|
September 9, 2005...Los Angeles, CA.-
The USAC Ford Focus Midget Series will be staging its first USAC
National Ford Focus title championship races Saturday-Sunday,
September 17-18 at two quarter-mile tracks in the Midwest. The dirt
track at Limaland Motorsports Park, in Lima, OH will be the scene
Saturday the 17th. Paved Anderson Speedway, Anderson, IN (home of
the Little 500 Sprint car race each May) will host Sunday the 18th
action. Fifty-lap mains will highlight each evening. USAC has
announced a 41-driver field of top point drivers in each of the six
FF Series that operated this season. Drivers represent 51 states,
with 12 from Indiana and seven from California. Four female drivers
are entered and they account for 22 USAC main event victories,
including second generation driver Stephanie Mockler, 17.
Point leaders from the two California series
planning to race for the National FF crown are Alex Harris (CA paved
track series) and Chase Barber (CA dirt track series). Other drivers
entered are Oklahoma series champion Jasiel Randolph, point leaders
Tate Martz (Midwest Series), Chase Scott (Carolina/Virginia Series)
and Michael Sboro (Northeast Series). Five drivers-Harris,
Barber, Martz, Robbie Ray (from IA) and Ryan Smith (from PA)-- have
won features on both dirt and paved tracks. Eighteen of the
41entered drivers have won 51 FF features this year. Harris has
accumulated the most 2005 FF main event
victories (seven). Martz and Barber have six each. Ray has five.
Scott and Josh Clemons (from Indiana) each have four triumphs.
California Series drivers entered in addition to Harris and Barber
are: Brett Engstrom, Jon Santibanes, Todd Carroll, brothers Chris
and Cameron Veach, and J. R. Williams, the 70-year old resident of
Carson City, NV. The 41entries list eight different chassis
builders. Beast leads with 18 entries. Stealth has 12, Hawk five and
Kenyon two. Bullet, Ellis, Spike and TCR have one entry each.
The USAC FF Midget Series began with six
pioneering FF Midgets on March 6, 2002 at Bakersfield Speedway in
California. FF Midgets use standard size, used Midget chassis or new
chassis coupled with the four-cylinder Ford Focus Zetec 2.2-liter,
178 horsepower engines. Keith Iaia's firm--Small Car Racing Engines
and More (SCREAM)-received all engines in crates from Ford Motor
Co.at its' shop in southern California and prepped them for racing
use. Keith moved his shop to central California last year but he is
still supplying FF customers nationally.
The FF Midget program has grown in number of
races (100+ this year), number of series (six with the Indianapolis
Speedrome to be the seventh series) and number of competitors (about
150). The 200th FF Midget race was run September 2 at Watsonville,
CA. The Golden State ran the first FF race and appropriately
milestone race 200 for the rapidly expanding open-wheel, entry-level
series. It took two and a half years to run the first 100 FF events
and only 13 months to run the next 100. What is encouraging is the
number of young drivers who have started in FF Midgets and graduated
to more powerful Midgets, Sprints and even Silver Crown cars,
according to Eric Bunn, USAC's FF Midget Series National
Coordinator.
So far in the four years of operation 17 states
and 53 tracks have hosted at least one USAC FF Midget race.
California leads with more than 90 features and Indiana is second
with 45. Other FF racing host states are Ohio, Illinois, Michigan,
Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Nevada, Oklahoma, Kansas, Virginia,
N.C, S.C, Massachusetts, N.Y and Maine. Indianapolis Speedrome has
held the most FF races with 25 and Irwindale Speedway (CA) is second
with 16 FF events since 2002. Irwindale has run four FF events so
far in 2005 and it will host a USAC 360 Sprint and FF Midget
double-header on Saturday, October 8, plus a USAC triple-header on
Thanksgiving Day November 24 featuring National and Western States
Midgets, 360 Sprints and FF Midgets.
More than 40 drivers have won at least one FF
Midget main event to date. Tate Martz (Midwest Series) is the
all-time leader with 15 victories. Nine drivers have been crowned FF
Midget champions through 2004. They are Todd Hunsaker, Josh Lakatos,
Chris Rahe, Bradley Galedrige (all Californians), Martz, Robbie Ray,
Chase Scott, Brice Kenyon (son of many-time USAC Midget champion Mel
Kenyon) and Jamie Williams. Hunsaker is the only two-time FF
champion. He won the 2002 California title and the 2003 California
South championship.
A number of well-known drivers have raced USAC FF
Midgets. They include USAC National champions Dave Darland, Jay
Drake, Bobby East and J. J. Yeley (the current NASCAR Busch Series
driver for Joe Gibbs Racing). Other more surprising FF Midget racers
have included 2004 NASCAR Nextel Cup champion Kurt Busch, Indy
Racing League driver Patrick Carpentier, and CART (now Champ Car
World Series) drivers Michel Jourdain, Jr and Mario Dominguez.
Busch, Carpentier, Jourdain and Dominguez all drove the FF Midget
house cars of Keith Iaia at Irwindale Speedway on the third-mile
paved oval. Carpentier fared the best by finishing third in a FF
point race main event. Busch and Jourdain were competitive as well.
Carpentier, Jourdain and Busch all enjoyed the "fun" FF
racing and wanted to do more FF Midget racing whenever their
schedules permit it.
|
