Why Sprint Cars Don’t Have Mirrors

London, Ontario (February 19, 2009) -

Sunday’s Junior/Vickers fiasco at Daytona was a great example of the negative effect mirrors and spotters have had on “big league” racing:

"That's superspeedway racing," Vickers insisted. "You watch your mirror [and] you try to keep the guy behind you, behind you. My goal is not to let him pass me. People blocked me the whole race -- they'd turn left and try to keep me behind them. That's part of superspeedway racing.”

“Superspeedway racing” has been a contradiction in terms for quite some time, if you ask me. Blocking has become to mainstream auto racing what the “clutch and grab” was to hockey until the NHL stepped in with a long overdue crackdown a few years ago. NASCAR has created this monster which gets worse every year, and nobody in charge there seems to have any appetite for changing anything. And why should they? Each Superspeedway race is nailbiting and features an incredibly close finish. Plus NASCAR needs a good rivalry, and it appears they might have one now – hopefully nobody gets hurt.

Other Speedweeks Notes and Observations:

- Ask.com must have spent one hell of a lot of money lately. Between sponsoring the #96 car for Bobby Labonte, signing on as the “official search engine of NASCAR”, and frequent mentions on both Fox and Speed on the weekend, they got more coverage than perhaps any other sponsor I’ve seen on a NASCAR broadcast in quite some time. Also on the sponsorship theme, reports that NASCAR title sponsor Sprint/Nextel is going down the crapper have been surfacing for quite some time (including in last week’s edition of National Speed Sport News), and it didn’t look good for them Sunday on Fox when the “race break” reports were sponsored by archrival AT&T.

- Local message boards are awash with congratulatory messages for John Ryan “J.R.” Fitzpatrick of Cambridge, who finished 4th in the 200 mile Truck Series go at Daytona on Friday night. Fitzpatrick is a product of the Southern Ontario stock car scene, and appears to have a legitimate shot at moving up through the ranks of NASCAR in a way that no Canadian really ever has. Fitzpatrick scores points with yours truly for giving it a go in a Can-Am Midget at Flamboro last season. Todd Bodine won the race, and it was in typical Bodine fashion – He triggered a massive wreck midway through the event which took out many contenders, including defending series champion and part-time Supermodified driver Johnny Benson.

- Wondering where Ryan Coniam has been since the Jacques Villeneuve NASCAR effort didn’t turn out very well? The former sprint car racer from Burlington is working for Michael Waltrip’s team, where he’s been assigned to Germain Racing to help Max Papis get started in stock car racing. Coniam makes a cameo this week in Norris McDonald’s column in the Toronto Star

- The attention of most race fans over the past few weeks has been on the big track at Daytona, but tons of short track racing was also going on in the area, especially at Volusia Speedway Park, New Smyrna Speedway, and a bit further away at East Bay Raceway Park near Tampa. Other venues in action included Orlando Speedworld, Ocala Speedway - back to dirt after a few years of pavement - and Desoto Super Speedway to name a few. Most of the action goes unnoticed by the mainstream race fans, but thanks to http://www.dirttrackdigest.com/ there is some video from the goings-on at Volusia available online - night #5’s sprint car feature is especially entertaining. Hopefully some video will surface from the Richie Evans Memorial 100, which featured a great battle between Ronnie Silk and Ted Christopher at the end of the race, with Christopher taking the win after swapping the lead with Silk 4 times over the last 8 laps.

- In case you’re one of those people wondering why Ryan Newman’s new number in the Cup series is 39, he didn’t just pull it out of thin air: http://www.bjwor.com/usacmwin.html . Newman had a rough Speedweeks, so rough in fact that the former USAC star had to forgo his plans to race in the Richie Evans Memorial 100 at New Smyrna on Friday night. Newman won the Tour Modified feature at New Smyrna on Monday driving a car co-owned by Kevin “Bono” Manion and Gary Putnam, crew chief and car chief respectively on the #1 Cup series entry of Martin Truex, Jr. Both Manion and Putnam are former Modified crew chiefs from the Northeast, and have their car painted black with a red “7ny” on the side in tribute to Tom Baldwin, Sr. who was killed in a crash at Thompson, CT in August of 2004. They plan to bring the car back out for Newman to drive in the NASCAR Whelen Tour race scheduled at Bristol in August.

Elsewhere…

- It’s really quite depressing for me to think about what Indy cars have become. Ride-buying hit an all time low recently when Robin Miller reported that Milka Dunno is signing on with the Newman/Haas team in the IRL for 2009. Paul Newman must be rolling over in his grave.


- The Empire Super Sprints have a partial schedule posted on their website, but it should not be mistaken for the "official" 2009 schedule, as some dates are sure to be added at traditional ESS tracks such as Brockville and Cornwall, neither of which are listed as of yet. New additions for ’09 include a return to Ransomville Speedway on June 19, and a big money “Quebec 360 Nationals” event in August at Autodrome Drummond, advertised with a $27,800 purse paying $6,000 to win, $500 to start the A-Main, and $200 to show up. It is not a full ESS points show, but will offer show-up points towards the ESS championship. Ransomville’s sprint car events had been limited to the ASCS Patriots over the last few years, and before that the Southern Ontario Sprints also paid the Buffalo-area track some visits. The last ESS event at Ransomville was July 21, 2000 and was won by Steve Dow.

- Big news out of Oswego these days, as a $10,000-to-win "King of the Wings" Supermodified event has been added to the schedule on July 11. Unfortunately for Southern Ontario fans, a choice has to be made as the Auto Value Super Sprints and NEMA Midgets are rumoured to be competing at Cayuga Speedway the same day, while the ISMA Supers will race at Cayuga the following day. ISMA teams planning to run the King of the Wings show will have a long week of travel ahead of them, starting on the Tuesday night at Stafford, CT before heading to Oswego for Saturday night's event, and then on to Cayuga for what will likely be an afternoon event on Sunday.

- Ryan Litt noticed a lack of open wheel racers in Inside Track Motorsport News' "Readers Choice Awards", so he contacted editor Greg MacPherson about it and was asked for a list of drivers he felt would fit into an open wheel category. Ryan came up with some names of Canadian open wheel racers who saw success in 2008 and asked me for a couple of additions, and this is what we've come up with:

Steve Poirier (ESS 360 Sprints) - 11 wins, 2nd ESS championship in a row.

Lou Kennedy, Jr. (NOSA 410 sprints) - 3 wins, 2008 NOSA Champion

Steven Mathews (USAC Ford Focus Midgets) - 2 wins, 13 top 5's, and 4th in Midwest Series points.

Gord Kynoch (AST 360 Sprints) - 2008 AST Champion, and first Albertan to compete in the Canadian Sprint Car Nationals.

Alison McLeod (USAC Regional Midgets) - 3 Wins, 3rd in Anderson Midget 400, 2nd in USAC Regional points, and Winner of 'Kara Hendrick' Award

Ryan Litt (AVSS & USAC 410 Sprints) 3 Wins, 2nd in AVSS points, 4th in Anderson Speedway Little 500

Steve Arpin (USAC Silver Crown) - 2008 USAC Silver Crown Rookie of The Year. (Also won 6 Modified events despite missing almost 2 months recovering from burns suffered in a Florida Speedweeks event at Volusia.)

Mark Sammut (ISMA Supermodifieds) 1 Win, 4th in ISMA points.

Weigh in with your opinions by e-mailing me at tommygoudge@hotmail.com or media@ohswekenspeedway.com

- I was fortunate on Tuesday when a friend called with an offer of a free ticket to that night's Maple Leafs/Sabres game, which I could not refuse. Once at the game (and having paid $13.75 for ONE beer), I started thinking about how people spend their money. There we were, surrounded by 19,000 people who paid the highest ticket prices in the NHL to see a team in the midst of yet another losing season giving a particularly lacklustre effort, and losing 4-1 in the end. Sure makes the $10 it costs to get into Ohsweken Speedway on a Friday night look like the world's greatest bargain eh? None of the racers are just there to play out the string, that's for sure...

- Speed Channel aired the Chili Bowl Midget Nationals on Saturday night and again earlier this week a few times, and has 1 more re-air scheduled: Sunday, March 15 @ 12:00 p.m. It’s worth watching.

As always, you can reach me by sending an e-mail to tommygoudge@hotmail.com or media@ohswekenspeedway.com. Racing season will be here before we know it...I hope...