Before I begin to ramble on about my unproductive weekend, I would like to take the time to thank everybody who has given any positive feedback or comments towards the site, apparel, or media that has been created and organized by Fully Injected. Positive feedback and regular users create motivation and high hopes for this site; so thank you.
As far as the weekend is concerned, there’s not a whole lot to say. Friday, Saturday, and some of Sunday consisted of rain showers in my area; saturating the ground and making outdoor activities limited. My Easter was nice and left me with a fridge full of leftovers; mostly consisting of ham and rolls. The creeks are still high and muddy, resulting in zero attempts at kicking off my 2011 trout fishing campaign. I hope to get to the streams soon after next week. Finals week is approaching so my evenings will be packed full of paper writing and all night test cramming.
As most race fans in my area would agree, this is starting to get irritating. My plans for this past weekend were to head to Lernerville Speedway on Friday and Mercer Raceway Park on Saturday. That obviously didn’t happen. Mother Nature has quite the issue with dirt track racing in this part of the country- well, for most of the country. Friday morning and Friday afternoon rain showers allowed for no action at a few northeastern racing facilities; including Lernerville Speedway, Williams Grove Speedway, Attica Raceway Park, and Mercer Raceway Park – which I had already mentioned. A few tracks were fortunate enough to get their programs in on Saturday evening including Fremont Speedway in Fremont, Ohio and Lincoln Speedway in southcentral Pennsylvania. Even Ocean Speedway in Watsonville, California raced under some drizzly evening conditions while hosting the King of the West Series. Tim Kaeding would come out on top winning his 2nd KWS feature in a row as he continues to build his series points lead. The World of Outlaw Sprint Car Series saw a rain out for the second consecutive weekend. Although the races were cancelled for the “Greatest Show on Dirt” on Saturday evening in Salina, Oklahoma; the series and racetrack officials organized a rain date which will see the traveling 410ers come back to the Salina Highbanks next Tuesday, May 3rd; after racing at Tri-State Speedway on Saturday.
Fremont Speedway’s opening night saw “The Steel City Outlaw” Tim Shaffer capture the sprint car A-Main. Fully Injected team member Danny Holtgraver made the trip west to be part of the Fremont Speedway opener. Danny had an evening not worth writing home about, but I’m going to write about it anyway. Out of the 40 cars that registered in the pit area Saturday night, Danny timed 7th quick. Unfortunately, this would be Danny’s only highlight of the evening. The Pittsburgh native would start 5th in his heat and failed to transfer to the feature event; finishing 6th behind last week’s Lernerville winner Cole Duncan, and last week’s Lernerville runner- up-Dale Blaney. The relatively fast time and 6th place heat finish would allow Danny to start on the pole for the B-main. When entering turn three, the right rear dug in sending the defending Lernerville Speedway Track Champion for a tumble ending his night early. “The track was rough in the heat and we really couldn’t get things going from then on out; we’ll try again next week at Williams Grove and Port Royal with the All-Stars…hopefully we can get things going out east.” Tim Shaffer would win the 30 lapper ahead of Brad Haudenschild, Dean Jacobs, Dale Blaney, and Byron Reed. Speaking of Fremont, The World of Outlaw Sprint Car Series will make their appearance at the northwest Ohio facility in early October of this year. I plan on attending.
Similar random thought as last week- Danny Lasoski found himself back in victory lane again over the weekend; only this time at the 34 Raceway in Iowa. He still got it.
USAC National midget competition kicked off its season this past weekend with a double header at the Dodge City Raceway in bleeding Kansas. That historical reference doesn’t really work here, so ill rephrase that and just say Dodge City, Kansas. Bryan Clauson picked up the win on both nights of competition, sweeping the National midget weekend. Clauson will be back in action next weekend with the USAC National Sprint Cars in the state of Indiana for a triple header weekend.
Brian Leppo, a central PA competitor and member of the notorious Pennsylvania Posse, added another win to his 2011 season, taking the $4,000 to win 410ci sprint car victory at the Lincoln Speedway this past Saturday. Leppo currently sits 2nd in the Central PA point standings with 2 wins on the year. Lance Dewease still holds the point lead with 1 victory. Blane Heimbach currently sits on top of the 358ci Central PA point standings, with defending 358 champion Pat Cannon holding on to 3rd.
Next weekend is a busy weekend in the dirt track racing world. National sanctioned action is taking place all over the country side and it will be exciting to check the results. The USAC National Sprint Cars will finally get to hit the dirt again in 2011. The “Other Greatest Show on Dirt” – as I like to call it – will have a triple header weekend in the state of Indiana this weekend; with racing at Kokomo, Lawrenceburg, and Gas City – not necessarily in that order. Speaking of USAC National Sprint Car Series, the Eastern Storm Tour section of their schedule, which will include tracks in western, central, and eastern PA ,as well as, New Jersey, will bring some of the most talented non-wing drivers in the country to my neck of the woods. Drivers already on the roster to attend include Levi Jones, Bryan Clauson (a USAC feature winner in 2011), Jerry Coons Jr., Tracy Hines, Jon Stanbrough, Chris Windom, Robert Ballou, Hunter Schuerenburg, Blake Fitzpatrick, Bobby East, Casey Riggs, Brady Short, Dave Darland, Damion Gardner (2 time winner in 2011) Casey Shuman, Justin Grant, Chase Stockon, Kyle Robbins and Wes McIntyre. The Lernerville Speedway date on the Eastern Storm tour is on Memorial Day.
Levi Jones at Lernerville Speedway in 2005
Scott Priester, a Lernerville Speedway regular, took the wing off last time the USAC National Sprint Cars came to town back in 2005.
The World of Outlaws will invade Haubstaudt, Indiana on Saturday evening with racing taking place at the Tri-State Speedway. The All Star Circuit of Champions Sprint Cars will head to central Pennsylvania to take on the Pennsylvania Posse and compete at the Williams Grove Speedway on Friday and Port Royal Speedway in Port Royal, Pennsylvania on Saturday. Unfortunately, Lincoln Speedway will still be hosting 410’s on Saturday night- stealing some possible Port Royal win contenders. Tim Kaeding and the rest of the traveling California 410 competitors with the King of the West Series will head to the Marysville Raceway Park in Marysville, California for round 4 of the series. Kaeding still sits on top of the points standings.
Team Fully Injected will hopefully have more competitors in action this coming weekend. The wet conditions and cold weather fronts seem to move out of the area in the coming days according to the weather outlook. As far as my weekend in concerned, Friday night is still sort of iffy. There are a few different options on the table and I’m not exactly sure what to do yet. I have 4 days to figure out what I want to do this weekend; so only time will tell.
The new hooded sweatshirts just arrived and I am pretty excited about that. Be sure to keep up with us during the week here at www.fullyinjected.com . Updating is done almost on a daily basis with more media expected to be posted in the coming days. If anybody would like some free decals – send us an email. All the contact information can be found under the contact section of this website. Hopefully next Monday evening I will have a little more to talk about. Thanks everybody! – and as always; Race Open Wheel!