FIRST UP – The 410s are in action tonight (Wednesday) as the All Star Circuit of Champions hits the track at Volusia Speedway Park. Given these next few nights could be the only time you see sprint cars at VSP this year, we high suggest you high tail it over there.

Doing a separate race report for each series would be laborious given that we’re knee deep in SpeedWeeks and the information will be coming fast and furious, so I’m combining the USAC and FMSA action into one report.

DATE: February 11, 2012

SERIES: USAC Sprint Cars and Florida Mini Sprints Association (FMSA).

TRACK: Bubba Raceway Park.

ADMISSION PRICE: $40 for a pit pass. While that sounds steep, this is SpeedWeeks, it is USAC and a Top Gun pit pass runs me $30 at Bubba Raceway Park, so I expected it to be forty clams.

FOOD ORDERED: N/A. I was actually suffering from food poisoning (which had nothing to do with the track for the record) so I wasn’t able to get the chili cheese dog as per my usual BRP diet. Sorry.

DRINKS ORDERED: Hot Chocolate.

DRINKS GRADE: A. It was very, very cold out so the hot chocolate hit the spot and for the record it was the Carnation Rich Chocolate variety, which is good stuff. Had this been Swiss Miss or some generic brand you would be starting at a different grade, I assure you.

CROWD GRADE: A-. It wasn’t top to bottom full, but given the temperatures in the 40s, the grandstands were pretty darn full. This might be the biggest crowd I’ve seen at BRP for a sprint car race.

TRACK GRADE: Incomplete. The track conditions were puzzling for competitors and fans alike. I’ll give you some examples. On Thursday, for hot laps and the beginning of qualifying the track was great. By the time qualifying was into the last ten cars or so they didn’t have a prayer, but in the features the surface wasn’t too bad. Then in the feature the track surface was just god awful, probably the worst I’ve seen at BRP. Then on Saturday for hot laps and qualifying the track surface was awesome, with the track record getting positively obliterated. Then come feature time USAC competitors and officials and BRP got into it about the track surface. The feature Saturday wasn’t real good until the very last lap, with minimal passing throughout the field throughout the race.  Obviously the track surface can be great as we saw during qualifying Saturday, but consistency needs to be addressed because it’s a bad deal when you can have an awesome surface and an awful surface all in the same night. Hopefully the track can get it right because the layout is great for wingless sprints.

USAC WHO WON: Feature win went to “The Hawk” Darren Hagen, with heat wins going to Casey Shuman, Brady Bacon, Chase Stockton and Bud Kaeding.

FMSA WHO WON: Feature win went to Luke Thomas, with heat wins going to Thomas, Eddie Moss Jr. and Jesse Teed.

USAC DRIVER OF THE RACE: This is a very tough one. On one hand, Bryan Clauson made a game of it while everyone else had trouble passing in the feature. On the other hand Justin Grant was just electric in qualifying and his heat race. But I’m going with Darren Hagen for a couple of reasons. First, the Hoffman Racing entries were rockets each night and Hagen in particular just had this knack for getting off the bottom of turn four and carrying a bunch of forward bite down the straight so he could get inside of people in turn one.  When I was getting his autograph for my son, a fan relayed to him that the Clausons were down there jawing about how they touched coming to the finish, to which Hagen replied, “well I won, it’s my trophy, but if it will make him feel better he can have his picture taken with it, but it’s still mine.” Add that to his monster drive and he’s my Driver of the Race.

FMSA DRIVER OF THE RACE: I’m going with out-of-state invader Jim Young with this one. Jim comes down every year with his red #8, sometimes all by himself, sometimes with maybe one person in tow, but this very likable gentleman is always fast and always smooth. The 2012 SpeedWeeks edition of Jim’s travels have been no different as he came home second both nights in the feature. Honorable mention goes to Gavin Thomas who was fast in both the Jesse Teed entry and the Todd’s Tomatoes entry.

USAC HARD LUCK AWARD: This one is a little tough because the USAC guys just don’t wreck or really run into each other much, but I’ll go with Chris Windom. On Thursday he tagged the berm in his heat race and flipeed, then the tow truck bounced his car going into the pits. Somehow they got everything fixed for the B Main and Chris worked his way into a transfer spot and then he got bumped down in turn four and when he spun he got tagged by another car. Then Windom’s Saturday night was largely forgettable.

FMSA HARD LUCK AWARD: Unfortunately this is an easy one and it goes to series champ David Pleaugh.  David broke on the first lap of Thursday’s feature and was done. Then on Saturday David was battling for the lead with Luke Thomas when Thomas got into Pleaugh on the front stretch and Pleaugh went for a wild ride through the infield and he was once again done for the night.

USAC RACE NOTES:

• Hoffman Racing was back with a vengeance. Last year was rather forgettable, but this year the team brought a Chalk chassis for Darren Hagen and a Triple X for Brady Bacon and both were fast. This team is old school, so much so our Factory Driver remarked that their trailer looks straight out of 1985. This bunch of old schoolers are super nice guys and it was great to see them in victory lane again.
• Bryan Clauson gets mad props for his last lap charge at Darren Hagen, going to the outside in the last turn, going to the outside on the run to the checkered flag, falling but .092 seconds short. The two touched at the stripe with Clauson suffering some front end damage, but such is life going for the win.
• Qualifying was positively electric with Brady Bacon first putting down a 14.283, then Levi Jones dropped the track record to a 14.123, but then Justin Grant obliterated the track record with a 14.018. Watching Grant’s lap had me holding my breath watching how he manned up that car through turns one and two.
• Damion Gardner won Thursday but was a shocking non-factor Saturday night, though he sure as heck was trying to come up through the field. My Gardner t-shirt is still the coolest t-shirt I own though.
• Florida did have some representation with Mark Broughman, who moved here from Michigan last year. While Mark was the slowest car out there, he gave it a shot and that’s what racing is about. I’ll also give him an atta-boy because he smoothed out his lines dramatically as the night went on and as the leaders came up to lap him in his heat and the B Main he pulled off immediately. More drivers that are off the pace should do that.
• Will USAC be back? At the moment it doesn’t appear so. I hope USAC and BRP can work out their spat because we really need USAC here in Florida during SpeedWeeks. These are the best non-wing drivers in the country and watching them at work is a thing of beauty.

FMSA NOTES:

• Eddie Moss Jr. was a rocket Thursday but ran into issues Saturday night. His new HYPER just sucks down through the turns and was generally the fastest thing out there.
• Jesse Teed’s new Triple X is a cool piece of machinery, I highly suggest checking it out. The names Jesse and Gavin were on the side of it and you could tell who was driving it by which name had a green x over it for the night.
• Both Teed and Moss Jr. had issues Saturday night, sidelining their efforts early in the feature.
• Luke Thomas was predictably fast but it’s a shame Saturday’s win was tainted by the contact for the lead with David Pleaugh. Thomas has been a rocket at East Bay in years past.
• The Todd’s Tomatoes team was very fast both nights, with both Dirk Miller and Gavin Thomas running toward the sharp end of the field.
• Sheldon Kinser Jr. had a scary moment on Saturday night when something broke on the car and he took a hard right turn into the front stretch. Thankfully he was alright.
• Austin Craddock had a great Thursday night but ended up on the hook after a big wreck Saturday night. Craddock was on the outside of David Hall as Hall was completing the pass down the back stretch and I just had a bad feeling that if Craddock didn’t back out of it something bad would happen, and it did.
• It was also announced that the FMSA will be running a wingless show at some point this year at BRP.
• Nick Snyder in the 14s was very fast Saturday night, looking much better than his Thursday run.

RACE REPORTER: Todd Michaels

The rain stopped, the crew worked tirelessly to prep the track and Gavin Thomas was your FMSA feature winner.

Hopefully we’ll have a second race report from someone that’s volunteered (got drafted?) to be a race reporter for us and was also in the house at Bubba Raceway Park Saturday night. But since this was the only sprint car race of the weekend, instead of the quick results page you’re used to on Sunday, here we go…

Date: June 25, 2011

Track: Bubba Raceway Park (Ocala, FL)

Series: Florida Mini Sprint Association.

Admission: I threw down $30 for a pit pass. Extra points for the pit pass girl that got sassy with me in a cute way.

Number of Mini Sprints: 20 at first, then the Sheldon Kinser entry rolled in to the pits for 21.

Who Won:

• Heat #1 – Brett O’Donnell
• Heat #2 – David Pleaugh
• FEATURE – Gavin Thomas

Track Grade: A. The fact that there was racing at all was rather shocking. It rained all over the state, including Ocala earlier in the day, but the track crew worked tirelessly at Bubba Raceway Park to get the track in shape and it was in good condition, all things considered.

Food Ordered: I went with “old reliable” for me at BRP/Ocala Speedway – the Zuber Dog with chili and cheese.

Food Grade: A. The Zuber Dog always delivers and is still my favorite hot dog of any track in the state. Though, I must confess I really wanted that Bubba buffalo cheese spread sauce stuff on some nachos. Sadly the gentleman in front of me snagged the last of the then current batch, so the stuff was cold (they had to heat up a new batch) and my hunger couldn’t wait. But the sweet young thing behind the counter gave me a sample of the cold stuff and it was mighty yummy.

Drinks Ordered: None. I just had some Gatorade in the Penrose Racing hauler. It was hot out.

Crowd Grade: B. Given the rain everywhere, this was a very good crowd. The only reason I didn’t give it an A is because the join wasn’t full to the rafters.

FMSA Driver of the Race: David Hall. Hall piloted the Todd’s Tomatoes entry to a fine third place finish and was fast and smooth all night. I also strongly considered Eddie Moss Sr. and Pete Smith.

FMSA Hard Luck Award: Unfortunately this is an easy one – Alan Craig. If anyone had anything for Gavin Thomas (except for Brett O’Donnell, more on that in a moment…) it was Alan Craig. Craig was very fast and put a nifty move on Thomas going into one for the lead but a few laps later after Thomas retook the lead Craig spun coming out of turn four. Craig did recover to come home 10th.

Other Notes:

• There was some confusion over the starting lineup for the feature that unfortunately lead to some fights in the pits last night. We (Penrose Racing) thought we were going to be on the front row but started to load our Editor at Speed into his car anyway (we’re lovers, not fighters) when we were told Gavin Thomas and Brett O’Donnell got into it. This ended with the O’Donnells loading up their car. Then there was another dust-up with the O’Donnell and Moss families in the chute just before the feature. Now since my college journalism teacher told me not to report on stories where I the reporter becomes part of the story line, I did help break up the fights just before the feature, so I’ll leave it at that. Then there were more altercations after the race and I’ll play the same card again. The only point I’ll make here is that I do realize that sometimes fighting is part of racing, but this all had to do with non-racing incidents, so it was all unpleasant to see unfold, especially since I think I get along well with both the O’Donnell and Moss families.
• File this under “something you don’t see every day.” So during the last skirmish in the pits after the feature, who was the voice of reason over at the O’Donnell pits to get them loaded up? Gene Lasker. You read that right. And Gene was helping with track prep. Gene was a busy guy last night and I tip my cap to him. Look for Gene to be racing when the sprints return to Bubba Raceway Park.
• Gavin Thomas once again proved to be a fast and smooth shoe, taking home the victory.
• Terry Taylor was in action, but sadly I was not able to go and try out any Red Rooster jokes.
• Unfortunately our Editor at Speed developed a mysterious fuel pressure problem in the chute and elected to tag the field (we were to start third) due to it still fluctuating wildly, eventually causing his car to shut off under caution, right at the flag stand. Great photo opportunity though!
• Harold Matthews had an almost scary moment trying to get around a lapped car on the front stretch and ended up clobbering a huge dirt pile in the infield. Harold was lucky all it was was dirt.
• Dirk Miller also had a big moment when he ended up upside down and brought out a red flag, but thankfully was alright and walked back to the pits.
• Eddie Moss had a nice strong feature run to come home second. Eddie ran strong all night.
• Another driver with a good strung run was Pete Smith who made some nice moves and came home fifth.
• There’s been a “for sale” sign on the O’Donnell #28 car and we heard rumor that BTLS purchased the car for his son. If that’s the case, watch out because watching the #28 go through turns one and two is a thing of beauty the way it’s set up.
• Shawn Murray, I promise I’ll try to bring you your JBT award next time I’m at the track.

Race Reporter: Todd Michaels