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SCENE by Tim Kennedy |
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MOPAR MILLION & MORE |
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Los Angeles, CA - MOPAR MILLION: The September 19-20 Mopar Million sanctioned by USAC at promoter Earl Baltes' Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, OH has to be the race of the year or maybe the decade. Huge purse, racing format, diverse national field of drivers were all world class. The race drew rave reviews from fans and competitors lucky enough to attend this richest sprint car race in history. The track web-site post-race poll of fans about a second Mopar Million showed poll respondents by a large margin favored another non-wing event over a winged race. The inaugural Mopar Million will be shown tape delayed on Speed Channel Thursday night, October 16. (Check your local listing for time.) Baltes, age 80+, built and opened Eldora in 1954 and to this day he maintains the 24-degree banked turns, eight-degree banked straights. Eldora's web-site states there are 16,225 permanent seats and unlimited hillside seating overlooking the track. Racing teams gave Baltes a standing ovation after the Mopar Million. He clearly deserves to be voted racing promoter of the year. Fans present estimated the big crowd at about 70% of track capacity, much more than usual sprint car races at the track, but less than the Eldora World 100 million-dollar race for dirt late models. Admission was $80 for adults for the Mopar Million, with tickets good for admission both Friday and Saturday. The million dollar purse paid Saturday's 40-lap feature winner $200,000. Second paid $125,000, third $100,000, fourth $60,000, fifth $35,000 and tenth $19,000. Finishing last (26th) in the A main paid $10,000. Nearly every driver who raced in the six features Saturday earned his career-high payday. Every driver who competed, even those who didn't transfer from Friday's ten 12-lap heats, made at least $500. Eldora's Mopar Million attracted 150 official entrants (the maximum number accepted before the track stopped accepting entries) and 138 entrants actually went through tech inspection at the track Friday. Saturday had 15-lap F, E and D mains, and 20-lap C and B mains before the 40-lap, 26 car A feature. Teams drew two separate qualifying numbers and the take one lap, save one-lap qualifying format was fair to all. Some seven current SCRA drivers/teams competed and many past SCRA competitors took part. Brad Noffsinger earned the A main pole in Billy Wilkerson's No. 11A. SCRA drivers Richard Griffin and Rickey Gaunt raced into the A main by finishing in one of the top two positions in Friday heat races. Gaunt's 13th place finish in Bill Rose's backup car paid $16,500. Griffin finished 19th. Impressive to me was the fact that winged sprint car drivers Jac Haudenschild (OH) and Stevie Smith (PA) finished one-two against non-wing regulars It was Smith's first ever sprint car race without a wing. Haudenschild's biggest payday prior to the Mopar Million was a $100,000 victory in 1993 at the first "Historical Big One" also at Eldora. The winning car owner--Larry Woodward-- was a CRA sprint car driver and later a CRA car owner in the 1970s. He now resides in Hawaii and his No. 4 Maxim sprinter driven by Haudenschild had www.RacetoHawaii.com as the sponsor. Also impressive was many-time NorCal winged sprint car champion Brent Kaeding's run to fifth place in the 20-lap B main-the first alternate position for the A main. Brent earned $4,000 driving a backup No.29 car owned by his son Bud, who transferred from the B to the A. The Drifting D-1 new motorized sport staged at Irwindale Speedway on Sunday, August 31 before about 10,000 spectators drew national attention on Speed Channel's "Wind Tunnel" telecast and in the "Wall Street Journal". The WSJ 19 paragraph story about Drifting started on page one of the Thursday, September 18, 2003 edition and had an Irwindale, Calif. dateline. The headline read ""Catch My Drift? Driving Daredevils Now Skate on Rubber." The article profiled and had a drawn line-art headshot of Ken Gushi, one of eight American drifting drivers who competed in the event against 16 drifting stars from Japan. Gushi drove a 1992 Nissan 240ZX and did not qualify for the 16-car finals. The September 20 NASCAR Super Stock 40-lap feature at Irwindale received rave reviews from fans and competitors for using a fully-inverted start. Top S/S drivers requested the change to please fans. T. K. Karvasek (second fastest qualifier) started 21st and became the third and final leader on lap seven. With slower cars in the 24-car field starting at the front for the first time, the first lapping did not occur until lap 18. Only five cars were lapped during the race and 21 of 24 cars finished. There was only one caution on lap 21, and four of the top five finishers started in rows nine-11. "Passing is racing" and the fully-inverted start deserves to be repeated in all non-point races and perhaps in point races as well. Congratulations to two-time Irwindale Speedway Super Late Model track champion Thomas "Rip" Michels for winning the 2003 NASCAR Dodge Weekly Racing Series Sunbelt Region Championship. The title, worth $45,000, entitles Rip to attend the Saturday, November 1 weekly racing series national awards banquet in Nashville, TN with seven other regional titlists. Rip and Mesa Marin Raceway Bakersfield driver Brian Richardson swapped the Sunbelt Region 2003 point lead five times. Rip had ten wins in 18 races, 14 top fives and 16 top ten finishes in 18 IS races. Remarkably, Mark McFarland, of Winchester, VA, won the Dodge Weekly Racing Series national championship by recording 16 wins and 18 top five finishes at Old Dominion Speedway in Manassas, VA. NASCAR CPI rankings made McFarland the king of the eight regional DWRS champions and earned him $213,000 in post-season awards. It was the largest point fund award to a single driver in the history of the NASCAR weekly racing series. Who said there is no money in short-track racing? |
