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.
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