National notebook
Notes: Hall of Famer focuses on next chapter
Billy Moyer (mikerueferphotos.photoreflect.com)
Keen-eyed fans at Batesville (Ark.) Motor Speedway’s Comp Cams Topless 100 might’ve noticed a new sponsor on the quarterpanel of Hall of Famer Billy Moyer’s No. 21.
Moyer has pretty close ties to Lake Havasu City, Ariz.-based Hava Style Recreation — he and three partners own the RV and boat dealership that’s become the post-racing career venture for the driver with more than 840 career Dirt Late Model victories. In essence, he’s sponsoring his own team.
“It’s kind of nice when I got a little bit of money coming in without sitting behind the steering wheel all the time,” Moyer said with a smile in the Batesville pit area. “So that’s kind of something different for me my whole life.”
Indeed things are changing for the long-traveling 63-year-old racer who’s among the sport’s all-time best as his retirement from the sport has stretched for several seasons but will likely become permanent as soon as he sells out his racing equipment and shop.
He’s asking $2.4 million for everything — the Batesville house, shop, race program and shop contents — but in the meantime Moyer competed a few weekends in August, finishing second in Lucas Oil Midwest LateModel Racing Association at Lake Ozark Speedway in Eldon, Mo., and as an early dropout in his hometown’s Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event.
If “somebody (would) just come and buy it all and I’ll be done,” said Moyer, who hoped to show his property during the Topless 100 weekend while making the trip east to get a pickup from his uncle’s car dealership in Des Moines, Iowa. “I’d separate it if I had to. I’d like to just sell everything, but I, people just, they don’t realize what all is there. There’s a lot, a lot, a lot of stuff there, you know.”
While he’d consider selling his race equipment separately, his ads say he won’t sell the hauler before his Capital Race Cars are sold. That will allow him to run the $50,000-to-win events at the dirt tracks at Texas Motor Speedway and Las Vegas Speedway later this season, providing he hasn’t sold out.
Even if his equipment is sold, “maybe I’ll drive somebody else’s stuff. I don’t know,” Moyer said. “But I like these (Capital) cars. Shane (Clanton) and Marshall (Green) have been good to work with and we had fun.”
But with racing winding down, Moyer is finding fun — and a bit of a learning curve — in operating the RV and boat operation in western Arizona, always a favorite part of the country for Moyer, who wintered there and loves the Glamis sand dunes.
“I really didn’t miss (racing the past two months) like I thought I would’ve. I guess I stayed busy enough out there, and the area out there is just so cool,” Moyer said. “I call it the Toy Capital of the World there. Everybody’s got hot rods in the street, street shows, street cars, you know, they, every Thursday night they have a deal there on main street where everybody brings their hot rods out and shows them off and they got motorcycle night, you know, for the Harley’s and side-by-sides, and it just goes on and on and on.”
He calls it the “best thing I’ve done is getting into that deal. I’m having fun doing it and it’s helping pay some bills for sure,” Moyer said. “(Hall of Fame crew chief) Steve (Norris) stayed at the shop. I’m bringing him out (to Arizona) to be in the service department sometime or another, probably over winter, maybe. But we built a couple of my old Victory cars there at the shop. ... So we’re just trying to keep him busy, giving him something to do, to keep the doors open here at the shop for a while.”
He’s grateful to his business partners for the financial assistance and a bit of a push to get rolling with Hava Style Recreation, an operation he purchased, keeping most of the employees on board.
“That’s just how good of friends they are. I couldn’t have done it without them,” Moyer said. “We’d spent a lot of money for that place and I probably, just to put it mildly, am not brave enough to spend the kind of money by myself to do that. So them guys in there, they’ve had successful businesses and they got plenty of financing and everything. So I just knew that with all of us involved, wouldn’t no way we’d let it fail.” — Todd Turner, DirtonDirt.com
Billet nabs fourth BAPS victory
Chase Billet was fast throughout the 2020 racing season, but he didn’t seem to have the good fortune needed to pile up wins.
That’s changed this season. Not only is Billet the fastest car in the Limited Late Model division at BAPS Motor Speedway in Lock Haven, Pa., things are going his way, especially in the track’s most lucrative events.
None was bigger than Aug. 21's Creekside Auto Sales-Hoffer Paving Late Model 50. Billet took the lead on the opening lap and dominated the field, earning his first career win in the event by a hefty 3.07 seconds.
“I’ve been close to winning the 50-lapper,” Billet said after his fourth win of the season. “I don’t know how many of these things I’ve led. I would take the lead and a caution would come out, I would blow up ... I should have five or six 50-lap wins, and finally, we were able to hold it together for one tonight.”
Holding it together is an understatement. Billet was never challenged throughout the entire race distance.
Joey Hoffer lined up on the pole with Billet to his outside. Terry Gingrich spun on the opening lap in Turn 1, but that only postponed the inevitable. Billet got the jump on the second attempt at a start and took a commanding lead. The only thing that slowed his pace was the seven caution periods.
“The car drove itself tonight,” Billet said. “I was just along for the ride. We were hooked up, and I couldn’t do anything wrong.
“I knew the track was fast and locked down. This is the fastest feature track I’ve seen here in a long time, if ever. So, I knew starting on the outside pole that I needed to get the lead and get in clean air and just let them sit. That’s what we did tonight.”
Runner-up Jed Latshaw showed his nose to Billet on a lap-32 restart, but Billet blasted around the top and pulled away with ease over the last 18 circuits.
“I could peak at the Jumbotron coming down the frontstretch, so I knew we had a pretty good lead,” Billet said. “I could kind of take my time. (A lapped car) got a little squirrelly going down the backstretch and kind of scared me, but she held it together, and we got through it.
“We were fast all last year, but luck has been more on our side this year. We’ve been fast when it mattered and lucky when it mattered most.” — Kalida Landis, BAPS Motor Speedway
Touring victory for Johns
Hohenwald, Tenn., driver Oakley Johns started the 2021 racing season with his eyes firmly focused on winning the Crate Racin’ USA Weekly Racing Series championship in the 604 Late Model division, and although his advantage isn’t a big one, he’s currently leading the standings in the season-long chase for the $10,000 title.
As he closes in on a potential 20-victory season in the weekly title chase, Johns enjoyed a special victory July 31 at Thunderhill Raceway Park in Summertown, Tenn., with his first career touring victory with the Crate Racin’ USA organization.
“We ran the touring series more in 2018 and 2019, but we never won a race during those two years, so tonight is a huge deal for us,” Johns said. “The most I’ve ever been paid for a win before this one was $1,500, and this was $3,000. This year that $10,000 that’s offered for the Weekly Racing Series championship has been my main focus. Tonight we get a chance to apply those points toward that title, and that really helps a lot.”
The pole-starting Johns struggled in traffic at times in the 40-lapper but held on to lead every lap.
“I was judging by my daddy, who was giving me signals, but a couple times I felt like we were about to get drove past on both sides out there tonight,” Johns said. “We couldn’t maneuver through lapped traffic the way we needed, so I was glad to see all those cautions. We could get away a little bit on the restarts.
“We had two or three guys give us a pretty good challenge, including (eventual runner-up) Brad (Skinner),” Johns said. “It helped us a lot to start from the pole, and that was probably key to winning the race. It also helps to know the racetrack, and we’ve run here a lot over the years, so we kinda know a little bit about what the surface is gonna do. I didn’t expect it to clean up the way it did, but having a lot of experience here certainly helped. Any time you can win a race in front of your home crowd, it means a lot to your team.” — Brian McLeod, Crate Racin’ USA
East Moline resets Salute to Webb
As well as he is running right now, Hall of Fame Racer Gary Webb may win his own race.
At age 72, the Blue Grass, Iowa, driver’s dirt track racing career is still at high speed. Webb is in his 50th season of speeding around tracks locally and beyond. The 50 years will be celebrated with The Salute to Gary Webb Eriksen Chevrolet IMCA Late Model race Sept. 19 at East Moline (Ill.) Speedway. The event was rescheduled from June 20 due to rain.
“Fifty years at anything is a milestone, but racing at the level Gary has for five decades means more,” said Bret Sievertsen, the track’s general manager and race director. “We knew East Moline Speedway wanted to honor Gary, especially since he considers this track home and won a lot here.”
The IMCA Late Model feature race will be 56 laps, in honor of Webb’s car number and pay $2,000 to the winner. More than 20 of the top IMCA Late Model drivers are expected, not only because of the payout, but to honor Webb.
Webb has 521 wins at 65 racetracks over his career. A significant amount of those checkered flags was earned at East Moline Speedway, including two this season. He also is a 17-time track champion and currently is in second place in 2021 track points.
Along with the National Dirt Late Model Hall of Fame, the Davenport, Iowa, native is a member of the track’s Hall of Fame and was an inaugural inductee into the Iowa Racing Museum Hall of Fame in 2018. — Rob Hinckley, East Moline Speedway
