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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
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View From The PAS! by Scott Daloisio |
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| May 28, 2002 |
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The month of June will be “Kid’s Month” at Perris Auto Speedway and all kids age 12 and under will be admitted to the races free every Saturday night... Vista Paint next presents the NAPA Auto Parts/Auto Trader Magazines SCRA Sprint Cars at The PAS on Saturday June 8th… Former Southern Californian from many years ago Pattie Frost can do a bang up job for any racing team, track, series or event with her company, Crowd Pleasers. They specialize in Marketing, Management and Public Relations. When Pattie left Southern California in the early 1980s you may have known her as Pattie Prestidge. She is now married to Drag Boat racer Jack Frost. Give her a call at (913) 369-3022 and find out how Crowd Pleasers can help your racing program… Are you a fan of NHRA Championship Drag Racing? If your answer is yes, the next time Funny Car superstar Whit Bazemore is interviewed, take a real close listen to his voice. His voice is almost identical to John Scott’s… Perris
Auto Speedway merchandise including t-shirts and caps, is available
now from The PAS website at www.perrisautospeedway.com…
Congratulations to Bruce Flanders, the original voice of Perris Auto Speedway, on being named the official announcer for the CART FEDEX Championship Series. Flanders will be doing all of the CART events in North America and England. When not traveling to the CART races he will continue to call the action at the beautiful Irwindale Speedway and Wednesday night Speedway Motorcycle racing in San Bernardino… Belated Happy Birthdays to Rip Williams and Mike Kirby. The “Ripper” turned 46 on May 5th and Kirby celebrated his 38th birthday on the 1st of May… Among the interested spectators at the May 7th practice session at The PAS were former CRA drivers Jay East and Terry Kawell… Posting on Internet message boards can be fun and it can also be informative. However, as some recent auto-racing magazine articles have pointed out, it sometimes gets out of hand. It certainly has gotten out of hand several times recently. Such irresponsible postings affect drivers, teams, series, sponsors (track & driver), fans and the racetracks themselves. None of them enjoy reading damaging trash. A note to offending posters, please act responsibly and be thankful we have places to race on Saturday nights. Keep posting negatives and you will eventually see sponsors pull out and teams folding. When enough of that happens, the tracks will follow and you will be able to post all you want on other topics from the comfort of your home every Saturday night. You may not realize it, but all of this negative posting is doing damage! THINK!!! J.J. Yeley, winner if the 2002 SCRA season opener in February, recently swept the USAC Sprint/Midget doubleheader at Cedar Rapids, Iowa and the finished second to Michael Lewis the following week in USAC Midgets competition at Louisville, Kentucky… Speaking of Yeley, the guru of American Motorsports journalists, Chris Economaki, mentioned in his column in the May 8, 2002 National Speed Sport News that Yeley was not receiving phone calls from IRL or CART owners and that he guessed Yeley would one day get a North Carolina Levi Jones, who spent much of the early season driving Carol Crossno’s #38 with SCRA, recently got a big break in the USAC Sprint Car Series. The Illinois native subbed for star Tony Elliott in the potent Jeff Walker owned car. The following day, Walker phoned Jones and asked if he would like to be a permanent teammate to Tony Elliott. Jones jumped at the opportunity and the move paid immediate dividends with a fine fourth place finish last Sunday in the main at Tri-State Speedway in Haubstadt, Indiana… Greg DeCaires, who spent the past couple season racing with SCRA, has returned to his roots and is running with a wing in Northern California… It was reported in last week’s National Speed Sports News that the sale of the Pennzoil World of Outlaws is close to complete. By the time you read this, the sale may be a done deal. The article stated that according to industry sources the buyer is JAM, the third largest concert promoter in the nation putting on more than 1,000 concerts per year… Thanks to ESPN2 for showing Sprint Cars and Midgets, but why do they insist on showing pavement races? The dirt shows are much more entertaining. If they have to run on pavement, at least make it an exciting track like Winchester or Salem. The track they last telecast from in Cedar Rapids, Iowa is a yawner. In addition, check out the car counts between the dirt and pavement shows. Many more cars show up for the dirt shows. Next Thunder race will be telecast on Saturday June 1st. It will be sprint cars at Anderson, Indiana. Again they miss the boat as the track is to small for a great Sprint Car event, but is an awesome track for Midgets. And, what is the deal with showing it on Saturday night when most Sprint Car and Midget fans are away at the races? How many viewers does that cost them and how many tickets does that take away from local tracks that race on Saturdays? Just brilliant!!! 1990 CRA Rookie of the Year Dennis Rodriguez Jr. is back behind the wheel of a Sprint Car owned by NHRA Pro Stock driver John Geyer. Rodriguez will contest most of the year with VRA and will hit a few shows – hopefully some here at The PAS – with SCRA… The PAS sends out condolences to the family and friends of the late Paul Jones. A 20-time main event winner with CRA, Jones passed away a couple weeks ago. He was the younger brother of 1963 Indianapolis 500 winner Parnelli Jones… Speaking of the Indianapolis 500, whatever happened to the IRL getting American short track drivers involved? Take a look at this year’s starting grid and it is easy to see that theory has went out the window. Just like CART, cubic dollars rather than driving talent measures IRL drivers. By the way, will the last American driver to compete in the Indy 500 please remember to take the American flag when you leave??? After his win last Two weeks ago, class act Tony Jones autographed his driving gloves and gave them to SCRA’s number one fan, the very appreciative Shawn McDonald… Hate to report it, but Gardner Motorsports has parked the #96 that star driver Troy Rutherford has been in the past few years. Hopefully they will be back on the track soon… Ex-SCRA regular Tom Ball finished second to Rick Johnson in the NMMRA Sprint Car main event in New Mexico last Saturday… Make sure you ask Ron Shuman to show you his tan lines!!! After last week’s main event at The PAS, Cory Kruseman and Jeremy Sherman drove to LAX to catch a red eye to Indiana for the Stoops Freightliner USAC Sprint Car event at Haubstadt. Sherman did well in taking second in his heat and ninth in the main. Kruseman was not as fortunate as he flipped in qualifying and was done for the night. Series point leader Tracy Hines won the main. Former SCRA winners Jay Drake and J.J. Yeley took 16th and 20th respectively… Last weekend Mike Boat won the main event in
USAC’s New Mexico/Arizona Regional Sprint Car Series. It was the second race in series history and drew a measly
field of 7 cars! The
inaugural event drew 20 cars in New Mexico.
Why the difference in car counts?
The New Mexico event was on dirt and the Arizona event was on
pavement. Nobody wants
to spend the extra money for tires and rightfully so.
It is not a high dollar series… |
