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| Press Release |
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| Manzanita's 56th anniversary races August 24-25 |
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August 21, 2007 --- Fans attending the 56th anniversary races will notice some improvements in the Manzanita Speedway facility. The new ownership has installed a new, higher safety fence on the front straightaway but what will get their immediate attention as they turn into the 35th Avenue and West Broadway track is the new parking lot surface. The parking lot has been paved with crushed asphalt. The lot will be striped with parking spaces in the near future. Those arriving early both Friday and Saturday night will receive T-Shirts. A total of 2000 shirts will be given away. As usual the anniversary races have a unique format with basically trophy dashes and main events for each division. Depending on car count some divisions will also run a semi main. The Friday night races will be staged on the one third mile track and features Factory Stocks, Dwarf Cars and Bombers. Saturday night the American Sprint Car Series and BTS/Barnett Dirt Modifieds run on the half mile track with Midgets going on the short track. Mini Sprints, which were originally scheduled to run as part of the Friday night show but were moved to the Saturday night schedule will not be running due to a conflicting race scheduled elsewhere. The sprints will run the top 12 cars in owner points in their usual six lap pole dash. The cars will be inverted with the point leading car starting 12th and the car 12th in points starting on the pole. The way they finish the race is the way they will line up in the first six rows for the 30 lap main event. The rest of the field will run a ten lap semi. The drivers will draw for starting position. The winner of the semi will start on the inside of the seventh row and the rest of the field will line up in the order of their finish in the semi main. The modifieds will run their top 12 cars inverted by point average in the first six rows of their 20 feature with the rest of the field drawing for position in the 10 lap semi. The top four drivers will also run in a four lap trophy dash. The Midgets will run a main event and a trophy dash. Jeremy Sherman heads the field for the sprint cars but for a while his ability to race Saturday night was in doubt. He drove in the USAC/CRA races last weekend at Perris Auto Speedway. The engine blew in the car and he received burns on his foot. However he was released from the hospital and is raring to go. He has nine wins feature races this year and was on track to tie his record of 16 races in a season. Rain outs have caused a number of races to be cancelled and only seven regular season races plus the two day 360 Western in October remain on the schedule and he would have to win out to tie his mark. Manzanita has only three regular season races left on their 2007 season. Sherman leads Bob Ream, Jr., the 1998 Arizona champions by 135 points in his try for a third straight driving championship. Rookie driver Ricky Thornton, Jr. has yet to win in the dirt modifieds but is well on his way to becoming the first rookie to take the championship. Thorton holds a 23 point lead over two time champion Anthony Madrid. With the point system used by the dirt mods the lead is substantial. The winner of the feature receives 40 points and drops only one point per position. Only four point races remain on the schedule. The factory stocks have a spirited battle going for championship honors with third year driver Justin Upton seven points ahead of two time and defending champion Bobby Taylor with former champion Larry Price only 16 points in arrears. Kyle Shipley continues on his relentless march toward his first mini sprint car title and Chris Snyder rests atop the Dwarf Car standings but by only one point over the 2005 champion Sandy Matthews. |
