By T.J. Buffenbarger
Wyoming, MI — (March 17, 2015) — When Rico Abreu pulled into victory lane at Thunderbowl Raceway on Saturday it was the fourth race in a row a race team not running full time with the World of Outlaws sprint car series picked up a feature victory. Tim Kaeding’s victory on Friday along with Abreu’s Saturday win also gave California drivers a clean sweep of the Outlaws on their home turf at Thunderbowl. The win continued the off season trend where the biggest story in winged 410 sprint car racing has been at the regional level.
Regional competition for the Outlaws has become more difficult all around the country. Beating the Outlaws used to be reserved for the Central Pennsylvania teams with the occasional upset mixed in. Now there are regional threats that can take down the Outlaws at virtually every track that races 410 sprint cars on a regular basis. Upsets are occurring on the west coast, Midwest, and other regions now on a more frequent basis.
This trend carries over from an off season where regional 410 sprint car series made the biggest headlines. The formation of the National Sprint League give another option to teams that want to race weekly at Knoxville Raceway but were lacking other good paying 410 options nearby. With prospective NSL competitors Brian Brown and Terry McCarl already picking up victories this year it already shows the quality of competition the NSL will provide fans in the Midwest.
Tony Stewart’s purchase of the All Star Circuit of Champions helped renew a lot of Ohio based teams interest in running the entire circuit. Teams that were committed to the Renegade Sprint Car Series are now looking to take on the All Star tour along with drivers like former World of Outlaws star Cody Darrah. It will be interesting to see how the All Stars progress through 2015, but what I’m interested in is how the series fairs after a full off season to work on 2016. If it goes a similar path to what we have seen out of Eldora Speedway I think the racing community is in for a real treat.
The best part of these regional series thriving along with other strong regions such as Central Pennsylvania, FAST, IRA, King of the West, and the World of Outlaws is it shows a continued resurgence of 410 racing. While many regions have moved away from the format those that stuck with it are being rewarded with some tremendous racing over the past several seasons. The 410 shows I have taken in over the past four years are much better than I witnessed a decade ago.
Other thoughts…
- The announcement of Davey Hamilton going to work for the United States Auto Club and taking the King of the West and Auto Value Super Sprints series with him under the USAC umbrella makes for some strange bedfellows. If someone had told me even a year ago we would see AVSS fall under the USAC banner I would have brushed it off as off the wall speculation. Over the next year it will be interesting to see what benefits competitors might gain from the affiliation. AVSS has always had solid marking partners and a decent group of core competitors. From my initial impression USAC is gaining more than AVSS will out of the partnership, but hopefully that perception is proven wrong as the season progresses.
- How excited am I about having three All Star Circuit of Champions events in Michigan this season? Very much so. Between the three All Star programs, two World of Outlaws shows, SOD and MTS shows on the west side of the state, and AVSS and Must See Racing dates close to the HQ more than half of my schedule this year is within about a 90 minute radius of our headquarters. Hopefully fans come out to support all of these events so sprint car racing can continue to flourish in the mitten.
- While working on some technical issues that will be discussed later Chris Dolack, World of Outlaws VP Media/PR at World Racing Group, had his son’s race car and trailer stolen from WRG headquarters. Thankfully the racing world was a bit more attentive than I was initially as the stolen car generated quite a bit of press. Check out https://www.facebook.com/TylerDolackRacing if you have any information on the whereabouts of the stolen racing equipment.
- You may wonder after quite a bit of activity why I’ve been silent the past few weeks. Normally we treat the first week of March similar to November where technical issues are addressed for the upcoming season. This March required a bit more attention because for the first time since 2001 TJSlideways.com has a new web host. We are proud to announce that the site is now hosted by Liquidweb out of Lansing, Michigan. Liquidweb is highly regarded with “heroic customer support”. I can personally attest to that with the assistance I received pre and post-sale. I would also like to thank our provider from the past 10 years, T3 Communications, for all of their help for over a decade. Now that the daunting task of moving the site is complete we can focus on things such as blogs, podcasts, and webcasts as the 2015 season is on the verge of kicking into high gear.