The DCRR Racing Media Books
Just A Kid From The Grandstands: My Time In Auto Racing
Stories of my time in auto racing from the beginning to 2003
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Available on Lulu in Paperback And Hard Cover
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Don's California Racing Recollections: Best Of The Blog And Beyond
Racing History, Stories, Statistics And Pictures
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Available via print on demand at Lulu in Hard Cover or Paperback
A cool article about Wingless Spec Sprint Co-Founder Don O'Keefe Jr's newest racing endeavor HERE
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Modified Classes Highlight All Star Series Lineup Saturday
At Antioch Speedway
Antioch, CA...The All Star Series championship battles are in high gear as Antioch Speedway is in the month of May. The A Modified and B Modified divisions will be headlining the show this weekend along with Limited Late Models, Hobby Stocks and Dwarf Cars.
Don't look now, but reigning A Modified champion Bobby Motts Jr is currently sitting atop the point ladder by 16 points ahead of Nick DeCarlo. Despite the fact that DeCarlo opened the point season with back to back victories, Motts has been more consistent in his finishes. Last weekend, Motts won his heat race and rolled to his third Top 3 finish in four point events. DeCarlo didn't fare too well as he was out of the race early.
2017 runner up Sean O'Gara is holding down third in the standings by 18 ahead of five time division champion Scott Busby. Busby found himself in a battle with rookie Buddy Kniss last week, but Busby prevailed to finish second behind the flying Kellen Chadwick. Busby still remains tied with JD Willis atop the all time winners list with 72 career Antioch wins. Kniss, meanwhile, finished further back in the Top 10 as he maintains sixth in the standings in his bid for top rookie honors. Other drivers to watch for this week include Raymond Lindeman, David Zeiter, Bobby Montalvo and Shawn DeForest.
A talent heavy B Modified division has a familiar name at the top of the point list. It's 2016 champion Trevor Clymens. Clymens has a win and a second so far this year and leads 2016 Hobby Stock champion Guy Ahlwardt by 12 tallies. Ahlwardt is still searching for his first win in this division, but he already has a second and a third in point competition. Another driver who has run really well this year is Tommy Fraser. Tommy has two Top 5 finishes to hold third in the standings, 20 behind Ahlwardt and 16 ahead of rookie Ryan DeForest.
Last time out, it was a crowd pleasing battle at the front of the pack that saw Nick Spainhoward make a last turn pass on reigning champion KC Keller for the victory. Keller has missed races and sits further back in the standings. Rookie Brent Curran is sixth in the standings and has already won a Main Event this season. Other drivers to watch for this week include past Modified champion Aaron Crowell, past Street Stock titlist Todd Gomez, Kevin Brown and Chuck Golden. We have also received word that Australian Mini Stock champion Randall Fuel is taking the wheel of the Kenny Neu #99 car to compete against the locals this week.
Despite not finishing the most recent Limited Late Model Main Event, Mark Garner finds himself leading the standings after three events. However, it's too close for comfort. Reigning champion Kimo Oreta picked up the win in the Sundrop Racing #15 car last week to move to within two points of Garner. Garner won the prestigious Larry Damitz Memorial Race earlier this season and finished second a week later to Mike Walko. Walko is making this a good battle up front as he is only six points out of the lead in third. Other drivers to watch this week are Ryan Cherezian, who is only 16 points out of the lead, John Evans, Chad Hammer and two time division champion Mike Gustafson.
Thus far in the season, it appears to be a two-car battle for the lead in the Hobby Stock division. Michael Cooper claimed the victory last week, making him the first three-time winner of the season. However, two-time winner and 2010 champion Chris Sorensen is only four points behind. Running strong so far in his rookie season is John Wacht. Wacht earned his second third place finish last time out to hold third in the standings by 30 points ahead of reigning champion Cameron Swank. Swank has missed a race, but he enjoyed his second runner-up finish of the season last week.
It's been an eventful season already for fourth generation racer Billy Garner. Despite some of the bad like he's encountered, Garner still holds fifth in the standings, two points behind Swank. Billy is one of a pack of hungry newer competitors looking to get his first feature win. Other drivers to watch for this week include Erik Pitschner, Joey Ridgeway, Brianna Troen, Haley Gomez, Luke Brignoli and Chris Bennett. Sid Smith Jr enjoyed his second Top 5 finish of the season last time as well as a heat race win.
Mike Corsaro is off to a flying start in his bid to repeat as Dwarf Car champion. Corsaro came from deep in the pack once again to win an eventful Main Event last time out. It was his second point season victory and third of the year at Antioch Speedway, giving him a 34 point lead over David Michael Rosa. Rosa has finished as high as third, but he is still looking for his first career feature win. At the moment, he is tied with ageless veteran Charlie Correia for second in the standings, six points ahead of his father, David Rosa.
Miranda Chappa and Josh Miller have both been fast and appear to be on the verge of victory. Other drivers to watch for include Mario Marques, Chris Becker, Roberto Monroy, Troy Stevenson and 2010 champion Jerry Doty.
Saturday night will be another great lineup of All Star Series divisions from start to finish. The Modified classes have been putting on great shows, and the Cooper-Sorensen battle in Hobby Stocks has been very entertaining. For further information, go to www.antiochspeedway.com.
BCRA Midget Lites Join Hobby Stocks To Headline
Merced Speedway Show Saturday Night
Merced, CA...After an exciting Ted Stofle Classic, Merced Speedway has another great lineup of racing for the fans this Saturday night. The Bay Cities Racing Association Midget Lites will be competing along with the track's regular Hobby Stock, Mini Stock and California Sharp Mini Late Model divisions.
Fans who have seen the BCRA Midget Lites know that they bring the speed every time they come to town. This show should be no different. The group is coming off of their third event of the season at Placerville Speedway last week, which was won by young Bradley Dillard ahead of Scott Kinney and Steve Brown. Dillard is part of a close championship battle with Dakota Albright and Hunter Kinney, and there were just six points separating the three heading into last weekend.
The Midget Lites run a 1200cc engine. Much like the popular Dwarf Car division, these competitors were first seen racing in Northern California on the smaller one-eighth mile ovals, such as Delta Speedway in Stockton. Once they got a taste of bigger tracks, the drivers organized and began running a circuit. Eventually, BCRA, which is the oldest California based sanctioning body, took over sanctioning of the Midget Lites.
Albright and Aidan Lange are the other feature winners so far this season. Other competitors to watch for this week include Hunter Kinney, Terry Bergstrom, Gus Carcione, Brandon Leedy, Danika Jo Parker and Dan Foster.
Reigning Hobby Stock champion Kodie Dean may be hitting his stride, which would be bad news for the rest of the competition. Last week, Dean picked up a win ahead of Ocean Speedway champion Rob Gallaher. However, the consistent Shannon Nelsen has all Top 3 finishes in her four starts to maintain an eight point advantage over Dean going into this race. Nelson picked up another third place finish last week as she is in search of her first Main Event win since 2015.
Robbie Loquaci set the early pace in the most recent race before settling for a fourth place finish. Robbie won the previous race, but some bad luck already this year has him 41 tallies out of the lead. However, it's still early enough in the season that anything can happen. Mike Germait is having a good year so far in fourth, eight points behind Khristie Shearer for third. Other drivers to watch for this week include James Stockton, Austin Van Hoff, John Hensley and 2016 champion Michael Shearer.
The Corder name still sits on top of the Mini Stock point list after three events, but it's Jennifer Corder in the lead. This is because three-time reigning champion Chris Corder had mechanical issues in is heat race and didn't start the most recent Main Event. It was Robert Jackson giving the division a new winner in that race. The point list finds 26 points separating the Top 10 drivers, and anybody has a chance to get a win.
The remarkable news is that the Mini Stock division has seen multiple car counts of over 20 so far as several new drivers have joined the excitement this season. Jennifer Corder only has a one point advantage over Allen Neal and a two point lead over the tied Lee Ragsdale and Bryant Desaire. Tyler Jackson and Jennifer Rogers round out the Top 6, all within eight points of the lead. Only Jennifer Corder is a feature winner among those drivers. It appears that there is change in the air in the Mini Stocks, and it's very likely that we will see some first time winners in the weeks ahead.
As promised at the end of last season, promoter Ed Parker has added a point list for the California Sharp Mini Late Model division. This class is offering a gateway for the Outlaw Kart racers into racing on the bigger track. These Mini Late Models are a smaller-scale version of Late Models with a 600cc engine, and Michael Shearer and FND Motorsports is the official car dealer in California, helping to establish this class.
Tim Crews picked up the season opening victory and followed that up with a second place finish in the most recent event to maintain a four point advantage over Riley Jeppeson and Carson Guthrie. Jepprson was a feature winner last season and is very much in contention to win again this year. The most recent winner was Jesse Burks, but a bad night at the opener has him 39 points out of the lead. Second generation competitor Ian Shearer is only six points out of the lead and another driver hungry for victory.
Merced Speedway is offering a variety of different classes in this weekend's event. We're also about a month away from the big WSDCA Dwarf Car Nationals event, which is scheduled for June 15th and 16th. For further information, go to www.racemerced.com.
The Editor's Viewpoint
Frankly, I've been a bit surprised at how I've been able to get things done. I'm certainly not in control of my schedule, and when I'm told we're going here and we're doing that, I have to adjust my own schedule to accommodate. My first love in this whole process is writing and helping put the word out. Because I want to make sure that's all done properly, I make the time to get it done. Thank God for coffee, which is something I didn't touch very much in my life until about three years ago. Frankly, I wish I didn't drink so much of it, but I need to.
When it comes to race tracks, you can do everything that needs to be done and hit all your marks behind the scenes, but you don't know what's going to happen until race day. You work hard for any accomplishment you can get, and you can't take it for granted. I think there was a time when you could just pretty much do the basics and you would do okay. Now, it seems like it's a struggle at times. If you just do the basics and are somewhat on automatic pilot, it might turn around and bite you in the rear end.
Though I know there are certain race tracks that get held up as the gold standard, I know they're working hard too. However, many of the tracks out there are working hard and struggle to get anything to pop. When you come off of a week that's better than average, there isn't much celebrating. At least, there isn't for me when it comes to what we're doing up here in Medford. You've got to take a few moments to be happy and jump right in and prepare for next week.
The fact is, I don't know what kind of a year were looking at up here. I didn't know what kind of week we were going to have to open the season. I had a number in mind for attendance, and it was a better number than what we've seen. As it turns out, we did even better than that. To get to that goal, I know we are all working very hard, and it seems to me we were working harder going into this season than either of the previous seasons. Doesn't seem like it's getting easier to me.
The satisfaction you get in working behind the scenes to make the racing program happen is when the show goes off really well and the attendance is doing pretty good. It lets you know that all of the effort is making a difference. But you can't take it for granted that the cars are going to be there or the fans are going to be there. You had them last week. What have you done for me lately? You're only as good as your most recent show.
We've added a few really cool things to the roster and the schedule since we got here, and we are getting ready to try something else on Saturday night. We're having a Destruction Derby at end the show. Actually, we have booked four throughout the season. The Derby is something that we wanted to do. It used to be that you could get a couple of Derbies during the season to end the night at various tracks, but I'm seeing that this is becoming harder to accomplish. In fact, some of the fairgrounds tracks are having a difficult time even having a Destruction Derby to close the fair. It's getting harder to find the older cars, and that means tracks are even looking into four cylinder Destruction Derbies.
What I noticed a couple of years ago is that the little Monster Truck show that they put on indoors in Medford in March has had a Destruction Derby as part of the entertainment. It's this group that calls themselves the Booze Brothers. I kind of liked what I saw there, so I reached out to them back then in the hopes that maybe we could get four or five cars to end a race with a Derby. Very frustrating dealing with these guys. Not that they are bad, but they certainly have their own way of looking at things. We finally had to give up, and the idea that we would have a Derby was something we thought was unlikely.
We still haven't pulled it off yet. It's on Saturday night. At the moment, I know we have two drivers confirmed and about a half a dozen other drivers were looking hard at this one. Will they show? I don't know. You want to let the fans know that a Derby is there, because that does generate interest. The worry you have is that you told the fans a Derby is going to be there and no cars show up. This happened at Cottage Grove last year. Yes, even one of those tracks held up in high regards has its problems.
It's a nice thing to hear people say they appreciate what you're doing and they can see your effort is making a difference. I have grown to understand that you shouldn't expect praise from the fans or the racers. The fact that they show up for these events is their praise. Nobody is obligated to tell you how great you're doing. However, people feel obligated to tell you how bad things are going. They're usually more vocal in negativity than praise. It's just the nature of the beast.
The trick is you can't look at all the negativity and let it drag you down. If it's bothering you that people use your social media to bash the track, there are things you can do about that. You have a right to do that, and you should. Nobody has a right to come onto your social media site, the place that you use to put the word out to potential new fans, and throw your race track under the bus. Criticism is certainly an acceptable thing, but outright bashing or just being constantly negative isn't needed. I won't go so far as to say people being negative are ruining racing. There's a lot more to the picture than that. They just aren't doing it any favors. Feel free to speak in America, but understand that when you go to people's places, they have a right to shut you down.
The word was coming out as we were putting up our most recent posts earlier this week that NASCAR could be for sale. My first thought is this wouldn't be a bad thing. It was founded by the France family, but the France family at the time had a clue what they were doing and understood the big picture. The third generation of the family isn't doing anything to really build things up. So many of the top stars that were on TV have retired, and it's not just because all of them are getting old. There's more to the picture than that. So, maybe change and a new vision is needed. The question is, who would buy NASCAR and what would they do with it?
There was a person on Facebook who talked about how NASCAR made such a big difference on the short track circuit back in the day. The fact is, they're right. There was a mystique associated with those race tracks that had the NASCAR Banner waving proudly over them. People wanted to be there. Plus, you had the NASCAR circuit. The Super Modified class had a nice circuit and so did the Sportsman class. There was even a nice Stock Car circuit. Problem was, as we approached the end of the 1980s, things were changing. Super Modifieds we're gone. The Sportsman division had long since faded away.
NASCAR still had a strong presence on the short track scene with over 100 tracks by the late 1990s, but their vision was changing. They wanted more televised races on Saturday nights, which is prime time for the local tracks. In fact, I recall Darrell Waltrip once saying that the local tracks should run on Wednesday nights to accommodate the NASCAR TV stuff. With all due respect to Mr. Waltrip, I think he has gotten so old that he's lost touch with what it means to be a Saturday night racer. Many of those great racers work hard during the week to afford to race on Saturday nights, and having them race every week on a Wednesday is not a doable situation.
I was told by John M. Soares at Antioch back in 2015 that he was approached by NASCAR people about bringing Antioch Speedway back into NASCAR. He broke it down for me. It's very interesting, but John didn't see the upside. I won't get into the x's and o's about the whole situation. I see both sides of the argument. John made the decision when he got Antioch back in 1998 to leave NASCAR. That was not popular among some racers and fans, but in the immediate years that followed, Antioch had some of its best numbers in the pits ever. Plus, John was doing some amazing things with point funds and raising the purse back then.
I say one of the biggest reasons to have a sanctioning body is the point find money that the racers compete for. NASCAR was second to none there. I eventually learned more about how those numbers were achieved, which had me in the camp that said it's okay to leave NASCAR. I endorsed John's decision to make that move. Based on what I know now, I'd do the same thing again. But, when you look at what happened in the next few years after that, it was proven that NASCAR was cutting ties with the short tracks. They didn't care to have the dirt tracks involved anymore. This was the same association that built itself up on the backs of the dirt track circuit all across this country.
I find it interesting that a few years ago NASCAR was looking to start bringing tracks back into the fold. I have spoken about that and written about it on this blog through the years. NASCAR could easily set up regional headquarters and have people working under the regional leaders to rebuild the infrastructure of the short track Weekly Racing Series. That is, if NASCAR wanted that. What would they have to gain? To me, it would help the sport of racing, and therefore would help NASCAR on the higher levels.
One of the cool selling points to the local weekly racer back in the day was that they had a NASCAR license and ran at a NASCAR track just like the guy they were watching on TV on Sunday morning. I want to be careful not to have myself influenced too much by the nostalgia factor. We're talking about the glory days of the 1950s through the 1970s. Even the 1980s were solid. You started to see kinks in the armor in the 1990s, but it would have continued had NASCAR wanted it to. Would they entertain going back to a strong Weekly Racing Series in addition to their Cup and Grand National classes? I don't know.
I mentioned in the column the other day and on the audio show that Coos Bay Speedway is the only NASCAR sanctioned dirt track on the West Coast. I also gave praise to Drake Nelson for doing the things that he's doing to try and grow a program that is very challenging to maintain. I had wondered last year when he joined NASCAR whether anybody else in Oregon would join him. The odds were against it happening, and I don't see that changing. Will there be another dirt track to get involved? I don't know. What I do know is there's some pretty good money at stake at the end of the season.
You take the headline class, which for them is the Super Late Model division. Your champion is getting $3,000, and second and third get pretty good money as well. They pay the Top 10. Plus, there's a $2,000 championship prize for the State. There is no other Oregon track in NASCAR, so your track champion stands to win $5,000. There's also a $1,000 rookie award. If your champion happens to be a first-time NASCAR license holder, they can win $6,000. This happened for Mike George last year, and he was basically racing against no more than six cars per race. You still have a hard time getting people to tow to Coos Bay to race.
I would have to dig through my notes, and I don't want to speak incorrectly about the other point fund monies. I read Top 10 in each class get money. The Sportsman Late Model drivers were competing for $1,000 championship. There was at least one $500 championship, if not 2 that I saw. I know the Top 4 classes were running for NASCAR point find money. Plus, NASCAR supplies paint and the traffic lights used on the track, among other promotional things that they do.
What's the right answer in 2018? Quite frankly, we're lucky to even have so many race tracks. I know California is loaded with them. Oregon only has nine currently active outdoor oval tracks. There will be a feature on the Jefferson Racing News blog soon about that very topic. The sanctioning body everybody goes with by default is IMCA. Yeah, I can see people rolling their eyes thinking, "You're going to bash IMCA again, aren't you?"
Fact is, the biggest selling point for IMCA is a stable set of rules. You run this IMCA Modified here and it's legal over there. That's why so many tracks on the West Coast go with IMCA Modifieds. Very few tracks that run a Modified program on a regular basis on the dirt do so without IMCA sanctioning. There is also the IMCA State point races, Regional point races and National point races. I don't see anybody from Oregon competing for anything beyond the State, and even Californians have a hard time competing for anything beyond the State. But they do have a stable set of rules.
Where IMCA is lacking is in the point fund department. They didn't do it in their newsletter this year, but it was amusing seeing them list the point fund monies drivers won for their various track championships in those classes. When you've got drivers winning $300 for a championship that competes 15 or so times, I don't know if I would bother to mention that publicly. It's nothing to brag about. There are the contingency awards that go out there as well. Plus, IMCA has been sanctioning racing for a long time. They have the big Boone Nationals event in September and are building up the event in Las Vegas in November as well. There are positives.
My biggest concern with the Boone Nationals is how everybody has to stay dark. You're only going to have a small fraction of your drivers going all the way to Iowa for what is admittedly a very impressive car count for every division that's a part of that show. So, you greatly hurt some race tracks in their effort to run a show that week, especially if what they are running is a majority of IMCA sanctioned stuff. They end up losing a weekend of prime weather because they're not allowed to run an IMCA sanctioned event. Plus, the event is so big it encroaches on the weekend before. Sure, you can sanction that, but if you happen to be at a track that has a few racers going to Boone, you lose them. And if they happen to be top point runners, they are automatically bailing on the point race.
So if you're looking at a sanctioning body, IMCA is your top choice right now by default, mainly because NASCAR isn't actively seeking member tracks. They're not turning people down if they meet the criteria, but they're not looking. There is no program to bring you in. IMCA has representatives making their presence known and looking for tracks who meet their criteria. The other option is you go it alone as a promoter. Some promoters are just happy to be able to open the gates, so you're going to have scheduled races, whatever you pay for the purse that night and you might not even have a point fund at the end of the season. Other tracks do a little bit more in the point fund apartment. Would sanctioning help? I don't know. My opinion is it couldn't hurt, but if you've got a good program, it's not needed.
In the end, I say be grateful for the race track that you have. If you're able to go out and watch weekly racing not too far from your home, it's a positive. We have so many things threatening the sport that we enjoy. Whether it's neighbors complaining about the noise or people wanting to build strip malls on the property. Maybe it's the technology factor affecting the sport on a few different levels from social media to the actual cars that are driven on the race track. There are challenges to be overcome to keep this thing going.
I mentioned about the Facebook Boosting feature the other day. Any race track that actively engages in Facebook should consider giving this a try, because it will get your message out to people in the area who may not be aware. Even if you're getting the message out to another 9000 people. You might be spending $20 or $40 to do that, but if you put another 30 or 40 people in the stands, it is a positive. I recommend tracks give it a try. I also recommend tracks actively engage Facebook and other Social Media, because it does make a difference.
But the point I want to make before I end a column that is already too long is the demographics. We're losing the under 30 year old crowd. They're looking to do other things. Sure, they might see something about a race track on social media, because they do use social media. However, they're not necessarily technically inclined when it comes to working on a car. Take the thing to the shop. They may not even be interested in automobiles at all. How do you reach them?
One of the things that Oregon is doing is many of the tracks also have a smaller Kart track on the facility. This way, you start getting the really young interested in the sport. I think some California tracks might benefit from cutting a Kart track somewhere on the facility. Kids come up through the ranks from the Beginners Box Stock all the way to the 500 Open. By the time they get to the higher class, they're ready to make a move up. True, some of your Kart racers will never go beyond the kart track, but you'll get some to move up in the ranks.
It might be that the generation that is currently 15-30 years old is lost to racing, but the rest of us are getting older. Promoters should take a long hard look at how to attract the young crowd and build up their love for the sport. I still favor attempting to do something with a high school type of racing program, which was doing pretty well in some places back in the 1990s and early 2000s. I understand auto shop isn't something that some schools have anymore, but perhaps there's a way to create something. If not through the school's involvement, through the parent's approval of getting youth teams involved.
We're also going to have to take a look at the current technology. What are we driving on the road these days? We're using older and older technology on the track. I know we should continue to run Street Stocks or Hobby Stocks and that sort of thing while we have them, but we have to look at the current cars that are on the road. How do we make race cars out of them? The Hornet division is one of the ways we're doing it. I don't know the answer to this question as I'm not the tech expert. I just know that technology has changed, and we have to adapt and overcome if we want to build a stronger sport.
I'm not sure if I'm making clear points here. I wanted to attempt to talk a little bit about this. I need to call this a column for the week as there are other things that need to be done. Keep supporting the race track and if you find an opportunity to convert a new fan, do what you can to make it happen.
Until next time...
