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Quick Time: Home-stater drought in North-South

August 7, 2013, 1:51 pm

By Todd Turner

DirtonDirt.com managing editor

Take a quick lap around the proverbial dirt track with managing editor Todd Turner for a roundup of Dirt Late Model racing through the latest weekend of action along with some other quirks of racing (and the occasional ax-grinding). Quick Time, presented by PFC Brakes, appears throughout the regular season every Wednesday at DirtonDirt.com:

Frontstretch: Drivers of the Week

National: Tim McCreadie of Watertown, N.Y., grabbed his richest career victory Aug. 3 at Cedar Lake Speedway’s 26th annual USA Nationals, earning $50,000 and his fifth World of Outlaws Late Model Series victory of the season.

Regional: William Thomas of Phenix City, Ala., extended a personal four-race winning streak by capturing the opening events on the new Chevy CT 525 series at Penton (Ala.) Raceway and his hometown East Alabama Motor Speedway.

Weekly: Todd Cooney of Des Moines, Iowa, solidified his IMCA Late Model weekly points lead with home-state victories at at Shelby County Speedway in Harlan and Stuart Speedway.

Crate: Colton Flinner of Allison Park, Pa., scored his biggest victory Aug. 3 at Pittsburgh's Pennsylvania Motor Speedway by capturing the 24th annual Jook George Memorial.

Turn 1: Step up, Bluegrass drivers

Kentucky has a proud heritage of Dirt Late Model racing, but Bluegrass State drivers haven’t done a very good job of keeping hardware from the Sunoco North-South 100 within the borders of the Commonwealth.

Heading into this weekend’s $50,000-to-win Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series event at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., it’s been 19 years since a Kentucky driver as visited victory lane in the season’s biggest race at the undersized half-mile oval in the northern tip of the state.

In fact, the late, great Jack Boggs of Grayson is the only Kentucky driver to capture the North-South 100, an event first run in 1983. Boggs won the event in 1986, ’92 and ’94, but his three victories for Kentucky don’t match Tennessee (seven wins, most recently in 2011) and Ohio (six wins, most recently in ’05). Indiana and West Virginia drivers have three North-South victories apiece, too.

All of Dirt Late Model racing’s richest races and crown jewel events typically draw national fields, so it’s difficult for home-state drivers defend their turf. But among all the events paying at least $30,000-to-win, the North-South has the longest drought among home-state winners at 19 years.

The next longest: the Show-Me 100 at Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland, Mo. (14 years with Terry Phillips of Springfield, Mo.); the Dirt Track World Championship at Portsmouth (Ohio) Raceway Park (10 years with Darrell Lanigan of Union, Ky., when the race was run in Bardstown, Ky.); the Knoxville Lucas Oil Late Model Nationals at Knoxville (Iowa) Speedway (nine years with Brian Birkhofer of Muscatine, Iowa); the Dream at Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio (2005 with Matt Miller of Waterville, Ohio)

Among other purses paying $30,000-to-win or more (USA Nationals, Topless 100 and World 100), home-state drivers have cracked victory lane within the past four seasons.

At this year’s North-South, the best bet is Steve Francis of Ashland, Ky., who has six top-five finishes among 17 starts. Hometown driver Darrell Lanigan has made 18 starts with a pair of runner-up finishes, but the two-time World of Outlaws Late Model Series champion has skipped most of Florence’s special events the last few seasons.

Eric Wells of Hazard, Ky., has had success at Florence along with Eddie Carrier Jr. Carrier races out of Salt Rock, W.Va., but he’s a Kentucky native and a victory would no doubt be embraced by the Bluegrass State faithful.

Turn 2: Following baseball’s lead

With rainouts plaguing Florida dirt tracks, one promoter is looking at an interesting solution to the problem. Bubba the Love Sponge, the shock jock who became co-owner of Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Fla., two years ago, is following baseball’s lead by using tarpaulins to cover most of the racing surface.

Whenever the track crew isn’t prepping the 3/8-mile oval, 10 large tarps are designed to protect the surface from being deluged by water. The Ocala oval has been rained out four times so far this year — will this prevent a fifth?

Backstretch: Time do fly, don’t she?

Just as school seems to start earlier and earlier — yes, I’m a little jealous I never had a first day of school photo posted on Facebook back in the 1970s — it seems like some tracks wrap up their points titles earlier and earlier.

Within a week or two of some track’s hosting mid-seasons championships, at least two tracks have already put the wraps on their Late Model divisions. Over the weekend, hometown driver Ryan Griffith captured the IMCA Late Model weekly title at Hamilton County Speedway in Webster City, Iowa, while Mike Fryer of Freeport, Ill., secured the unsanctioned crown at Lafayette County Speedway in Darlington, Wis.

The trickle of champions will pick up through the month with most tracks crowning drivers by the end of September. DirtonDirt.com will keep tabs on all the champions with a link on our front page.

Turn 3: Tweets of the Week

Ty Hartman ‏@Foose716: Who the hell is Jason utter? Showed the real deal whats up tonight

Kenny Wallace ‏@Kenny_Wallace: Bloomquist down a lap early? Must be a typo? .........“@WoOLateModels: L19 - Diemel puts Bloomquist down lap....O'Neal 2nd, TMac 3rd....”

Billy Moyer Jr ‏@team21jr: We didn't have a 4th place car but got 4th somehow... Felt like I was riding a bull... Congrats to @jacksullivan181 on the win

Turn 4: Turn back the clock

Five items from this week in Dirt Late Model history:

Aug. 11, 1979: Riding on McCreary tires, Charlie Cragan of Hopewell, Pa., lapped the field at Motordrome Speedway in Smithton, Pa., for his lone career victory on the National Dirt Racing Association.

Aug. 9, 1997: Steve Russell of Pontotoc, Miss., became the eighth winner in eighth annual Wayne Coakley Memorial races at Central Park Raceway, collecting $5,000 for his victory in McHenry, Ky. Steve Barnett and Kevin Claycomb chased Russell to the checkers after Tony Izzo Jr. spun out of second place on lap 17.

Aug. 12, 2001: Hall of Famer Gene Petro, a Midwest dirt racing star who ended his career in Florida, died at his Deland, Fla., home. He was 66. Petro was a two-time track champion at Brownstown (Ind.) Speedway and finished third in the 1973 World 100 at Eldora Speedway.

Aug. 8, 2008: Drivers Terry Casey of New London, Wis., and Audie McWilliams of Walton, Ky., were disqualified from the Sunoco North-South 100 at Florence Speedway in Union, Ky., after series officials detected the presence of illegal chemicals in tires they used for qualifying.

Aug. 9, 2011: Eldora Speedway announces changes to the World 100 that include two more starters for a 30-car field and the employment of double-filed restarts.