Archive for Mickey Kempgens
Jun
17
This weekend’s sprint car races – everything, everywhere!
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This weekend is indeed a great weekend to be a fan of sprint car racing in Florida. No matter the size of car or your surface of choice, you’re covered.
First up, let’s talk IPSCA at Citrus County Speedway for the simple fact that you need to listen to this radio spot that’s been running on the local country station up in those parts.
Now there might not be much we’re good at around here, recording podcasts in anything approaching a professional manner for starters, but if there’s one thing we’re good at it’s giving drivers nicknames.
We though it was cool when we heard Troy DeCaire referred to as “Travelin’ Troy DeCaire” up in Indiana last year, since we coined that gem, but Mickey Kempgens being referred to as “The Smooth Operator” on a radio spot, well, that takes the cake.
We can only hope that when His Holiness Dave Steele is standing in victory lane up at Milwaukee this weekend (that’s right, Steele is back in USAC action!) during the USAC goings on, that they will refer to him by his proper nickname.
But alas, we digress!
Back to Citrus County, the pavement wingless sprint car traveling circus known as IPSCA is back in action. As we’ve mentioned before, every man, woman and child that enjoys pavement sprint car racing needs to motivate themselves to the track and pack the stands and show that pavement sprint cars put butts in seats. It happened last time out and we hear a very positive announcement is coming at Citrus County Speedway regarding next year, but this should be a barn burner of a race. Last time winner and recent returnee from Indiana Collin Cabre will be back to try and go two-for-two, and the star of the above radio clip “The Smooth Operator” Mickey Kempgens wants another IPSCA win as well. Throw in Butler Motorsports entries for 2010 TBARA champ “The Bushnell Bullet” Shane Butler and his father Stan Butler amongst the other wingless entries we’ve come accustomed to – Tommy Nichols, Shane Miller, the Alvis family, Skeeter Faulconer, Frankie Hurst, Ray Bragg II, Darrin Miller, “Slick” Rick Voisey, Trent Bos, Mike Koss, Jason Bradford, etc. and we’re hearing that Channing Conley is a maybe, Larry Brazil Jr. will be in a Mac Steele entry and Wendy Mathis is working on bringing out the #80 that your website staff used to crew in the TBARA.
Then there’s the Jack Miller Memorial sprint car race going down at Volusia Speedway Park this weekend. There’s lots of reasons you should go to this and top on the list is honoring Jack’s memory. Jack Miller did a lot for sprint car racing and was an all around great guy. This is the first time for this race and if you like sprint car racing on dirt, you should be there to help make sure this becomes an annual event. Our own Factory Driver “Flyin’” Ryan Partin has recovered from his injuries last time out at VSP and wants this one bad as does Mark Ruel Jr. who has been running extremely well this year. We also hear Sport Allen wants this one in a bad way. But of course, everyone is gunning for the big dog on the porch – Danny “The Hammer” Martin Jr. But as we saw last time out at VSP, people can run The Hammer down AND rumor has it there may be some out of state invaders towing in to win the Jack Miller Memorial. We even hear a Florida driver that’s been up in Pennsylvania may run as well…we’ll see…
And there’s going to be some sprint car match racing…you damn well should be there if you like some dirt in your beer. Do it – honor Jack Miller.
But hey, you live up in the northern part of the state and like dirt. That’s cool. Set your GPS for North Florida Speedway and take in some FMSA action. David Pleaugh and Chris Pacetti have been going at it hammer and tong for points supremacy with Pleaugh having the upper hand as of late. The FMSA always puts on a good show at NFS, so check it out if you’re in the region.
But you’re saying to yourself, “that’s great, but I live down south and like small cars on pavement…” while standing in line at ABC with a 12 pack of Genesee Cream Ale under your arm. That’s cool, Punta Gorda Speedway and the FMARA has got you covered. The big question of course is can Mike Belusar be stopped? Truck on over by the Punta Gorda Airport and find out.
Of course when one speaks of inaugural memorial events, one must speak of the first Parade of Champions, held in 1984 shortly after the passing of David Von Erich, he the first of many Von Erichs not to live long, fruitful lives.
The lowlight of this card was of course this match…
A backslide, the one thing even Kerry Von Erich couldn’t screw up, to paraphrase Ric Flair…
Oct
25
CFWS Race Report – 10.23.10
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This one is very long, with lots of pictures, so get comfortable…
Date: October 23, 2010
Series: Central Florida Wingless Sprints (soon to be USAC Southeast Sprints)
Track: Citrus County Speedway
Admission: $25 for a pit pass, $13 for grandstands, which is still the best deal going.
# of Sprint Cars: 18
Who Won: Mickey Kempgens won Heat #1 and Brian Gingras won Heat #2 and the feature.
Crowd Grade: B+. Not as packed as the last sprint car show I saw at Citrus County, but still a very good sized crowd. They damn sure got their money’s worth, that much I can tell you.
Track Grade: A+. From the admission price to the early start time, to the food, to the super friendly staff, to the no BS race directors, to the early finish time, this is simply my favorite race track to go to for a sprint car race. Just upgrade that website of yours.
Food Ordered: Cheeseburger, coke.
Food Grade: B+. I really wanted the Sausage Hoagie or even the Meatball Hoagie, simply because they were indeed using the term Hoagie, which where I grew up, that’s what you called a sub sandwich. But sadly they were all out by the time I got to the concession stand, which as always was my own fault because I was too busy gathering up notes for this report you are reading. But it was a really good cheeseburger I must say. Probably one of those Bubba Burgers, but those are pretty tasty when cooked right.
Series Grade: A. If two more cars would have showed I could have given them an A+, but the 18 that were there were solid and I would dare say the best top-to-bottom field of cars I’ve seen this year with the CFWS. The other nice thing was that everybody was told they needed to race, no pulling off, and everybody did. The only DNF was Michael Jenkins, who had mechanical issues. There was a DQ, but we’ll touch on that one a bit further down in this report.
FSCF.com Driver of the Race: No contest – “The Commando” Brian Gingras. He swept the night, but the feature race was truly a classic. Gingras spun to bring out the second yellow, along with Tommy Nichols, and had to go to the back on the restart. Gingras came all the way through the field (one yellow helped during this time) and when Troy DeCaire had over three seconds on second place, Gingras ran him down. How many people can say they’ve done that this year? Then after a late race caution Gingras got inside DeCaire for the lead and never looked back. Gingras was like a sprint car Pac Man out there gobbling up other cars like they were little yellow dots. Whatever he did to those Bilsteins on his car sure did work.
Other Notes:
- Let’s get “The Incident” out of the way, since it was all everyone was talking about. Wendy Mathis was in the Nick Manikis #8 for the evening. Early on in the feature Wendy spun coming to the green to bring out the third yellow. After getting push-started, Wendy then pulled back into line to try and get her spot back and the other two cars (Shane Miller and Matthew Hall) wouldn’t give it to her. So this went on for a few laps until officials pointed Wendy to go to the rear. She didn’t. This repeated again. Then the flagman pointed the black flag at her to go to the rear. She didn’t. This repeated again. Then the black flag came out for her (after she eventually dropped to the back) in earnest and they pointed her to pull off the track. She didn’t. This repeated again. Then the two tow trucks fired up and went after her to box her in on the front stretch. They did. She killed the motor and she was towed off the track. The boos from the crowd for her ignoring the black flag turned to cheers as she was towed off the track. In all of my years of going to sprint car races, I have never seen anything like this. To all of you younger sprint car drivers out there, this is not how to conduct yourself. You don’t disobey the race director or ignore black flags. In the name of complete journalistic disclosure, I am a former crew member of hers, so I found this all to be very disappointing.
- I’d like to give an atta-boy to Shane Miller who was out there gassing it all night in the #78. Shane led his heat race for a spell and then in the feature he went three wide for the lead at the drop of the green flag. He spun, but nonetheless that was a bold move. Shane looked good out there and hopefully we’ll see him run the whole CFWS/USAC series next year.
- Shane’s teammate for the evening Tommy Nichols was also a welcome return. Tommy has been plagued with a back injury that has sidelined him most of the season, but he looked healthy and like he’s been hitting the gym and was fast all night. A few spins down on the bottom groove kept Tommy from the sharp end of the grid. It was good to see Tommy back out on the track again.
- Terry DeCaire rolled out two cars for the night – one for Mickey Kempgens and one for Matthew Hall. I didn’t think it was possible to make the #41 look any better (it’s always been one of my favorite looking cars) but it looks even better with our decal on it…
- This was the first time I’ve met Matt and a nicer guy you will not meet, same with his wife Sarah. Matt grew up in Indiana so this was a new track, new car and a whole new set of drivers, so he was just gathering up some seat time to get acclimated for next year.
- Speaking of Mickey Kempgens, he is your 2010 CFWS Champion! “The Smooth Operator” has had a breakout year and picked up his first major championship of any kind. Mickey ran hard all night in the DeCaire Motorsports #41 and will make a great champion for the series.
- “Double G” Gary Gimmler was in the house and hung out at the front end of the grid all night until drifting back a little at the end of the feature. Gary’s crew are a great bunch of guys and we hope they’ll hit the CFWS/USAC trail next year. The #29 is a beautiful piece of machinery.
- That Gingras spin on lap two? It wasn’t because of contact from Gary Gimmler (they never touched) but from Brian’s arm restraint getting stuck while he was turning.
- Michael Jenkins had a rough night, with throttle linkage issues keeping him from running both the heat and the feature. Hopefully they can get it squared away so we can see that Competition Welding chassis out there running.
- Skeeter Faulconer brought a car for himself and one for Frankie Hurst and they ran all night. Skeeter is a good guy and some day I’d like to see Frankie on sticker tires with a big buck motor under the hood to see what he could do.
- Troy DeCaire was strong (as usual) all night, but the car got loose on him as the feature wore on and he couldn’t get it to rotate off the center well enough to get back after Gingras after the pass for the lead. Look for Troy out on the USAC Silver Crown trail for 2011.
- One of these days Dennis Misuraca will get that left front wheel planted, he assures us. He also had some inexplicable tire growth in the feature. We might want to organize an exorcism to chase away the demons in that car. In addition to stealing my glasses, his daughter Logan also drew a picture of the track and showed her dad where he was getting loose and the tire was coming up. Not bad for a crew chief in sixth grade.
- Dakotah Stephens was back in action, with big slides coming out of turn two. I also got to talk to Dakotah’s dad for a brief spell while I was getting up to speed on the USAC outlook for next year.
- “Slick” Ric Voisey’s car was also spotted with one of our decals. I’m still hoping one of these days he’ll stroll up to the driver’s meeting and break out with, “whether you like it, or don’t like it, learn to love it, because it’s the best thing going today…WHOO!”
- Of course the biggest news of the night was that Colin Cabre’s dad was one of the three Doink the Clowns, the other two of course being Steve Keirn and Matt Bourne. More to come later in the week…
- Overall, optimism was very high in the pits with the USAC announcement. It would appear there really won’t be any rule changes, the engine and car rules should stay the same, we’ll just see way more races and tracks for 2011. If they can bring 20-25 solid cars at tracks all over the state, that will be pretty awesome.
Race Reporter: Todd Michaels
First up is the photo gallery courtesy of Gary “Walk Quietly But Carry A Big” Johnson.
Oct
24
Commando convincingly conquers Citrus County! Crowd cheers!
Posted by: | CommentsIt was a great night of racing at Citrus County (save one bizarre incident we’ll talk about in the race report) for the new USAC gang of sprinters and until we get some time to digest and put up a full blown race report, here are a few pictures, with captions to give you some insight.
"The Commando" Brian Gingras was simply a rocket out there. Not many people can say they've ran down Troy DeCaire this year, but Brian did and took home a very popular win. Note the Dave Steele shirt on Brian's good luck charm there.
Mickey Kempgens is your 2010 CFWS Champion. He didn't have a trophy yet but declared this trophy to the left to be better than any piece of plastic and metal he may receive later. We would tend to agree. Congrats Mickey!
Troy DeCaire led the most laps but got passed on a late restart and finished a hard fought second. Judging by all of the Troy t-shirts we saw, Citrus County appears to be DeCaire Country.
I'll explain more later in the week, but that's your webmaster with one of the Doink The Clowns! You have no idea how excited I was to pose for this picture, seriously.
Dennis Misuraca and his Crew Chief/Daughter Logan.
Who then promptly stole my glasses later in the evening. She did take that picture of me and Doink The Clown though, so I was willing to let the glasses thing slide...
More to come later, but thanks to all involved for another great night of racing at Citrus County Speedway!
My seventh grade English teacher Mrs. Hain would be so proud of me and my use of alliteration in that headline…