I decided to combine both series into one gigantic race report, so if you’re having trouble sleeping this just might do the trick for you. Think of it as being like “a very special episode of Blossom…” wherein you know should really pay attention even though it may be tedious at times.

DATE: March 20, 2010

TRACK: North Florida Speedway (aka Lake City)

ADMISSION: $30 pit pass.

CROWD GRADE: A. Now I must admit that I’ve never actually been to North Florida Speedway as all of my sojourns to Lake City ended with me turning left and heading to the pavement track, but from what I saw this was a very healthy crowd. I don’t have anything to compare it against but the crowd looked pretty good, from what I could see across the dark track.

TRACK GRADE: B. This was a bit of a puzzler for me to grade. We got there mid-afternoon to set up camp for our Editor at Speed and I was confused by the watering going on given the track condition and time of day. Then they watered the track before the mini sprints went out for hot laps, making the whole affair look like a swamp buggy race. But we all knew it would slick off and it did. BUT I still thought the racing was pretty good. When Ocala slicks off, the racing kind of blows, but I thought the racers adjusted well and made a game of it.

FOOD ORDERED: Hot dog and cheese fries.

FOOD GRADE: D. The hot dog was barely consumable and the hot dog bun had seen better days. A friend of mine got a hamburger that was burned to a crisp. He did remark however that this was somewhat better than the hamburger he had at Ocala Friday night, which was raw in the middle. The cheese fries weren’t bad…but they weren’t good. Everybody warned me to not order the food, but in the name of journalism I did. I should really learn to listen to people wiser than me, which is really most of the general population.

SERIES: Top Gun Sprint Series

# OF SPRINT CARS: 16 sprint cars signed in, 12 took the green for the feature.

SERIES GRADE: C. Car count was a little low and I was hoping to see more of the FSCA posse show up, but they didn’t. I was half tempted to give this one a D for a grade because only six cars finished and there were a lot of cautions, and it seemed that every time someone wrecked another car would break down in the same caution period. But the racing that did happen between cautions was pretty good. It sucked that “The Flying Mullet” Gene Lakser was on the front row because that meant the feature was pretty much over at the start despite arch nemesis Tim George lining up beside Mr. Lasker.

FSCF.COM DRIVER OF THE RACE: At the risk of being biased, factory status or not, Flyin’ Ryan Partin started deep in the field, spun out once and still raced his way up to fourth by the time it was all over. Ryan ran the bottom when most weren’t and was putting down some flyers but the constant cautions kept us from some completed passes. If you want to call us biased, I found Shane Kreidler to be very entertaining all night until his over exuberance got the best of him.

OTHER NOTES: I’d like to give an atta-girl to Amanda Ferguson. Amanda looked a little shaky at times last year on the dirt, but she had her game face on Saturday night and was making some nice moves on the outside groove but unfortunately ended up in the wall after Mike Shroder spun in front of her.  Amanda also gets “Save of the Night” for getting way up in the loose stuff in turn four and somehow managing to save it.

Shawn Murray also had a good night winning the Dash for the Cash and coming home third in the feature.

It’s always nice to see John Crowder out there, but sadly his night also came to a premature end.

I got to meet track photographer Razpewton, so that was cool. I always knew the name but not the face.

SERIES: Florida Mini Sprint Association

# OF SPRINT CARS: I do believe there were 27, but 23 took the green for the feature.

SERIES GRADE: B+. The mini sprints have been putting on some really good shows as of late and this was a good one too with lots of tight racing and good hard racing. Unfortunately there were some hard wrecks and flips, but everybody was ok.

FSCF.COM DRIVER OF THE RACE: Brett O’Donnell swept his heat and made a late race pass to pick up the win for the feature…then stuffed it in the wall after the checkers fell. Rhea Lynn Moss also impressed again, coming home in sixth just behind Eddie Moss who also ran well in the 1M. But since I rarely give this award to the winner unless they do something heroic, I’m going with Steve Crabtree. Steve ran up front in the lead spot for most of the race until he got passed by eventual winner O’Donnell. Steve runs hard and always gets the most out of his stuff and almost got the checkers, but alas it wasn’t to be. Congratulations Steve, I applaud your excellent run.

OTHER NOTES: I almost got to give Driver of the Race to our very own Editor at Speed “The Hot Foot” Brian Penrose. Brian made a sweet move in his heat to get up to second but got passed right at the end. Then Brian made his way up to sixth in the feature…until the final caution came out. Then all hell broke loose, and by my account Brian finished 11^th though the final rundown says otherwise.

Justin Knolves was looking good until he got tail happy up in turns three and four and positively clobbered the wall something fierce. Thankfully he was alright.

Austin Jackson tore his car up something fierce in the heat race, but was thankfully ok.

We at Penrose Racing would like to thank John Crowder for hooking us up with a spare oil cap after we somehow managed to blow ours off during our heat race. We were running out of options until John came to the rescue.

Jody McKenzie had another strong run and Mark Rider also had a good run to come home seventh.

Heat wins went to Eddie Moss Jr., Brett O’Donnell, and Steve Crabtree.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, if you haven’t been to a FMSA race this year, you are really missing out on some seriously good racing.

RACE REPORTER: Todd