Entries from September 2005 ↓

I just heard that Pikes Peak International Raceway To Be Sold To International Speedway. I wouldn’t care too much, but ISC (read NASCAR) is shutting the track down. This sucks. I’m going to regret never making it to this track for the USAC races they had every 4′th of July. I have been planning on returning to northern New Mexico next summer and I was thinking about possibly planning the trip to coincide with going to this track (must likely during the IRL weekend – which was previously axed off the 2006 IRL schedule – I guess we now know why). Oh well… Anyone the believes NASCAR/ISC really care about racing ought to look at moves like this and think a little harder. The only little bit of positive news about this is that they are moving the Busch Series date to Martinsville – which is a good sign for that historic track.

Readers of this website may recall my postings about noise issues at Wester Springs Speedway in Auckland, NZ back on December (21, 23) 2004 and January (1, 27) 2005. Well, I was wondering whatever happened about the situation. As best as I can tell the issue is still in court, but the Speedway has a schedule out and appears to be ready to race this winter (well, I guess it is summer there). Continue reading →

On Sunday, September 25 I went to Watkins Glen International for the IRL IndyCar race. Also on the schedule were the IRL Infiniti Pro Series and a race for vintage F-1 cars. The Glen was my 15′th new track of the year and 25′th track overall to see a race at. Continue reading →

On Saturday Sept 24 I returned to New Egypt Speedway despite the management debacle last week. The first race on the card was the make up Sportsman feature from the week before. The track was in no condition to race as it was to wet. This lead to a follow the leader event. Rich Scagliotta, who was second in points finished third, but Rich Rutski manged to finish 6′th which was just enough for him to win the championship by only two points! Interestingly, Rutski won the championship, not only without winning a race, but without even ever leading a lap. Talk about consistency! Continue reading →

The NATIONAL SPRINT CAR LEAGUE has been officially announced. Good luck to them! I think the World of Outlaws are going to be in trouble. I don’t see how two top, national 410 winged sprint car series can survive, and with the backing and drivers the National Sprint Car League has, it looks like they’ll win the battle to me. Here is the press release: Continue reading →

Rumor has it that the Petty’s will announce a new sprint car racing league at Dover this weekend called the National Sprint Car League. I decided to do a little checking after reading about the rumor and someone mentioning the whois record, I have confirmed that the Richard Petty Driving Experience has registered a website domain called nationalsprintcarleague.com. Continue reading →

Saturday, September 17′th was supposed to close out the points races at New Egypt Speedway. However, 2 divisions didn’t get their feature in due to inept management. The super stocks (Rob Ormsbee won the championship) and the modifieds (Frank Cozze) did get the races in and had the championships decided. However, due to an extremely poorly ran show with no regard to the fans and the management being more concern about selling hot dogs, we didn’t get to see a Sportsman or SS Sprint feature. I feel like I’ve been had again by this track once again. Continue reading →

Last Saturday, I went to New Egypt Speedway again. It was my 40′th race I attended this year. Nothing really exciting so no long report, but it was still a decent night out.

My 2005 racing stats after the September 10′th race at New Egypt:
Races: 40
Tracks: 24 (14 new)
States: 14 (3 new)

As many of you may have heard, Erin Crocker will race full time for ray Evernham in the Busch Series next year. she will be sponsored by General Mills and its Cheerios and Betty Crocker brands. While she has great talent, she has very little stock car experience so it may take time for her to adjust to the Busch series, but then again she has done will in her 5 ARCA series starts. Erin’s biggest win was winning a race in a World of Outlaws sprint car race.* It is nice to see a talented short track racer such as Erin (who just happens to be female) get a ride like this and I think she will show people she has the skill to make it in the Busch series and ultimately the Cup series. You can read more about the ride in the Motorsport.com: News channel.

* Which by the way is one more win then IRL driver Danica Patrick has in any automobile racing series.

I just read an interesting article about Massachusett’s decision to make documents comply to the OpenDocument standard. In the Information Week article Microsoft Blasts Massachusetts’ New XML Policy. Personally, I think this is a great move for the citizens of Massachusetts. All government documents should be in an open format standard to insure accessibility to all citizens (not just t hose who can afford expensive proprietary software) and using open standards also helps to ensure that the documents will be readable far into the future.