Tommy’s Weekend Preview, July 13-16, 2006 – Canadian Sprint Car Week?

From Tommy Goudge....

LONDON, ON - I didn’t really realize it until today, but this weekend may quite possibly be the busiest sprint car weekend in Canada for the entire season. On the schedule are 9 events in 4 provinces at 8 different tracks. Here’s what’s on tap, working our way from East to West:

QUEBEC
On Friday night the Empire Super Sprints make the first of two visits to the Autodrome Edelweiss, just a few miles North of Ottawa, our nation’s capital of course. Eventual 2005 ESS Rookie of the Year titlist Doug Norrie, who tows all the way from Connecticut to compete on the ESS tour with his brother Matt, took home feature win honours in ESS competition last season at Edelweiss. Other former Edelweiss feature winners in the field this time around include Lance Yonge and Nick Fratto, both of whom come from New York State. Quebec’s Steve Poirier, who made the switch from DIRT Modifieds – a division in which he was very successful in Quebec – to 360 sprint cars this season already has a feature win under his belt in ESS competition and will be looking to win in front of his home fans along with fellow Quebecor Alain Bergeron.

ONTARIO
4 Sprint Car events are on tap for Ontario this weekend, starting with the American Sprint Car Series Patriot Sprint Group at the Ohsweken Speedway near Brantford, Ontario on Friday night. Point leader Chuck Hebing from Ontario, New York has been unbeatable in the majority of the PSG events this season and will look to continue his performance this weekend. Hebing thoroughly dominated a Southern Ontario Sprints event at Ohsweken last month and did the same thing in a July SOS event last season as well. Another New York driver, Bryan Howland, last season’s PSG champion, missed the last PSG event at McKean County in Pennsylvania due to a family illness, but if he is at Ohsweken he could definitely be one of the favourites to win as he took home a 2nd place finish at the fast 3/8’s mile last season. Track owner Glenn Styres is also always a threat, and “Penninsula Posse” drivers Joe Middlemiss and Brad Malloy showed they could run well with the Patriots a few weeks ago in the PSG event at Merrittville Speedway when they finished 5th and 6th, respectively.

Saturday night finds sprint car action at 2 different Ontario tracks. In the extreme Southwestern portion of the province, the Southern Ontario Sprints get back in the saddle at the South Buxton Raceway near Chatham. Predicting a winner at Buxton isn’t particularly easy, although if Kyle Patrick from nearby Tilbury is there, he could be a good bet. The slippery 3/8’s mile has somewhat of a reputation of being good to locals, but last season’s results don’t particularly bear this out. One darkhorse pick could be Joe Middlemiss. The Niagara Falls-area driver has been quite strong on the SOS tour and elsewhere during his rookie season in a sprint car and comes into South Buxton riding a string of 3 top 5 finishes in a row.

While the SOS drivers are battling at Buxton, the Patriots will move on about 300 miles to the East of Ohsweken to the 1/3 mile Brockville Ontario Speedway in Brockville, Ontario. Local driver Rick Wilson from nearby Joyceville, Ontario is sure to be a threat at BOS, along with son Kyle if he is in competition. Hebing and Howland will once again be favourites, along with PSG regular Don Adamczyk, who has advanced all the way to 2nd in PSG points on the strength of 6 straight top 10 finishes recently.

On Sunday the Empire Super Sprints will make their way a few miles back over the border from the Frogtown Speedway in Hogansburg, NY after racing there on Saturday night to race at the beautiful Cornwall Speedway in Cornwall, Ontario. Cornwall is the site of Steve Poirier’s previous feature win this season and the Quebec driver has to be considered a favourite to win once again on the ¼ mile track. New York driver Jeff Cook is another former feature winner at Cornwall who will be in attendance on Sunday.

MANITOBA
This weekend’s action gets underway tomorrow night, Thursday, July 13, in the province of Manitoba with the 2nd annual running of the “Mid-Canada Sprint Car Challenge” at the recently renovated 4/10 mile Red River Co-Op Speedway (formerly Victory Lane Speedway) in Winnipeg. The Northern Outlaw Sprint Association (NOSA) 410’s will once again be sanctioning the event, although at least a handful of 360’s will also be on hand vying for a bonus prize to any 360 that can beat the 410’s. A preliminary entry list for the event was released a month ago with entrants from Minnesota, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba. Fresh off a visit by Steve Kinser and the National Sprint Tour last weekend to the River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, North Dakota – NOSA’s home track – many of the NOSA regulars are at the top of their game.
Grand Forks is just a mere 150 miles to the South of Winnipeg, and perennial area standout Mark Dobmeier from Grand Forks is certainly a favourite to take home the feature win. He has racked up 8 feature wins in Upper Midwest Sprint Car competition already this season and finished 4th last Saturday night in NST action at River Cities, ahead of such standout drivers as Steve Kinser and Jason Meyers. Local Winnipeg driver Lou Kennedy, Jr. is sure to be up front as well as he is the defending winner of this event and has taken home 3 NOSA victories already this season. Lou has also shown that he is capable of running with anybody as he set the 5th fastest lap in NST time trials at River Cities on Friday night. Minnesota driver Casey Mack won 2 weeks ago in the NOSA Canada Day event at Estevan Speedway in Saskatchewan and also figures to play a prominent role.

ALBERTA
The 53rd Annual Gold Cup at Castrol Raceway (formerly Budweiser Motorsports Park) just outside of Edmonton Alberta gets going Friday night under Alberta Sprint Tour sanctioning for the first of two nights of what quite possibly could be the most Northerly sprint car event in the world (although I have seen something about an Alaska Sprint Tour if you can believe it). The Gold Cup traces it’s roots back to 1954 at Edmonton’s old Speedway Park, which featured Modified racing, and later Supermodifieds as the cars evolved quickly in the late 50’s and early 60’s. The Gold Cup has been held at the Castrol Raceway since 1991 and is now open to 360 c.i. Sprint Cars. The final night’s feature pays $5,000 to the winner, making it Canada’s 2nd richest sprint car race (behind the Canadian Sprint Car Nationals at Ohsweken, Ontario) and one of the higher paying 360 races on the continent. The all time wins list for the Gold Cup reads like a who’s who of Northwest auto racing as names like Billy Foster and Jerry Sneva appear on the win list, along with more recent ones like Jason Solwold and Gary Lee Maier.

Traditionally this event features lots of local flavour with Castrol’s regular 360 sprint car competitors mixing it up with the Alberta Sprint Tour teams, but the event also draws entries from such distant places as Washington State, British Columbia, Montana, North Dakota, and Manitoba. Richard Rogers, who will be competing at the Red River Co-Op Speedway event in Winnipeg on Thursday night, plans on making an incredible 800+ mile haul to Edmonton to race the very next night. The trek for the rest of the out-of-province racers who come to this event each year is pretty much just as far as Winnipeg as well, and if they are coming from points further West, many of them have to deal with the trials and tribulations of crossing the Rocky Mountains to get there too. Sure makes our complaints here in Southern Ontario about going to Brighton for the regular Southern Ontario Sprints events seem pretty trivial doesn’t it?

Rumours abound concerning who will or won’t be racing in this year’s event, including some suggesting that former World of Outlaws driver Brad Furr could be coming from California, as well as a possible visit from Idaho driver Joe Ramaker, who has the most 360 sprint car feature wins in the Northwest so far this season. The local drivers will be strong too with former Gold Cup winners Tim Gee, Wade Fleming, and Sean Moran all expected to compete. Notable in his absence will be 2004 winner Travis Rutz from Langley, BC. The young driver will be racing at his regular track, the Skagit Speedway in Washington this weekend instead.

BRITISH COLUMBIA
In the only paved action of the weekend for sprint cars in Canada, the beautiful cars of the WILROC Northwest Sprint Car and Supermodified Racing Series are back in action this Saturday night at the historic Western Speedway in Victoria, BC competing in the Roy Smith Memorial. Scott Aumen from Duncan, BC has won 2 WILROC features this season, including the last event at the paved 4/10’s mile Vancouver Island track back in June on Strawberry Cup night.

MEANWHILE…
…2/3’s of TheRaceChasers crew is heading to Tony Stewart’s Eldora Speedway in Ohio this weekend for the King’s Royal presented by Crown Royal. This is a must-see show for us each year…A few local Ontario teams are planning on heading to Eldora to race in the NRA 360 portion of the program, though some will head back home to race at South Buxton on Saturday instead of staying for the 2nd night. Ridgetown’s Adam West is rumoured to be taking part in both nights again this year after a good showing in his initial Eldora visit last season. In the 410’s, Burlington’s Ryan Coniam could possibly be there, but nothing is carved in stone.
Comments, questions, and anything else you’d like to send my way can be sent to tommygoudge@hotmail.com. See you at the races!