April 8, 2009 Speedway, Indiana: Winter was supposed to be over. I thought my timing was better. No small coincidence how two months in (by day) warm weather returned to flowers in bloom, before they froze and died below snow.
Present plans call for greeting USAC sprint cars at Eldora Speedway on April 10-11. Throughout my decades as a sprint car gypsy, the end of March/beginning of April annually signals an Eldora opener. Of course, if there is wintry weather in Ohio, the radius will tighten to either opener at Bloomington or Gas City. Just writing that makes me grin. It’s good to be home.
Sunday’s crossing of the Wabash River represented my first time in Indiana in eight weeks. Mine was another adventure of indelible images from the Speedway stoop to Louisville, Kentucky; Nashville, Tennessee; Muscle Shoals, Alabama; Philadelphia, Mississippi; New Orleans, Louisiana; Cowtown, Texas; Socorro, New Mexico; Manzanita, Arizona; Las Vegas, Nevada; Chico, California; Tucson, Arizona; Las Cruces, New Mexico; ASCS over Texas; Edmond, Oklahoma; Fort Scott, Kansas; WOW of Missouri; Pocahontas, Illinois and ultimately, Speedway USA.
The primal attraction to explore the unexplored has been breaking marriage vows since the dawn of time. I was not coming home without a few new beaver pelts on my belt. Two of the rascals got away in Crandall and Waco, but the Gator Motorplex in Willis, Texas and L A Raceway in La Monte, Missouri bumped my number of speedways to 469.
Sentimentality would have followed the World of Outlaws from Tulare to the final winged event on the Manzanita half. Wings on half-miles however, are seldom scintillating, which Manzy has scarcely disproven. Rather than choke on the tire smoke of a funeral, I chose to rest on memories of Lealand’s lunge into three, Yeley’s way with one, Sherman’s surge out of turn two, cold beer, hot tacos, tailgating against the building, my family.
I skirted Phoenix to hole up in Van Horn, Texas for two days writing the last column. Van Horn has Chuy Uranga’s restaurant made semi-famous by John Madden of Pleasanton, California. Madden played football in San Luis Obispo and Philadelphia before winning the 1977 Super Bowl as head coach of the Oakland Raiders. John likes Chuy’s chicken picado. Make mine machaca.
Not for nothing, but I’d like to be the John Madden of motorsports, where I simply step into my luxury bus, inform the driver of our destination, and then go sleep, screw, shower, snack, smoke, scribble or scratch. That would be travelin’ right.
Upon dishing the Van Horn column to DMI, I began the arduous task of driving across West Texas, some of North America’s least interesting terrain. Iraan was the Pecos River home of England Dan Seals, a member of the morning obituaries. Seals and John Ford Coley sang “I’d Really Love to See You Tonight” in 1976, one of the finest summers of my youth.
Ozona, Texas has a monument to Davy Crockett, born in Tennessee (1786) to die at The Alamo in San Antonio in 1836. Ozona is home to Tom Mitchell, owner of the Circle Bar Truck Corral that helped Chet Fillip into the Indy 500 and fields NASCAR trucks for Rick Crawford and young James Buescher.
Fillip is a West Texas success story. Born in San Angelo in 1957, Chet raced a rear-engine supermodified all the way to Star, New Hampshire. Fillip flogged Cosworths into the 1982-83 Indy 500. He switched to NASCAR and made the ’87 Daytona 500 with brother Corey, proprietor of Advanced Racing Suspensions on Gasoline Alley, where they built an ugly sprint car that won eight times in five USAC seasons. Chet drove Dick Fuller’s sprint car to a $20,000 victory at the Little 500 of 1999. Once the boy toy of soap starlet Morgan Fairchild, Fillip became the only champion of PRA at age 50. He will drive a factory Mercedes in Madagascar and in his spare moments, Chet teaches violin with a Texas swing.
A grueling 456 miles into Texas on I-10 is Junction, where Bear Bryant drove Texas A&M football recruits into the ground in 1954. Only ten of 100 made the team. One was Jack Pardee, later a linebacker for the Los Angeles Rams and coach of the Houston Oilers. “Junction Boys” became an ESPN movie in 2002 starring Tom Berenger as The Bear.
On the road (290) to Austin is Luckenbach, Texas, which became part of the “outlaw country” landscape when Jerry Jeff Walker recorded Viva Terlingua there in 1973. Four years later, Luckenbach became the title of a song by two native Texans, Willie Nelson of Abbott and Waylon Jennings from Littlefield.
Navasota, Texas on 105 was home to a quarter-mile dirt track called Moody-Clary Speedway. USAC midgets were part of its first season of 1969 when Denver’s Dave Strickland (Shannon 22) was the winner. When they returned in 1970, Merle Bettenhausen (Lockard 69) finished first.
Midget memories were conjured by Lake Conroe, home to two generations of Ron Hughes, two men who gave their lives to a very specific form of motorsport. It is a special racer who continues without the use of his legs. Ron Hughes Jr. had to be the greatest to ever thumb a throttle. I watched him win at Belle-Clair in 1989, climbing from midget to wheelchair for an interview. It is also a special racer who fields the midget in which his own son dies (Devils Bowl 1990) yet continues dragging midgets to Chili Bowl, Belleville Nationals, or Savannah, Missouri where Hughes and Kevin Olson beat MARA in 1992. At the end of ’97, Ron summoned John Heydenreich for a West Texas win on the Odessa oval called Permian Basin.
North of Conroe in Willis is the Gator Motorplex that opened in 1998. All three SSMA midget races at Gator have gone to Aaron Kirk in the Hughes 45. During last month’s SMRS midget meet in Fort Worth, I asked Bryon Harvey which SSMA stop should be seen before all others. “Gator,” answered my friend Harvey.
The first rig glimpsed at Gator housed ASCS sprints for Trey Robb and Jerry Bell, meaning Jimmy Jones was in the house. I steered to the front for a gander at Gator and nearly got stuck in the mud. Much rain had fallen in 24 hours. No one was taking tickets yet. The promoter bulldozer around turns three and four so fans could open lawn chairs. Gator is a bring your own seat, bring your own beverage kind of Texas juke joint. I blindsided Jones, asking if he must smoke to unload Robb’s racer and winch down another (without wheels) for Bell, money man of the operation.
Like me, Perry Robb III (aka Trey) sought a substitute for the frozen weekend in Oklahoma City, which cancelled before some departed Dallas. Jason Johnson, Travis Rilat, Eric Baldaccini and Kathryne Minter are all based in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and dialed down ASCS from national to regional.
ASCS Gulf South began Gator’s fifth season of sprint racing. ASCS faces the same problem as most open wheel touring divisions: sharing space with acres and acres of junk. ASCS heats are generally followed by hours of stock cars. After the California utopia of the premier class being the only class, Gator was a painful bite of five-division reality.
My pitch for press credentials seemed rare in these parts. No radios meant no verdict. I told ‘em to chew it over while I chewed some dinner. Super Burger was worthy of Discovery Channel hype. Bouncing back to Gator got the same blank stare (promoter still clearing brush) so I took refuge in Molly’s Pub and her wonderful wall of taps. Wireless internet enabled me to update Friday race results over a Shiner Black, best of that Texas brewery. Should have returned to the raceway sooner but I am a sucker for a good jukebox. Staying to hear all my songs cost me all five ASCS heats.
One last chance for the girl at Gator’s gate, who was being shepherded away when I asked about a press pass for a third time. She still knew nothing, suggesting that I follow the cop to the promoter. I had a better idea. Why don’t I wait for you to drive away so I can drive in? I parked among “these East Texas pines” (McMurtry) and took in two B-mains and an A. ASCS will run three or four B-mains before a single C. Gator pulled 37 cars.
Having no wristband relegated me infield or in some of the smallest backstretch bleachers ever braced. Gator was said to suffer from the same lack of moisture as most U.S dirt. Cold damp openers often alter that equation. ASCS heats saw Gator peel a bit, causing management to overreact and flash the blade. I climbed the bulldozer inside turn two for two last chance races.
Gator ASCS winner in 2006 and 2008, Chris Sweeney won the first B. Beaumont’s Gary Watson secured the last transfer 20 years after making the World of Outlaws A-main in Houston’s Big H Speedway. Darryl Wills was two spots out aboard the 2004 Avenger he won in the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame raffle. Behind him was Kathryne Minter, who clipped a tractor tire in her heat and damage repaired by R.J Johnson, the Florida native who ran Knoxville last year. R.J is the son of Roland Johnson, an 18-time East Bay winner between 1985 and 2000.
Who better to tame a Gator than a Cajun? Native of Eunice, Louisiana, Jason Johnson now resides in Dallas-Fort Worth near his money maker. He is the busiest sprint racer on the planet, competing internationally in 74 of 76 months since 2003. Jason is able to stay doubly active with a Wesmar Eagle to match the one that made $50,000 national ASCS champions of Johnson and Lanny Row in 2008. Jason and Lanny opened their title defense by banking $6000 from the Devil’s Bowl. As soon as OKC was DOA, Johnson and crew chief Craig Stevens arranged for Marvin Pearson’s car to be in Willis, where it spun the rear end assembly.
From the back of a B, Jason advanced cautiously until only leader Scottie McDonald remained. After winning the B, Johnson did not open the A-main with any huge burst and in fact, spun in turn three. Saturday seemed to someone else’s night.
For 21 laps, someone else was Aaron Reutzel, an 18-year old February face of Cowtown 600cc sanctioned by ASCS2. Aaron won his heat for the front row, riding the brake around the bottom until his rotor was so hot it threatened to melt the tail. The red flag for Matt Clevenger (second until flipping over Brandon Corn) cooled the leader’s brakes but also brought Travis Rilat in range. Native to suburban Houston now living in suburban Dallas, Travis started his Shark XXX in row seven and like Johnson, was no early threat. After a long delay (one wrecker for a two-car wreck), Rilat rattled Reutzel for the lead.
That seemed to be the shootin; match until The Cajun began ragin’ around the rim. Since virtually everyone in front of Jason Johnson was low to middle, he blasted the top of Gator’s tall banks. Even the chutes have rake and Jason went all the way to the wall in one and two, tempted the trench through the middle of three and four, and surprised Rilat on the final corner for the 122nd win of Johnson’s career. Jason did a reverse victory lap.
Reutzel ran third. Ray Allen Kulhanek rode the rim from row seven to fourth followed by heat winner Channin Tankersley, son of the Rickey Lee Tankersley who made six starts in Houston with the World of Outlaws in 1988-91. Trey Robb retreated from third to sixth ahead of Eric Baldaccini, bagging the last transfer from the B-main and seventh in the A-main. Back to Molly’s.
Monday brought a decision. Finances were weak. They could stand another few days in Texas so long as the U.S Mail made them well by Wednesday midnight for James McMurtry’s weekly appearance at the Continental Club in Austin.
While waiting on the pony express, I pondered a tour of some of Houston’s long gone pillars to midget history; the places that created the most accomplished auto racer man has ever seen, Anthony Joseph Foyt Jr. Several were on South Main. There was the (9300) South Main Speedrome, a half-mile dirt track cut in half in 1946-47; Playland Park at 920 South Main, a quarter-mile dirt track in an amusement park from ’48 to ’56 (A.J began there) and paved when it closed in 1960; and Arrowhead at South Main Street and Old Spanish Trail, where an 18-year old Foyt won his first trophy dash on July 11, 1953.
Joseph F. Meyer Stadium on South Main and Hillcroft in Houston was a paved half-mile that had as its second winner ever, A.J Foyt and A.J Watson on October 11, 1959. USAC midgets at Meyer were beaten by Gene Force (Shannon 22), Dale Swaim (’60) and Arlington’s Jim McElreath in 1962. USAC sprints opened 1960 at Meyer defeated by Don Branson’s Offenhauser, returning to end the season behind the Fike Chevrolet of Parnelli Jones. J.F Meyer closed in 1979.
USAC midget wins by Dave Steele (2006) and Bobby East (2009) in Rusk, Texas marked the first Austin appearance by the Indianapolis organization since Longhorn Speedway waved checkereds over Bob Tattersall (1960) and Chuck Rodee in 1962.
I had no business on Galveston Island and had to punt like Shane Lechler of Texas A&M. I headed north through Klein, home to Lyle Lovett, the Texas A&M journalist who led Lyle Lovett & His Large Band, married Julia Roberts and had his leg broken by a bull. The last accident kept Lyle off of his beloved Ducati motorcycles. Lovett rides through the Hill Country, where he was told Germans settled because it looked like Germany. Texas A&M (Agricultural & Mechanical) in College Station is where stuttering Lester Hayes of Houston was drafted into the NFL in 1977. As a Raider, he earned two Super Bowl rings.
College Station established the World Closed Course Speed Record at Texas World Speedway in 1973 when Mario Andretti achieved 214mph in the turbocharged Offenhauser of Parnelli Jones. Texas had long been a haven for extreme speed. In 1963, Foyt and his trusty Trevis Offy turned the first 200mph lap on the five-mile Goodyear test track in San Angelo. South of there in Fort Stockton is where Chicago’s Fred Lorenzen lapped a 7.7-mile Firestone facility at 170mph with a ’64 Ford. Just this winter, the new NASCAR ban on testing brought Jack Roush Fords to Texas World. Washington’s Greg Biffle reached 218mph.
I exited I-35 to look into the Heart O’Texas, where ASCS Gulf South sprints would race four days later. The quarter-mile is Waco’s second Heart O’Texas Speedway, opening in ‘66 to replace the one closed in 1965. Heart O’Texas hosted SWIMS midgets mastered by Johnny Parsons (’82), Kevin Doty (‘84), Gene Gennetten (’84) and Arizona’s Mark Passerrelli in 1985. MARA sanctioned the last Waco midget race won by Steve Knepper in 1988.
Richard Summers was a Texas racer who wheeled a sprint car against anyone. He won the only recorded Waco sprint race prior to the 1999 invasion of IMCA claimers. Richard ran the 1985 Gambler of Bob Wagner and James Helms, later to back Steve Perry and Shane Carson. Summers and Helms won at Beaumont, Big H, Devil's Bowl and Texarkana; ran sixth when CRA came into The Bowl, eighth in the only USAC visit to Devil’s Bowl, eighth with the WoO at Big H, and tenth in USAC/CRA at Manzy.
The 2004 season was when Heart O’Texas held its first Gordon Woolley Classic. ASCS winners in Waco are Claud Estes, Jason Johnson (Pearson 11), Brandon Berryman, Ryan Hall (Woolley Classic 2008), Greg Rilat and four times by Kevin Ramey. Texas 305s touched Heart O’Texas in 2006 when Shane Carson became a Waco winner. The first ASCS event of 2009 (higher banking) saw Ramey reach for a fifth win from row six, passing everyone except veteran Skip Wilson in an Avenger from El Paso.
Gordon Woolley incidentally, is very much alive. Born in 1922, Woolley won 17 straight stock car races in Waco’s Suicide Bowl before seeing USAC sprint cars at Meyer Stadium in ’59. From that day on, sprint cars ruled Gordon’s world. He beat IMCA at Meyer (’61) and ran a roadster T-bucket second in the second Knoxville Nationals of 1962. A long tall Texan of 6’3” in black boots, red suit and yellow helmet, Woolley was possibly the first “outlaw” to travel with little more than a helmet bag. He won the 1963 IMCA championship with three cars, taking Tampa in Chet Wilson’s Offy Killer, teaming with Don Shepherd to land LaCrosse and Eldon before leaving Shepherd for Sid Weinberger, who had lost Johnny White to a wheelchair. Woolley and Weinberger won seven times in two months. Gordon got Hector Honore and Pop Miller to victory lane in 1965. He ran his last sprint at Devil’s Bowl in 1972 yet continued in stock cars, becoming an ‘82 Heart O’Texas champ at age 60.
I entered the metroplex on 287 and exited I-35 through Dealey Plaza to Deep Ellum for coffee and internet. This area is akin to Sixth Street in Austin, Beale Street in Memphis or Bourbon Street in New Orleans as places where people can walk to several choices of live music. According to my barista, Deep Ellum is in Deep Trouble from forces economic and political. If the Club Dada ever becomes a batch of condominiums, it would only continue the theme of tragedy that will forever be downtown Dallas.
A cup of Sumatra helped mulling my options. Waco was out. The 305 sprints that I intended to see last Friday were rescheduled in Crandall, but I opted for the original objective of WOW 360 sprints in LaMonte, Missouri. It was cold and raining in Denton, Texas, where I took a TA truck stop shower. They cost ten dollars now. It seems like only yesterday they were five bucks, an easy choice over a $30 motel. Now that the gap has narrowed, it makes more sense to rent a room.
Oklahoma City is where Scott Chilcutt and Lonnie Wheatley would depart for the final race at Manzanita. Scott and Shane Stewart were World of Outlaws winners in Louisiana in 2004. Chad Kemenah helped Jon Kantor match Chilcutt as a WoO winner from Oklahoma, where I arrived as Jon pulled the plug. I camped in OKC for three days, sampling pork chops and trout from Chilcutt’s culinary library and Hobby’s Hoagies by day.
My years in the Sooner State escaped on every conceivable road. This flight exited Edmond east on 66 to Stroud north on 99 past Hallett road course across the Arkansas River through the Osage Indian Reservation to Caney Valley, Kansas.
Fifteen summers have passed since Gordy Killian and I raised Caney to see Terry Gray (Brown 61a) open the first ASCS Speedweek by holding off 16-year old Lance Blevins in an ex-Hamilton 77. Lealand McSpadden was in that 1993 ASCS field as was John Hunt, a 100-inch MAPS winner at Caney with Dean Bayouth (’92) and Aaron Lemmons in 1993. Nebraska’s Mike Chadd won a Caney NCRA 360 show in 1993. Caney conducted one SMRS midget weekend in 2004 taken by Joe Boyles and Arizona’s Steve Sussex. Caney’s only regional ASCS A-main went to Wayne Johnson (Harvill 44) in 2004 also. Oklahoma’s two-barrel 360 sprint cars visited Caney for cards won by Mike Goodman (’94, 99), Sean and Brian’s dad Mike McClelland (’95), Kenneth Walker (2000) and the track’s most recent sprint race, an OCRS affair won by Jamie Passmore in 2007. Caney will welcome back OCRS on June 20 and SMRS on September 19.
I cut Kansas for Independence on 75 to 400 to Pittsburg up the east edge of the Jayhawk State on 69 to Fort Scott into Missouri on 54 past Lucas Oil Speedway in Wheatland over Lake of the Ozarks on 83 around Warsaw, home of Rocket Hockett. L A Raceway would be my sixth speedway in common with Jesse in 2009 after Chili Bowl, Manzanita, Vegas, Perris and Chico. Cold weather kept us apart in Oklahoma City and kept him away from Jacksonville, Illinois. Faced with a Friday without a helmet, Jesse did what folks do around Bass Pro Shops. They go fishin!
Last year’s return to the Missouri State Fairgrounds in Sedalia recalled an American Inn on 65 for $35. Stowing saddlebags, I hunted provisions and found Patricia’s Mexican Restaurant. “Happy hour ‘til close” its sign said. The bartender was kin to Bill Utz, the local blacksmith who forged three IMCA sprint crowns and four Missouri Futurity wins on his hometown mile. Morning brought me downtown for coffee at the Hotel Bothwell built in 1927. It was in the Bothwell where Harry Truman announced his U.S Senate candidacy in 1934.
How many racers roamed these marble hallways to shower away state fairground soot? For at least 40 men, the road to the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame stopped in Sedalia’s win circle. They are Mario Andretti, Buzz Barton, Jerry Blundy, Shane Carson, Jack Elam, Rick Ferkel, Pete Folse, Earl Gaerte, Ray Lee Goodwin, Bobby Grim, Jack Hewitt, Bill Holland, Hector Honore, Doug Howells, Grant King, Karl Kinser, Steve Kinser, Jud Larson, Harold Leep, Eddie Leavitt, Frankie Luptow, Jim McElreath, Laverne Nance, Fred Offenhauser, Jan Opperman, Jerry Richert, Ron Shuman, Bob Slater, Bill Smith, Dick Sutcliffe, Sammy Swindell, Bob Trostle, Bobby Unser, Earl Wagner, Greg Weld, Dizz Wilson, Doug Wolfgang, Ken Woodruff, Jay Woodside and Gordon Woolley.
In the lobby of the Hotel Bothwell was a guy in a Jesse Hockett 77 T-shirt. Later at L A, a quarter of the crowd seemed to sport at least one piece of Rocket science.
Saturday silence was shattered by a street-legal sprint car, a Schnee that won Linn County Speedway titles for Denny Moore and son Mitchell of Edgerton, Kansas. It lured me to a classic car show complete with contemporary sprints of Randy Martin, Josh Fisher and Jesse Hockett, who dragged two cars 45 miles. Hockett had the ex-Brad Sweet JEI obtained from Kasey Kahne, the Tom Buch JEI that took $13,000 from East Bay, T-shirts, hero cards (listing his engagement to Tina Marie) and Tootsie rolls. And because he is The Rocket, Hockett also had a 305 to drive.
The United Rebel (305) Sprint Series sent 11 of its top 41 in 2008 Eastern points from Kansas to support 21 of the larger wings. URSS Rebels were Reed Bernbeck, Darren Bowman, Dennis Fair, Smokey Fairbank, Keefe Hemel, Craig Jecha, C.J Johnson, Corey Lutters, Ken Lutters, Willie Wynn and Eastern champ Cody Salem of St. Joseph, Missouri.
The URSS champ is the son of its founder Rick Salem, who won sprint and midget races at Colorado National and Rocky Mountain, recorded RMMRA midget wins in McCook, Nebraska and Colby, Kansas; ran the 1985 Ted Horn 100 for Frank Marcello, Western World, Knoxville Nationals, produced a Port Royal win in 1987; and made WoO A-mains at Colorado for Sid Blandford (’87) and Albuquerque with Shawkeet Hindi in 1990.
The Salems spent Saturday in LaMonte, which is 75 miles southeast of Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City. L A Raceway is a fenceless third-mile of gentle banking that opened in 2003. As a special attraction those first two seasons, LaMonte booked SMRS midgets beaten by Joe Boyles and Rik Forbes. In 2005 and successive years, midgets were replaced by WOW sprint cars conquered by Hockett, Brian Brown, Bryan Grimes, Josh Fisher and “The Dude from Dover” Danny Lasoski.
Like last week, I made my pitch for press credentials. Unlike last week, there was resistance over indifference. Carolyn White complained how she had “been bombarded by requests from internet websites” and decided to deny them all. Ah the progressive mindset of Middle America. The reason for the crush is because the internet is the media in 2009. I wondered if Carolyn noticed all the dying newspapers.
Like last week, gate guardians did not play ball. Unlike last week, Plan-B was less bold than driving right in. It involved walking to the window anyway to say that I had contacted Carolyn regarding credentials, omitting the part where she said, “No!” After a few confused minutes, I had a yellow wristband.
Saturday suffered for our craft. Sun and wind overpowered what little water promoter Mike White laid down. Soon as tires touched clay, the surface was gone. I told Hockett we should have been 500 miles away in North Vernon, though it may have been every bit as dusty. I spent much of the spin-plagued heat races reading three-volume biography of Smokey Yunick on loan from Leslie Goodhue, who bought it for her late brother.
URSS raced first. Zach Clark led Lone Jack’s Casey Baker and C.J Johnson, son of “Kansas Tornado” Jon Johnson. Dodge City’s Keefe Hemel had a big move negated by caution lamp. C.J challenged Clark for command into turn three, where they took opposite sides of a slow car. Zach zipped through on the bottom; Johnson spun in the dust.
Grandview granddad Ken Potter, a Knoxville regular before wings arrived in 1982, was out of the Top Five yet on the restart, Potter locked into the middle for the win. Cody Salem, Gavin Galbraith, Hemel and Chris Coleman was the Top Five prior to Potter, Galbriath and Clark declining inspection to make Salem, Hemel and Coleman 1-2-3. C.J Johnson journeyed back to seventh, which became fourth over Mitchell Moore, Fairbank and Bill’s grandson Tyler Utz.
Falling short of the URSS A-main was Kansas City’s Jerry Potter, who won his only Knoxville feature for Gil Sonner in 1979, the year of his only Nationals final. Joe Booth Towing (sponsor of the infamous Gary Balough 112 modified built by Kenny Weld of KC) placed Potter in USAC for Hulman Classic, Indy Mile, Santa Fe and the first Knoxville champ car race in 1981.
Winged Outlaw Warriors get elbows up when Brian Brown visits. In eight seasons of WOW, Brown has 23 wins in 44 A-mains. He started outside row two and led LaMonte immediately. Nixa’s Kyle Bellm started second and stayed there, actually pressing Brown a bit. Bellm had never been second with WOW.
Randy Martin is the godfather of WOW. At age 48, Randy rolled into the opener as top winner (37) and champion of the last four seasons. As all Missouri Tigers are encouraged, he took his shot at Knoxville, winning 360 titles in ’96 and 2001 while dabbling in 410s. Winner of the final sprint race on the Missouri mile in 1994, Martin passed Rusty Potter for third on lap seven at L A. Potter and Dustin Barks banged together in two just as Bellm slid over the hill in turn four. Kyle twirled 360 degrees but stalled.
Since a south wind was blowing toward three and four, I stood in turn one with Steve Gennetten and guest Jon Singer, the legend who lives 40 miles east in Tipton. Only in researching Sedalia winners in the Hall of Fame did I realize Singer not to be among them, which must be an oversight. Singer rode with Jesus (Jan Opperman) to win Missouri Futurity and Hulman Classic before Jon snared the 1976 Knoxville Nationals with Eddie Leavitt and ’85 Missouri State Fair WoO race with Ron Shuman and Ofixco. Singer Warheads won 43 of 80 races for Doug Wolfgang in 1989. Until recently, Singer built midget engines for Colorado’s Luke Icke until one too many phone calls from Luke’s dad Lane. I asked Singer if he ever met Smokey Yunick and indeed he had during winter summits at Gaerte Engines, Indiana.
LaMonte’s lap eleven restart read Brown, Martin, Hockett, Jon Corbin and Jonathan Cornell, the kid from Sedalia who was last year’s top U.S 360 sprint rookie as voted by the National Sprint Car Poll. Corbin is the grandson of 1976 Sedalia winner Tom Corbin of Carrollton. Martin dove inside Brown but drifted wide and watched Brian drive back to first. After breaking his 305, Hockett extended his 360 and almost clobbered Martin when Randy spun wheels. Jesse pushed the nose and allowed Corbin and Cornell underneath. Down the frontstretch, Brown aimed outside hometown girl Dakota Carroll, who entered in the center. Black Jack 21 hung in the dust as Martin became leader and Corbin pulled inside. Corbin and Brown both wanted the bottom of turn three. Both got upside-down instead, tearing the top wing from the Kahne car of Hockett.
Saturday had been beautiful but the first drops of rain fell during the 305 feature. I had glanced up to see only moon and stars. Those sprinkles drifted north with the wind until the third turn train wreck wiping out second, third and fifth-place. As everyone pushed off and aligned for the restart, a shift in wind direction brought real rain. The A-main was checkered after 16 of 20 laps.
Martin’s midnight blue J&J was the first WOW winner of 2009. The gleaming cars of Randy and son Evan Martin (black and gold like a good Missouri Tiger) were two very sharp Diamond Pets in the 36-car zoo. Cornell inherited second in a Maxim backed by the Kiowa Line Builders that sponsored the race.
Frank Brown, a farmer from Marshall, moved the Linda Brown Tax Service Maxim from sixth to third to match his WOW best from Double X in 2006. Nebraska’s Don Droud Jr. is due to race the 410 of Gil Sonner on Saturdays at Knoxville. In his first look at L A, Junior finished fourth in the Eagle of Jeff and Jerry Smith.
In the Missouri 360 opener of 2000, Dean Yoder and I saw the “Jerry Jeff 86” sweep two features in one Capital night steered by Steve Gennetten, who reports brother Mike out of jail after 14 years. Steve just completed an Ozark Barge & Dock for Clint Bowyer. Gennetten jockey Josh Fisher (voted top 360 rookie of 2007) finished fifth in father Rusty Fisher’s Maxim over Mark Shirshekan and Terry Hinck at L A.
Indianola, Iowa’s Dustin Selvage, a Knoxville 360 winner these last two seasons, ran his first WOW race as the only Hawkeye State representative in the Show Me State, other than Luke and Seve of Brown Bus fame. Selvage salvaged eighth-place.
O’Reilly Auto Parts Winged Outlaw Warriors next bolster the Lucas Oil ASCS National Tour at the Tri-City Speedway in suburban St. Louis (Pontoon Beach, Illinois) on Friday, May 1.
The grass is high at 4979 West 13th Street, Speedway, IN 46224, where the phone is (317) 607.7841 and e-mail is Kevin@openwheeltimes.com.
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