By T.J. Buffenbarger
• At TJSlideways.com headquarters though it doesn’t feel like the season really kicks in high gear until the weekend Attica Raceway Park schedules their season opener. Thankfully this year for John Bores, Rex LeJeune, and the great staff at ARP ended up with respectable weather and massive crowd for their first event of the season. Strong car counts in the 410 and 305 sprint car divisions welcomed a healthy opening night crowd who got to see local driver Caleb Griffith hold off the all time leading feature winner with All Star Circuit of Champions Dale Blaney for the 410 victory. In addition Jason Keckler charged from seventh to claim the 305 sprint car victory in a feature that had several drivers charging from near the back or mid-pack to score top five finishes (full story here). Overall a highly entertaining opening night for fans at Attica.
Saturday’s victory allowed Griffith picked up where he left off at the end of last year with the Marshall Motorsports team. After some time getting a feel for everything Griffith and the team started to put things together with the Marshall team shortly before they picked up a surprise last lap victory during an All Star Circuit of Champions program at Butler Speedway. It will be interesting to see if the team can continue this momentum over the next couple of weeks leading into Spring Nationals weekend.
• While Griffith was winning at Attica the new Ohio Sprint Car Series embarked on their first full campaign Saturday at Atomic Speedway. With the All Stars slated to visit Atomic the following week combined with NASCAR taking Easter weekend made for a start studded field converging on the high banked Chillicothe oval. Christopher Bell took advantage of the week off from his day job winning a wild main event. Based on the strong field last weekend its likely fans are going to see an extremely stout field of cars for the first point race of the year for the Arctic Cat All Star Circuit of Champions.
• Kasey Kahne winning at Lincoln Speedway would seem likely to be the top story of the weekend, but Attica’s opener surpassed it reader wise. The victory comes off of Kahne picking up a couple of second place finishes in December at Valvoline Raceway. Kahne has Central Pennsylvania’s own Lee Stauffer turning the wrenches during his two race tour of Central Pa.
• The Australian Easter Trail was rough on James McFadden and Jamie Veal after tangling while racing for position Sunday at Premier Speedway. While the ride looked tough it didn’t stop McFadden and Veal from doing some recreational dirt karting on Monday. Indy Race Parts announced on their Twitter account Veal is doing an American tour for them this season starting with the Spring World of Outlaws event at Pevely, Missouri.
• Bryan Clauson continued his quest to compete in 200 events this season on his circular insanity tour by racing at Chico, California on Friday with the Civil War Series before flying back to Indiana on Saturday where he captured the victory during the “No Way Out 40” at Brownstown Speedway. The victory was Clauson’s eighth of the calendar year and put him tied for the lead on our feature win list. Personally I found it remarkable Clauson managed the Chico/Brownstown weekend while flying commercial airliners. To cap off the weekend Clauson proposed to longtime girlfriend Lauren Stewart on Sunday, and she accepted. Congratulations to Bryan, Lauren, and their families.
• Willie Croft and Terry Schank Jr. both swept their weekends at Silver Dollar Speedway and Petaluma Speedway in the winged 360 and wingless sprint classes. This made for a very rare situation where two drivers won feature in two different classes on back to back nights.
• One interesting name that visited victory lane over the weekend was Cody Lemar. Lamar picked up the feature win on Saturday at Marysville Raceway. Cody is the great nephew of Clyde Lamar, famous for fielding the iconic blue and white Tri-C sprint car entry still fielded by the Lemar family for Jonathan Allard.
• The Australian Easter Trail was rough on James McFadden and Jamie Veal after tangling while racing for position Sunday at Premier Speedway. While the ride looked tough it didn’t stop McFadden and Veal from doing some recreational dirt karting on Monday.
Looking ahead to this weekend…
• One thing to keep an eye on this weekend in Southern Ohio takes place on Friday when OSCS and the Ohio Valley Sprint Car Association contest events on the same night. OSCS will be in action at Jackson County Speedway while OVSCA heads over to Skyline Speedway. It will be interesting to see if Southern Ohio can support two traveling sprint car series on Friday.
• Non-Wing sprint cars return to Valley Speedway on a weekly basis in 2016 starting on Saturday. After a year off “Valley Sprints” are a thing again on a weekly basis at the Grain Valley, Missouri oval. The non-wing sprint car race is supplemented by a midget car under card. Two seasons ago Valley Sprints drew consistently full fields and likely will do so again in 2016.
• The United States Auto Club has two premier divisions competing in Indiana this weekend with the Amsoil National Sprint Car Series opening Lawrenceburg Speedway’s 2016 season while Sunday the Sumar Classic starts the 2016 campaign for the USAC Silver Crown Series. Terre Haute still produced the best Silver Crown race I ever witnessed in person 10 years ago with multiple lead changes and
• For those that prefer the handicapping format over qualifications Friday is Williams Grove Speedway’s first race of the year using that format. This year the Grove will hold a series of point handicapping racing dubbed the “Yellow Breeches 500” with a mini-series champion being named at the end of the five race series.
• Pavement Sprint Car Racing holds their first National event of the 2016 season when the King of the Wing series contests a three night swing through the southeast at Five Flags Speedway, Mobile International Speedway, and Montgomery Motor Speedway Friday through Sunday. The King of the Wing Series also announced on Sunday that five pavement sprint car series were meeting to work on a rules package that is a bit more uniform between the series. Hopefully this does not impact the Midwest in a negative way as one of the few areas that still uses 410 sprint car engines in their series.
• The Northwest gets their sprint car season started with the first event of the season for the Summer Thunder Series at the Yakima, WA State Fair Park. After their inaugural campaign based around Skagit Speedway and Grays Harbor Raceway the tour has expanded this year to include the Yakima Fairgrounds track. The Summer Thunder Series will consist of 14 races and bolsters a $12,000 point fund. Defending champion Jason Solwold will lead the Summer Thunder Series into Yakima and is expected to defend his crown against a host of Northwest challengers.