WYOMING, Mich. — (July 26, 2016) — Sprint Car fans in Michigan have their choice from a variety of options all weekend on dirt, pavement, winged, and non-winged during one of the busiest weekends of the racing season. Sprint Cars are in action Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at a variety of different venues.
Friday night World of Outlaws Craftsman Sprint Car Series makes their final visit to the Great Lakes State for 2016 as they return to the Hartford Motor Speedway for the first time since 2011. Donny Schatz has taken a commanding lead in the point standings leading into the Hartford event just two weeks before the Knoxville Nationals in Knoxville, Iowa. Schatz has not visited victory lane at Hartford, coming close in 2003 leading until the final lap when Brian Paulus motored by on the final lap for the victory. Joey Saldana was the series’ most recent winner at Hartford in his first race back from a vicious accident nine weeks before at the Kings Royal.
For those lamenting the loss of the regular sprint car racing Spartan Speedway’s beautiful facility the Auto Value / Bumper to Bumper Super Sprints will participate in the Butch Dowker Memorial race there this Friday night. The event kicks off a two day weekend for AVSS as the series heads up to Auto City Speedway on Saturday.
The Great Lakes Super Sprints Series will build off of what was widely regarded as an entertaining visit to Butler Motor Speedway last Saturday with three nights of racing.
Friday GLSS makes their second and final visit of the year to Tri-City Motor Speedway. Tri-City has one of the nicest racing surfaces in the State of Michigan and Friday is an opportunity to see Steve Puvalowski’s up and coming facility. Saturday the series ventures west to the Merritt Speedway for their only visit of the 2016 season to track near Lake City, Michigan. Merritt has always been a popular racing/vacation spot for sprint car fans mid-season with the GLSS date being no exception. Following Merritt the series will take part in a rare Sunday race date at I-96 Speedway for a makeup event that was rained out earlier in the season. The Sunday event only has IMCA Modifieds on the card with the sprint cars to help with everyone that has to go to work on Monday.
The Engine Pro Sprints on Dirt presented by ARP series has a makeup date on the books for Saturday night at Crystal Motor Speedway. In SOD’s last appearance at Crystal just two weeks ago Steve Irwin closed the gap on point leader Brian Smith by winning the main event. Smith now leads Irwin by 78 points going into Saturday’s event at Crystal.
After a week on the pavement the Lane Automotive Michigan Traditional Sprints series returns to the dirt for their second and final visit of the year to the Silver Bullet Speedway in Owendale, Michigan. Clyde, Ohio’s Mike Burkin leads the point standings going into the event over the MTS winner at Silver Bullet on June 18, Mike Galajdja.
Notes:
• One of the best stories of the weekend and the season locally was Linden Jones picking up his first career feature victory with a final lap pass at Butler Motor Speedway. Jones nearly won a feature at Butler last year giving up the lead late in the feature, but rallied back this season to turn the tables and slip by Brad Lamberson off the final corner for the victory. Jones, who is the nephew of Brett Mann and Grandson of Mann Enterprises owner Jim Mann, put the Mann #19 in victory lane for the first time in over a decade.
Jones found himself in the same position as last year up front and leading a majority of the event only to nearly give the win away.
I was leading most of the race and slipped off the top of turn two and fell back to third,” said Jones. “I was able to get back around (Robert) Huisken and (Brad) Lamberson on the last lap. Going into turn three (Lamberson) went under the lapped car and I went up top and was able to make the pass coming onto the front stretch.”
• Doug Dietsch’s victory in the non-wing sprint car race at Auto City Speedway was quite the adventure. On the way to the track Dietsch’s pickup truck would not start. Eventually getting the truck started it ran until stopping for fuel in the Lansing area when the truck failed to start again. Adding to the complexity was the fact Dietsch had picked up tires for half the field at Auto City for delivery. Thankfully follow driver Chris Randolph came to the rescue and assisted Dietsch to the track and eventually to victory lane. Dietsch will make his second winged sprint car start of the season Friday night at Spartan Speedway.
• Drew Jach, promoter of the upcoming Jerry Landon Klassic at Kalamazoo Speedway on August 21st featuring the the Must See Racing Extreme Sprint Car Series and the MTS Sprint Cars has been busy pumping out promotions that fans should take note of.
Windy City promotions will be doing a cash giveaway to some lucky fans at the Kalamazoo Speedway once we reach 2000 paid adults. When the attendance reaches 2000 fans we will give away $1000.00 to a lucky fan. If that’s not enough for every 500 fans after 2000 we will give away another $1000.00 to a lucky fan. If we get 5000 paid adults one lucky fan will receive $5,000 in cold hard cash. If we reach 5000 paid adults for our August 21st show we will give away a total of $11,000.00 in cash.
Event sponsorships and bike giveaway sponsors are also being sought. For more information contact Andy via the page for the event on Facebook. (https://www.facebook.com/events/188170031548942/ ).