DATE: October 15, 2011.

SERIES: Top Gun Sprints Series.

ADMISSION PRICE: $15 for the general admission and $30 for a pit pass.

FOOD ORDERED: Zuber Dog.

FOOD GRADE: C+. It is hard to give it a better grade when it cost $3.50…

DRINKS ORDERED: Water.

DRINKS GRADE: C.  Again, I can’t give it a great grade because it was expensive bottled water…

CROWD GRADE: A. With non wing sprints and late models on the card it brought out a very decent crowd.

NUMBER OF SPRINT CARS: 20.

WHO WON: Sprint Cars: Sprint Heats:

Heat 1: Sport Allen

Heat 2: Mark Ruel Jr.

Heat 3: Robbie Smith

Feature: Danny Martin Jr.

FSCF.com DRIVER OF THE RACE: I so wanted to report the driver of the race as the “Jacksonville Jet,” Mr. Smooth Matt Kurtz, who won this award last time out at Bubba Raceway Park. However, he was upstaged by the youngster Haulin’ Collin Cabre. Cabre’s first night out on the dirt showed us flashes of a very talented young driver. Cabre kept his nose clean and raced hard with a seventh place finish.

FSCF.COM HARD LUCK AWARD: This one goes to the high flyer of the night Kurt Taylor. Kurt brought out the first red flag with a wild ride up into, and basically out of, the back straight. A.J. Maddox also had some air time with the second red of the night for the feature. A.J. was checked out by the paramedics after complaining of some blurry vision. Both drivers did thankfully walk away.

SERIES GRADE: B. Considering the switch to non wings, the turnout wasn’t too bad.

TRACK GRADE: C-. The track had the usual rut in the middle of turn one.

OTHER NOTES:

* As a fan, the non wing racing was as exciting as I’ve seen all year. I know most all of the drivers were uncomfortable, but they put on one heck of a show. I’m thinking Florida should become a mixed wing and non wing state like Indiana. BRP could be the Gas City of the south.

* Pennsylvania has the Posse but Florida has a very talented Big Three of Danny Martin Jr., Robbie Smith and Sport Allen. Those three were worth the price of admission alone.

* It seems the Cabre Team had some assistance from some Scott Benic wrenches. They did a very nice job getting the car setup and coaching the youngster as well.

* It was a pleasure to see now two-time Must See Racing Xtreme Sprint Series Champion Troy DeCaire give the non wing dirt racing a go in a Skeeter Faulkoner car. Troy’s feature ended on the parade lap of the feature though.

* Mark Ruel Jr. might want to rethink the “Peruvian Outlaw” nickname. I hear it and I think South American Liberation Army leader. Don’t print up the t-shirts just yet. Get with your P.R. guy and see what else you can come up with.

* Plenty of asphalt drivers wandering the pits like Keith Butler, Dave Steele, Johnny “Please Come Back to Dirt” Gilbertson, Stan Butler, Jimmy Alvis Jr. and Mickey Kempgens.

* For all the people saying Danny Martin Jr. is winning too much, get over it. We keep saying it – he IS that good.

* Looking forward to next weekend’s non wing race again at BRP. Come on Saturday!

RACE REPORTER: Brian Penrose

Staff photographer Gary “Walk Quietly But Carry A Big” Johnson did his pit walk and snapped these lovely photos for you.

Enjoy.

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DATE: September 17, 2011

SERIES: Top Gun Sprint Series.

ADMISSION PRICE: $30 for my Pit Pass.

FOOD ORDERED: One slice of Pepperoni Pizza, the new and improved Dominos! I also had an ice cream cone.

FOOD GRADE: D. I paid almost $6 for one small piece of Dominos Pizza and a Dr. Pepper.  That’s highway robbery. For $3 I should get a decent sized piece of pizza and this most certainly was not. But the girl working the concession stand was very sweet, so that was a plus. I guess the new and improved Dominos tastes better than the old Dominos, but when the previous pizza iteration tasted worse than high school cafeteria food, that’s not real hard to do. The ice cream cone was one of those generic store bought deals. Some fresh soft serve would have been preferred. Oh well, I guess this is what I get for branching out and not getting the Zuber Dog like I always do.

DRINKS ORDERED: Dr. Pepper, Blue Gatorade. Our Editor at Speed had an iced tea.

DRINKS GRADE: D. Again – price. The iced tea was sized like a small with aspirations of growing up to be a medium, but it wasn’t large, but the price was large at $2. And I paid more than that for the Gatorade and Dr. Pepper. I understand this is a business and yes, the track needs to make money, but this is too steep for concessions.

CROWD GRADE: B+. I’ve seen bigger crowds for the sprint cars at this track last year, but this was still a very good crowd.

NUMBER OF SPRINT CARS: 21.

WHO WON:

Heat 1: Brandon Grubaugh

Heat 2: Danny Martin Jr.

Heat 3: Robbie Smith.

Feature: Danny Martin Jr.

FSCF.com DRIVER OF THE RACE: Matt Kurtz. Whether it was Tyler Godwin or Danny Martin Jr. leading the race, Matt Kurtz gave them everything they could handle. Each time Matt saw an opening, he shot to the bottom and tried to pull a slider on the leader. Then Robbie Smith tried to pull a slider on Matt for second in the late stages of the race and Matt kept it wound up on the outside going down the backstretch to keep the position. Not once during any of this did Matt get out of shape or doing anything to put his fellow competitors in harm’s way. Matt Kurtz was pure awesomeness out there.

FSCF.COM HARD LUCK AWARD: This one is easy, unfortunately it goes to OTG Tyler Godwin. Tyler jumped out to an early lead in the feature and held off all comers and was holding off eventual winner Danny Martin Jr. until disaster struck while leading and Tyler ended up in the wall with a destroyed race car. Tyler was fast all night and was working the top side of the track perfectly and could have quite possibly made it two-for-two at Bubba Raceway Park this year.

SERIES GRADE: C. I’m only going with a C here because while the car count was good and the racing up front was good, the racing through the rest of the pack was not and series officials need to do something about this, particularly a few drivers that ignored series officials when it came to lining up on the restarts. I’d like to give a big kudos to the series though for taking care of sponsor K&N. I saw officials walking through the pits with K&N product and hats for drivers and also taking pictures of drivers with the hats on. That’s what is needed to get series sponsors and keep them happy, so I give the series a big attaboy in that regard.

TRACK GRADE: B. I had to think long and hard about this one. Saturday’s track wasn’t as bad as I’ve seen lately up at Bubba Raceway Park and truth be told, at the pointy end of the field, the racing was fantastic. Watching Godwin and Martin inches from the wall up in turn one was a thing of beauty. The track was raceable, it was up to the drivers to race it.

OTHER NOTES:

• I’m still on the fence about Bubba Raceway Park. I think it can definitely be the premier race track in Central Florida, I’m just not on board with a lot of the price increases. I’m alright with the increased pit pass price, not so much with the food prices. I also have a single mom friend that would have had to pay $21 for her and her 6 year old son to go sit in the stands. She didn’t go. That’s too much, especially compared to other tracks where kids 10 and under are free. I still love the layout of the track,  and think it’s awesome that they will run wingless sprints, so don’t let my pissing and moaning about the food prices keep you from going.
• There were a ton of modifieds there, and I love me a good modified race. Too bad I didn’t get it. But I give the track props for getting that many good looking modifieds there. In a perfect world for me, a track would have modifieds and sprint cars and that’s it. But if the track can pull that many modifieds, I think that’s a sign of good things to come for the track.
• As I mentioned above, there was some brilliant racing between Danny Martin Jr., Tyler Godwin, Matt Kurtz and Robbie Smith. Watching these gentleman get after it is easily worth the price of admission.
• For the Gene Lasker fans, I’ll sum up Saturday for you. At the start of his heat he got squirrely all over the front stretch, sailed it off into turn one and almost  hit Tim George, then stopped on the back stretch to bring out a caution. I thought, “hmmm…maybe his rear end is broken…” but then after getting push started he ran around the track wide open, restarted at the tail and came through to second. Then in the feature, on the start he got it all wrong down in four and took down the fence and threw his excess parts to the fans. It was an entertaining Saturday night, that’s for sure.
• I could tell you Danny Martin Jr. is the best driver in the state right now, but you probably already knew that. He is so fast and so smooth that it’s just silly. This wasn’t a cake walk though, he had plenty of drivers keep him honest. Don’t think Danny is just running away with all of these races, he’s racing very smart and is on top of his game this year.
• Scotty Adema rolled out his beautiful new Spike chassis to reacquaint himself with dirt once again. Scotty didn’t set the place on fire (EMT/Fireman humor…) but he brought it home in one piece and didn’t do anything crazy out there and is looking to do some testing down at East Bay to work on the setup some.
• Mark Ruel Jr. and Danny Jones both had short nights with Ruel not getting in a green flag lap and retired with front end damage while Jones ended up on his lid down in turn one, he too not getting in a green flag lap.
• Terry Witherspoon appeared to clip one of the tires on the inside of the turns, triggering his big end-over-end series of flips that caused a ton of damage to his new Shnee that we’re all so intrigued with. One popular theory on his new Schnee is now Terry will just have to clip the front off at the bend and put a new one on and go racing once again. We also don’t think Terry will be sending Tyler Godwin a Christmas card this year as Tyler wheeled him in the heat race on the last lap for third place.
• Steven Darvalics deserves a shoutout for another fine run in the greater Ocala area. When Steven shows up, he’s fast and rarely puts a wheel wrong. Saturday night was no exception and he came home fifth.
• Jimmy Ballew picked up a top ten and loaded up a damage-free racecar. Jimmy recently purchased a new chassis that is up in Ohio waiting for him to go pick it up when work allows.
• Our Factory Driver Flyin’ Ryan Partin had a rough night. As Gene Lasker went sailing into the fence, he and Tim George slowed down, Darren Orth did not and Ryan suffered damage to both his top and front wing. Once we post Ryan’s in-car video, you’ll see what we’re talking about.
• AJ Maddox did a nice job of staying out of trouble and bringing home a fine fourth place finish.
• I say it every time, but Joe Linebarier is the best track announcer on the stick in the state, bar none. No one calls a race better and no one keeps the fans better informed.
• The #99 made for a nice show car in the pits I suppose.

RACE REPORTER: Todd Michaels

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