Entries from January 2005 ↓

I watched a “marathon” session of the Dakar Rally yesterday afternoon. It really screwed up all my plans, but was great. They had about 6 or 7 one hour segments back-to-back that covered the whole 9039 km rally through Africa. The people that race in this thing are truly racing warriors. Anyone that even finishes it should be proud of themselves. The good thing about this years rally for me as an American was that the race had an American presence this year. Continue reading →

Last month you may recall I mentioned about the troubles at Auckland, New Zealand’s Springs Speedway. Well, they did get the Springs Speedway World Midget Series in, with New Zealand taking the overall honors and American Scott Hatton who scorched to the individual prize at Western Springs. They did have to close for the year after that though, cancelling the last 5 races of the season due to the noise complaints. The speedway plans to open next year on November 5′th (if the courts allow). I really hope they can continue racing at the historic speedway. For more news, you can visit their website at http://www.springsspeedway.com.

I didn’t go to the New Egypt Speedway Banquet this year for a number of reasons, 1) I don’t have any reason to go, 2) it was snowing, and 3) it was the same day as the Atlantic City TQ races, which if it wasn’t for #2, I would have went to. However, I know some people who did. The rumor going around was that they are not going to have heat races this coming year. The drivers running the fastest in the warm-ups would go directly to the main event. This is ridiculous! Continue reading →

Last night I went to my 5′th race of the year. It was the first day of a two day event. It consisted of time trials, a non-qualifiers race, and three 20 lap heat races (although they didn’t call it that) for the combined TQ midgets/00 cc micro division, as well as two heat races for the Slingshots. Continue reading →

Tomorrow I’ll be starting a new job after almost 7 years at my previous place of employment. The place I used to work was a great place to work and I hope they find a good replacement in the near future, but I’m looking forward to the new challenges. I am going to be in a tenure-track position as a “Systems Librarian” at a college in New Jersey. Previously I was a UNIX Administrator/Library Systems Manager at a University in the same area.

I took a ride to the motorsports expo in Fort Washington today. It was pretty typical year as far as the number of displays. I was a little disappointed that their was no New Egypt Speedway or Old Bridge Raceway Park displays. I can’t same I was surprised about the lack of a New Egypt Speedway display since they had a “disagreement” with Area Auto Racing News (which is the promoter of the event).

The most interesting display to me was the PA Posse USAC Ford Focus Midget Series. I talked to the people planning it and they are going to have about 6 to 8 exhibition races at 3 or 4 tracks in 2005, with a full schedule in 2006. I’m sure this series will make ARDC happy, but I’m interested to see how they do. The more wingless midget racing in the area, the happier I’ll be.

Saturday was the Chili Bowl finals. There was a total of 19 events, starting with 2 “J” features. Brett Hearn and Kevin Doty won the first ever J-mains at the Chili bowl. At the end of the day, Tracy Hines ended up winning his first Chili Bowl. Tracy started on the pole, but he raced hard and earned the victory over Dave Darland and last years winner Corey Kruseman in a race that went the last 31 laps without a yellow flag. Continue reading →

Friday was day three of the Chili Bowl. Corey Kruseman took the win. Apparently his car owner didn’t have enough money to buy a right front midget tire so he put a motorcycle wheel on the car! I’m not sure if it helped but, but his car was fast. Continue reading →

Thursday was the second night of the Chili Bowl. Tracy Hines won the A-main from the pole. Continue reading →

Last night I saw Josh Ford win the first night of the 2005 Chili Bowl in Tulsa. Continue reading →