickler's car did not comply with the rules so it was disqualified. This allowed the third place finisher in that event, Buzzie Reutimann, to move up to the main event.

The other disqualification on Saturday was to the B Mod feature winner David Reutimann whose car failed to pass technical inspection and was removed as the race winner. This allowed Kevin Adams to claim yet another feature win in the B Mod class along with making his point championship total even more substantial.

And now on to North Florida. The track is some where in the range of being perhaps a three eighth or fourth tenth mile oval. It has wide, sweeping turns and medium banking. The surface is entirely different than that of the Florida tracks farther South as it almost looks like beach sand. For certain, the pits are covered with white powdery sand that most lake property owners would kill for to have on their beaches. With the sun and wind, I was worried that it would dry up and produce a dirty, one lane night of racing but that proved to be totally incorrect. A week earlier they ran their Sunshine State Mod Tour race in the afternoon and it was a dusty disaster, so dusty in fact that many of the drivers simply pulled off because it was too dangerous to race on. This event was earlier also scheduled to be a 2 p.m. start but early this week they backed off on the starting time and it proved to be a very wise decision indeed. Instead of a possible debacle, they ended up with some very good racing and two excellent feature races.

Car counts were not expected to be earth shattering with the Mod race being a non point show and many of the open wheel drivers already on their way home while many of the Late Model drivers are trying to save their equipment for two hard weeks upcoming. However, there were still a solid field of twenty each in the top classes and a number of very good cars on hand. They produces a couple of very competitive main events.

Heat race action went off smoothly after qualifying for both Mods and Late Models with only the heat winners redrawing for the main events. The Modified feature went first and it produced some very hard, side by side racing action. Kenny Wallace was the early leader and in fact led the first twenty four laps of the main event. He was trailed by Nick Hoffman and Strickler and those two were really getting after it as they raced for the second spot very hard. A couple of times it appeared that neither lifted going into turn three but somehow they managed to clear the corner without disaster taking place. They caught Wallace just before the yellow waved and their three car battle for the top spot was wild and woolly.

Hoffman took the lead on the green as they continued to jockey for position and following another late race yellow, Allen Weisser came out of no where to pass Strickler for the second spot after starting twelfth. Hoffman managed to gain just a bit of breathing room but the battle for second was wild with Strickler leaning pretty hard on Weisser on the final corner to take second back. Curt Myers moved into fourth late in the race as he passed Wallace for that spot. It was a hard fought and entertaining event. There were only four yellow flags in the race and only five of the twenty starters failed to complete.

The Late Model feature might have seen quite as much shuffling for the lead spots but there was a constant battle for the top position throughout the race. Tyler Erb took the lead right at the start and was actually scored the leader for all forty laps but it was not nearly as easy as that might sound. Early on, he had constant pressure from Kyle Bronson and then later Brian Shirley replaced Bronson as the chief challenger. Several times Shirley got right to Erb and made challenging moves for the lead, only to be repelled by Erb.

Several other drivers made nice advances including Frank Heckenast Jr and Austin Hubbard who came from ninth to fourth. Brent Larson also gained a number of positions. Shirley continued to hound Erb until he pulled up lame just as the white flag came out. This set up a two lap sprint to the finish but Erb was up to the challenge and held off Bronson and Frankie. Only three yellow flags slowed the forty lapper.

The track slicked up very nicely and allowed the drivers to drive deep into the corners and ride up the banking and there was much side by side racing without a lot of banging. There was very little dust and the track produced good racing with all on hand seeming to be very satisfied with the evening. With the positive vibs that the night produced, perhaps a few more drivers will drop by on their way elsewhere next year although quite frankly, with it being a Sunday night everyone was probably hoping that the show would materialize just about as it turned out.

The Thunder Stocks has just enough cars for one heat and while winner Shane Taylor drove a solid race, the majority of the field had a tough time keeping their cars pointed in the right direction. Apparently hood pins are in short supply in North Florida as more cars than not has hoods flapping in the breeze come feature time.

The evening turned out to be a very pleasant surprise in many ways. While the North Florida Speedway is not a fancy track by any means, the racing action was good which is what the bottom line should be at any facility. The program moved along crisply thanks to local track officials and the UMP crew that was administering the race meet and after starting shortly after 6 pm, the final checkered waved before 9 pm. Thanks to the Guaragno's for their help in producing a night of racing that exceeded all expectations.

Mathews Edges Adams in East Bay Sunshine State Finale

The Sunshine State Mod Tour wrapped up its tour on Saturday, February 12th with the seventy five lap, five grand to win finale event at East Bay Raceway Park and it was a dandy with East Bay regular Jeff Mathews edging out Kevin Adams by less than a car length in an outstanding main event. David Reutimann also edged Adams to win his second straight B Mod feature in the final event for that division also.

Forty seven Modifieds signed in for the final night of the four evening series at East Bay, which has  been contested in spectacular Florida weather. The racers that have been on hand all four nights were rewarded on Saturday, with the top six in points for the three nights so far at East Bay automatically moving into the main event and the five heat races started straight up, staggered by points accumulated so far this week. Those that chose not to run all four nights or to show up only later in the week when the purse money went up had to work a little harder to make the main. Those that didn't qualify out of the heats had one last show in the two B features with twenty four cars plus a past champions provisional and the highest point driver not making the show also receiving a starting berth. Twenty five cars actually took the green flag in the main with Kyle Strickler mysteriously missing at the start. The driver who tore up the series early on had to qualify through a B, winning one of the events, but then failed to show on the track for the lineup for the feature.

The show was moved along at a good pace Saturday and series officials avoided the temptation of dragging things out by eliminating the driver introductions that bog down many a show by sending out the starting field as soon as the B Mods were done. They introduced the top six in points and did their draw for the starting positions on the front chute and that was enough to satisfy the crowd as far as meeting the drivers up close and personal.

Unlike Friday night when the track rubbered up early, eliminating much racing and tearing up tires, the track was totally different on Saturday. At least twice during the show when it appeared that it might dry up and the groove might start  to narrow up, suddenly the surface took on an almost slimy appearance and the cars were once again all over the track. I would assume that this was the result of some different track prep and the famous tides that affect the racing surface here at East Bay. It's always hard to tell here just exactly what the track prep strategy is as all the work is done very early in the day and by race afternoon the most that you might see on the track is perhaps the water truck briefly or some heavy equipment rolling the track. Once the first race car hits the track, the only track prep you might see is some trucks rolling in the cushion between events. In any event, the track was excellent for the seventy five lap feature and saw cars racing all over the track. At the thirty five lap fuel stop, the only cars that changed tires were a couple that were way in the back and probably thought they had nothing to lose by doing so. None of the drivers anywhere toward the front changed tires, indicating that the tire issues of Friday were not cropping up.

It turned out to be a wonderful week for local driver Jeff Mathews who after a poor run on Wednesday made the bold move to buy a crate motor, put on the big spoiler and try to improve his performance. No doubt influenced by Strickler's impressive runs in the crate, Mathews became an instant threat with the new motor combination. Sharp eyed readers no doubt caught my gaffe in yesterday's report as Mathews in indeed running a new chassis from David Stremme but they are called Lethal chassis, an error now corrected.

The seventy five lapper itself was an excellent race with Mathews working his way into the lead and moving out to a sizable advantage of nearly a straightaway in the early going. Adams worked his way up from fifth starting spot to move past Kenny Wallace into second just before the fuel break.

Yellow flags, while they were few, were huge points in the race on two occasions. After the race resumed following the fuel stop, Adams moved to the cushion and blew past Mathews into the lead. He then built up a significant advantage which was trimmed when he got hung up in traffic and Mathews closed on him. Another yellow with fifteen laps to go swung the tide again as Mathews made a charge to drive under Adams and retake the lead. Jeff then opened up some ground on Adams, but Kevin again started to cut into the lead.

With just a couple of laps left, Adams had closed to the rear of Mathews but a couple of lapped cars forced him to run a slightly different line that might have been the deciding factor at the finish. Adams did make a charge off the final corner, dropping low and trying to sneak under Mathews but he came up a half car length short in what was a very entertaining event and much more competitive than I might have imagined, going into the long distance finale.

Mike VanGenderen straighten out his program immensely on the final night as the defending champion started eleventh and finished a strong third. Still, he couldn't completely avoid the erratic nature of his new car as he triggered a multi car pileup on lap thirty when his car inexplicably took a right turn in turn two. However, VanGenderen was able to keep moving and he avoided having to go to  the tail of the field.

Ray Bollinger had a nice run also with a fourth place finish, despite the side of the car being all bashed in following a collision. Bollinger's week has been a tough one with his own car sidelined early when he ran out of motors with the time following being spent trying to chase down the set up in Lucas Lee's back up car that saved him from heading home early back to Illinois. Kenny Wallace had another consistent run and I have to give a "shout out" to a couple of other drivers that picked up their game on championship night.

Curt Myers is a veteran driver who has raced in multiple divisions in WISSOTA racing and is the two time defending Super Stock national champion but after not having raced a Modified for five years, he decided to get back into that class for 2017. He has been struggling a bit so far this week but Saturday he showed that he is getting things back up to speed as he first managed to qualify for the main and then nailed down a top ten finish.

Chad Williamson drives Late Models back in his native South Dakota but for this series he caught a ride in the back up car of another South Dakota native, Dennis Haven. They have been struggling all week to find speed in their cars but Saturday he looked much better, not only making the main but just missing a top ten finish for the budget operation that Haven fields.

Other than the competition yellow, there were only four other yellow flags in the seventy five lapper, eleven cars finished on the lead lap and seven failed to go the distance it what was overall a very smooth main event.

Reutimann started on the pole for the B Mod feature and led all the way. Adams used a late restart to try and slingshot past David, and he got up beside him but couldn't quite complete the pass. Adams was using a wounded motor the last two nights and that, plus the edit that saw him forced to remove his spoiler, made Reutimann's crate the car to beat. For those that were screaming that Adams was using an "over the top car", his motor was a WISSOTA legal, 9.5 to 1 flat top , B Mod motor using a four barrel intake and carburetor for this series, all of which were perfectly legal. But with some of the radical stuff some others were trying to use in the B Mods, those rules will certainly have to be cleaned up before next year's event.

It was a very tough night for local racer Bill Howard who blew up the motor in his primary car in his heat race. He came out with a back up car for a B feature and promptly got that car in a big wreck and he limped back to the pits with much work to be done if he plans on participating in any more Speedweeks events.

Adams claimed the point titles in both classes for the Sunshine State Mod Tour and while he has always run well in these events, this was by far his most successful and consistent year in Florida. His switch back to Shaw chassis late last year seems to have been a wise one to this point. 

A very good crowd was on hand for the Modified finale on Saturday night and they seemed pleased with what they had seen as the program was entertaining and moved along at a nice pace.  It would seem that the Sunshine State Mod Tour has found itself a home among the many racing activities that are going on in Florida this month and looks solid for the future.

Thanks to everyone at East Bay Raceway Park for their help as the Modified portion of their month long racing extravaganza wraps up.

Mathews Pleases the Home Folks at East Bay

Round three at East Bay Raceway Park and round six overall of the Sunshine State Mod Tour was contested on Friday night, February 10th and for the first time during the tour, the local fans had something to cheer about as finally one of their own broke through to gain a feature win.

Jeff Mathews, a former track champion at this facility, used the newly gained throttle control added with his switch this week to a crate motor along with solid handling characteristics in his new Elite chassis from David Stremme to drive past Kevin Adams and win his first feature race of the series and bring the local fans to life. So far this week, they have been sitting on their hands as the locals haven't done well, but Mathews changed that on Friday with a strong run that left him as a definite threat to win the big money in Saturday night's seventy five lap feature.

In the B Mods, local driver David Reutimann also broke through to take his first win of the series as he held off Adams for the win, putting two crate motors in victory lane.

Fifty four Modifieds took qualifying laps on Friday while track champion Steve Miller scratched out before the racing action began. The powerful two car team of Trent Young and David Mitchell from Kentucky made their first appearances of the week, local driver Matt Miller also made his first run and both Devin Dixon and Tyler Nicely pulled out back up cars among changes that took place on Friday night.

It was a perfect night for Mathews as he was quick qualifier of the night and also won his heat race. However, he redrew as poor as possible and was forced to start sixth in the main event. For the third straight night however, the quick qualifier drew a "one" on the invert and the heats were started once again straight up off the time trials. One has to wonder just how many different numbers there were in the can!

Each night the "Clay by the Bay" has gotten drier and drier and Friday found some of us begging that the tide would come in and ram some moisture back up into the racing surface. While everyone was hugging the bottom on Thursday, Friday's show found the track starting to take on a lot of rubber and it produced a high speed train. Adams was able to use the outside line, where he seems to totally dominate over the field, to move up from the second row and drive by early leader Kenny Wallace for the lead. Mathews moved up quickly and disposed of Wallace and moved in on Adams.

As the track started to take more rubber, the drivers started working down on the track and Adams was clearly too tight in the corners as Mathews challenged him for the lead. Jeff actually slipped under Adams once, only to have the yellow save him. However, Mathews quickly challenged again and Adams didn't have the corner speed to fight off Mathews and once in front, Jeff promptly pulled away from the field.

With it rubbered up, after that it turned into a high speed train with the only action being when the leaders caught lapped traffic which wouldn't move out of their groove, and Adams, Wallace and Kyle Strickler had a three car scramble to try and fight through the traffic. Wallace was able to sneak into second but after a late race yellow set up a two lap race to the finish, Adams was able to retake the spot. Afterward, Wallace and Adams seemed to be having an earnest discussion, perhaps about that particular point of  the race, and as in any discussion with Wallace, he was doing the majority of the talking. In his interview afterward, Wallace called it the best track of the three nights, so I guess his opinions and mine are slightly divergent when it comes to track surfaces.

Reutimann started on the pole of the B Mod feature and led all the way. Adams did everything he could to try and generate enough momentum to drive around David, but with the track as it was and the B Mods just not having the immense horsepower of the Mods, he wasn't able to edge past into the lead, although he gave it his best and refused to just follow the leader around the track. Jason Garver, who I found out Friday was disqualified from his second place finish on Thursday due to a motor issue that was found, perhaps in response to the complaints about lack of teching, came back with a legal motor and finished third.

While they manage to scrape together enough cars to have two heats Friday, the response, or lack there of,  by the area cars has been disappointing. When they set the rules for this division, they allowed four link suspension cars, essentially the same cars as the Modifieds, to race because that's what they normally run in the class down here. Now that few of them have even bothered to show up to race, track management has already stated that next year only three link suspension cars will be allowed to compete, which should open up the action to many more Northern drivers, who were hesitant to enter this year, feeling that they were over matched against regular Modifieds with down sized motors.

Certainly one of the biggest stories of the night came after the final checkered flag was waved when fourth place finisher Kyle Strickler was disqualified for failing to report to the tech area. This cost him dearly as the early week's dominating driver thus took himself out of the top six in points for the series here at East Bay which would have guaranteed him a starting spot on Saturday and now he will have to qualify for the feature. Those that will automatically make the main Saturday are Adams, Mathews, Wallace, Reutimann, Brad Goff and Mavrick Varnadore.

There was much concern among many drivers that if the track remains as it was for Friday's show, tire wear will be a huge problem and that no one will be able to run the distance without changing tires at some point. This could certainly scramble the race and perhaps lead to some rather unusual things going on. On a personal note, I feel that these Modifieds just weren't meant to be running in such long distance races where , in my opinion, boring things like tire management might turn out to be key. These cars were built and meant to be run in sprint type races, where you put the "hammer" down and go like the devil, not cruise around the track and try to save your tires. Such terms as "short pitting" should never be a part of the vocabulary of a dirt track Modified driver.

For Iowa race fans, I did get a chance to spend a few minutes with defending champion of this race, Mike VanGenderen. "The Dutchman" shocked the world when he won the seventy five lapper last year, hugging the inside groove with his crate car after coming out of a B feature. His first three nights at East Bay have been miserable for him so far. He is fighting his new Harris car and has been struggling miserably as he has been chasing it all over the track. He said that it just isn't fitting his driving style to this point and he feels he needs to modify his racing approach in order to make the car work. On a brighter note, he reports that all is in readiness for his tracks to open, the only down side being that with all his tracks taking on an early season busy schedule, his next opportunity to race after this weekend will likely be the Boone Frostbuster event. 

Adams Doubles at East Bay

Thursday night, February 9th, it was night two of the Sunshine State Mod Tour contested at the East Bay Raceway Park. The two drivers that had been battling for supremacy in this series so far went at it again and on Thursday it was a clear decision win for Wisconsin's Kevin Adams. Not only did he pass Kyle Strickler for the lead in the Modified feature and then go on for the win, he doubled up as he won his fourth B Mod main event of the five contested so far between here and North Florida Speedway in Lake City earlier this week while also setting quick time for the Modifieds too. 

The car count was up slightly in both classes on Thursday with several new entrants arriving. There were fifty four Modifieds on hand to race on Thursday. SSMT officials like to count every car that has been on the grounds among their entrants so their numbers don't jive with mine, but in reality there were fifty four cars on hand ready to race. Among the most significant new entrants was Kentucky's Tyler Nicely and Michigan's Kory Maurice.

The B Mods finally got enough cars on hand that they were able to run to heat races which was a first for here at East Bay.

Speaking of the B Mods, there was a bit of a brouhaha over rules in this class before the show. For the first time, they were called for a technical inspection before racing began and there was much talk about about the various rules packages that they were trying to combine for this series. The most evident change was with the car of Adams, who was forced to remove the spoiler from his B Mod and run it like his Mod sans any kind of spoiler.

The track was totally different on Thursday than it had been for Wednesday night's show and that produced some scrambling among the drivers. While the track always seems to be heavy and high side dominant for the time trials, Thursday night it really dried out and both feature races saw the field hugging the inside berm almost exclusively except for the outstanding outside pass by Adams over Strickler in the early going of the Modified main.

This series has been spiced up as for many it has become seen as a battle between the "open" motors and the crate engine cars. Of course, with Strickler running a crate and being very strong to this point of the series, this just further added fuel to the fires. And with crates not being allowed to run with UMP Modifieds anywhere but here in Florida, that has set some of the UMP faithful on edge. Adams proclamation in victory lane that he was happy to prove that you didn't need a "Mexican built motor" to win the races drew quite a hoot from the fans left in the grandstand and was likely fueled in part by the fact that the #40 racing team doesn't take likely to crate motors since Adams' father Dave is a prominent engine builder back in Wisconsin where the motor builders now put together "shop built" concept motors to fight the crate invasion.

What most people didn't know however as that Jeff Mathews, a multi time track champion at East Bay in both Modifieds and Late Models, decided that after a miserable outing on Wednesday that he would rather switch than fight, went out and bought a crate motor on Thursday and installed it in his car for tonight's racing. Was it a coincidence that Mathews suddenly caught fire and finished a strong second to Adams after passing Ashley Newman on the last corner? On a dry track like it was on Thursday, I believe that big blade that the crates are allowed to run makes a huge difference.

Minus his spoiler, Adams had a tough time holding off a strong running Jason Garver in the B Mod feature but he held on to get his fourth win in five nights.

It appeared that the Mods would all be hugging the bottom groove for their main event but Adams surprised everyone by going to the top side from his second row position and after building up some momentum, he was able to drive past Strickler for the lead. When Strickler finally gave up on the bottom and moved up to the high side where Adams was running, it was apparent that he was just a bit off in his setup on this night as Adams was clearly the fastest car on the track.

Near mid race, the top side started slowing down and Adams dropped to the bottom, hugging the inside line where everyone else had dropped to. Strickler dropped out with mechanical issues and Mathews continued to dig his way forward from the fourth row. A couple late cautions bunched the field but Adams was strong on each restart to pull away. David Reutimann made a big charge from deep in the field to finish in the top five, and with the changing track conditions, it will be interesting to see how everyone tries to keep up with the track the coming two nights.

Even though the program on Wednesday was a smooth running one with good racing, the crowd tonight seemed a bit smaller to me. My guess was that some of the traveling race fans in the area might have decided to venture up to Bubba tonight to catch Tony Stewart and the winged Sprints in action.

Tonight also marked the first big crash of the week so far. Devin Dixon jumped a wheel on a restart and was launched into the catch fence on the front chute. He was OK but a lengthy period of time was needed to get a torch and do some fence fixing. This made tonight's show run well over an hour later than last night and it did start to get quite cool. Dixon does have a back up car so hopefully we will see him back in racing action on Friday.

Strickler Continues to Dominate in Florida

After three nights of racing at the North Florida Speedway near Lake City, the Sunshine State Mod Tour headed south to the East Bay Raceway Park for another four nights of Modified racing at the third mile facility. After a hard fought twenty five lap main event, the outcome was the same as it was for two of the three nights at Lake City. Specifically, North Carolina's Kyle Strickler was again the winner. The B Mods raced for the first time ever at East Bay and Wisconsin's Kevin Adams was the winner of that event.

The first night of my Winter Florida racing experience was conducted under sunny some time and cloudy some times also skies and with extremely humid conditions. So humid in fact that the locals were commenting about how warm and muggy it was for this time of the year. Thunderstorms over night had dumped nearly an inch of rain in the area but other than some pit area puddles, the track was in fine shape for racing. Later we would see it turn from slimy to dry slick and then back again as the amazing Florida tides affected the track on an almost minute by minute basis.

Fifty two Modifieds signed in for racing action on Wednesday night, considerably higher than the car counts up at Lake City. The advantage was that East Bay had a solid field of their own cars that were willing to race and add to the program while the locals were almost nonexistent up at Lake City.

The first three nights of racing were already taxing for some racing teams with mechanical issues causing several to make some significant changes. Perhaps the most profound was that of Illinois' Ray Bollinger. While he normally races this series and then heads over to Volusia County for another week's worth of racing where he is always a strong competitor, this year he is already out of motors before ever getting to east Florida. Having blown up two power plants at North Florida, he was fortunate to catch a ride in Tennessee's Lucas Lee's back up car. After some feeling out problems early that saw him barely make the show, he moved up a number of places in the Modified main event.

Todd Shute was hoping back and forth between rides so much it was hard to keep up. He started out driving a car out of the stables of Oklahoma's Jessie Hoskins that was a claimer motor Modified and a new Longhorn chassis. Before the night was over he was in Hoskins' crate Modified and also drove Hoskins' B Mod too.

Wisconsin's Jason Gross had to change a motor before he even got a chance to race the car. He had Jason Miller drive the car for him at Lake City but they had trouble with their big motor. Miller flew home for work, Gross jumped into his own beak built Modified but with a WISSOTA spec engine under the hood which put him at a horsepower disadvantage as well as having to totally re scale the car.

The B Mods had only nine entrants, much like the short field that they also had in Lake City. The biggest problem with this class is that they don't race this class at many tracks in Florida, so most of the entrants came from far away. Even though they had only a handful of cars, entrants came from as far away as Indiana, Ohio, Wisconsin, Oklahoma, Illinois and Ontario Canada.

Just like every other sanctioning body, UMP has its idiosyncrasies when it comes to rules and teching of cars. They were very anal about body rules, requiring some changes that seemed petty to say the least. They are also quite restrictive on the shocks that the Modifieds can run yet the motor rules are about as wide open as you can get. Interestingly, crate motors are only allowed in the Modifieds here in Florida while during the rest of the season UMP has a crate only class. Yet the crate of Strickler has won three of four features so far and David Reutimann is sporting a crate motor in his B Mod that I'm predicting will win at least one feature before this series is complete. And while he didn't have a particularly good night on Wednesday, Iowa's Mike VanGenderen will be a strong competitor when the race distances get longer with "The Dutchman" also running a crate motor. 

Time trials set the fields for the Modified heats and when quick qualifier Brad Goff pulled out a "one", it meant the fields would be straight up off times. All six heats were won off the front row as the track was top side dominant early in the evening and everyone fought to position themselves in the high groove. This changed as the evening progressed with the track getting dry slick and slippery, even during the B Mod feature.

But then we were witness to the every changing surface of East Bay Raceway Park, courtesy of the changing tides. In just the few minutes between the two feature races, the track changed significantly, particularly in turns three and four where it got very "snotty" is just a few minutes time.

This changed the strategy significantly and led to a very entertaining Modified feature race. David Reutimann led for the first half of the feature with Strickler closing in on him. Eyes were on Kevin Adams who started twelfth and charged up into the top five by the halfway point of the race. Another quick caution and Adams was up to third. Then things got wild. Strickler dove low to try and pass Reutimann and he didn't clear him with the right rear of Kyle's car making solid impact on David's left front. Reutimann slipped up the track, with Strickler taking over the lead and Adams moving into second. Adams drove hard to try and catch the leader, but Strickler was strong and maintained a four length advantage to the finish. Reutimann and Strickler had some words after the finish and it was clear that Buzzie's son wasn't particularly pleased with the pass which should lead to an even more intense upcoming nights of racing. There were only two yellows in the feature and only five cars didn't see the checkered flag. All told, it was a very smooth night of racing with not many incidents to report.

Adams salvaged one feature win as he pulled away from Reutimann in the B Mod main and then had to withstand a strong challenge from Jason Garver until he slowed when he lost his power steering. Adams' win was his third of the four races the B Mods have run between here and North Florida. They brought their second car down in hopes of helping build up the B Mod field and are hoping to go home minus the motor which they hope to sell.

They got a little bit of a late start with the time trials and some extra packing of the track but once they got going, things moved along at a very crisp pace. with few breaks in the action and those being short ones, the final checked flag waved at 10:10 pm., making for a program that lasted just over two hours.

The crowd size seemed decent, particularly for a Wednesday night show with a good mix of local fans plus many that are in the area to either Winter or follow their favorite drivers. As the payoffs increase over the rest of the week, more competitors are expected to arrive also although I felt the Modified was very solid just as it was.