By T.J. Buffenbarger
(August 23, 2026) — The All Star Circuit of Champions visit to Michigan shortly after the Knoxville Nationals has become a staple on the schedule through multiple series owners, tracks, and promoters involved. The 2026 edition of the Michigan swing had been highly anticipated since it was announced when the schedule was released for the upcoming season. With Butler Motor Speedway jumping on board to create a two-night swing, joining a highly successful double header with UMP late models at I-96 Speedway.
What ended up happening was a crazy set of events that tried to completely derail the entire weekend. To someone viewing from the outside, little to nothing appeared to be different, but behind the scenes there were a lot of moving parts being shuffled around to make sure the weekend happened.
The twists and turns of the weekend start with the All Star Circuit of Champions themselves. The series was coming off an extremely long layoff after the finale of Ohio Sprint Speedweek at Wayne County Speedway on June 20th because of a break for the Kings Royal and Knoxville Nationals combined with three rainouts including one in Michigan at Hartford Speedway.
Leading into the weekend the All Stars suddenly had an issue with staffing. Their competition directory Noel Dawson had an unexpected medical issue and sadly passed away from on Sunday. In addition, All Star announcer Alex Robinson could not make the trip north as well, so the series went to work on finding people to fill those positions for the weekend.
Thankfully the Great Lakes Super Sprints were off this weekend, which freed up their scorer Anthony Boyd to assist which allowed Ross Paulson to take on race directory duties. Brian Liskai from Attica and Fremont Speedway was lined up for Saturday night at Butler. All of these were accomplished down to the wire on Wednesday and Thursday evening before the weekend began.
Friday started as one of the most beautiful days of the summer. I was working on the west side of Grand Rapids enjoying the drive in beautiful sunshine and high 70-degree weather. There were a handful of clouds overhead, but nothing concerning. West and south of my locations were experiencing something completely different.
Over I-96 Speedway in Lake Odessa, Michigan a pop-up thunderstorm hit the racetrack just before gates were about to open. With the grounds waterlogged track officials called off the event, which was one of their most successful promotions last season. With extended payouts for the All Stars and UMP Late Models, the quick cancellation was understandable based on the financial risk of the program. It was so unfortunate the small shower disrupted what would have been a tremendous program after all the food was purchased, help was arranged, and people were ready to go racing.
When I was informed of the cancellation, I was only around 30 minutes west of the racetrack. I even had my dad send a photo to post on the website because I was afraid people wouldn’t believe us. The All Star Circuit of Champions officials were about 15 minutes from the track when the event was called. Thankfully the officiating team for the All Stars were able to cancel their hotel rooms and were able to enjoy an evening at home before heading north to Butler on Saturday.
Further south Butler Motor Speedway was also receiving and under threat of heavy rain showers. It was the start of a recipe of challenging conditions Tim Wilber and his family would face over the next 36 hours.
After rain on Friday had the Butler team up early trying to clear water from walkways, the afternoon brought relentless sun and wind helped dry the speedway grounds but impacted the racing surface as well. Without being able to do their normal amount of track preparation things were dryer than normal through hot laps and qualifying. The field of 44 cars was also much larger than anyone was expecting to show up on Saturday for the All Star Circuit of Champions event.
Wilber and his crew immediately went to work with his water trucks and tiller to rejuvenate the racing surface. Wilber had just recently acquired a tiller for track prep over the winter and picked up a second one last week. The move proved to be prudent at the first tiller broke on Saturday morning. Had that backup piece of equipment not been acquired, the track may not have come back as well as it did once the sun went down.
To throw another challenge into the mix camera issues with Floracing impacted part of the live broadcast. Thankfully veteran camera operator Jeff Converse, who learned a lot his trade by shooting weekly races at Butler, and the rest of the Floracing team were able to work out the issues so the audience could see a majority of the program.
Things were not perfect, but the fact that Saturday’s program went off as well as it did was a credit to processes Wilber, his family, and team have built at Butler. Wilber and his team along with the All Stars took the challenges in stride calmly and produced an entertaining program on Saturday.
When looking back on the weekend with everything that went awry, from staffing to equipment failures, this weekend could have gone completely off the rails. Thankfully due to the tight fraternity of people that work behind the scenes at I-96 and Butler along with Rich Farmer’s team with the All Stars, things appeared to be business as usual.
Things like this happen all over the country on any given week with racing tracks and series. There are weeks where everything goes as planned, but more often than not something ends up happening off script and having the proper people and procedures in place to manage these situations makes these challenges seem routine or not even present to the casual observer.
Notes
• One of the unintended results from Friday’s cancellation at I-96 Speedway was creating one of the best races of the season at Attica Raceway Park when Cale Thomas and Parker Price-Miller, who were headed to I-96, went to Attica Raceway Park and put on a tremendous show trading the lead back and forth with Thomas winning the first of two features of the weekend.
• The All Star Circuit of Champions point standings remain close with Kalib Henry holding a 31-point advantage over Thomas going into the series next event at Freedom Speedway in Delevan, New York next Friday before going to Sharon Speedway in Hartford, Ohio on Saturday.
• Western Pennsylvania sprint car standout A.J. Flick was serving as the substitute driver for Cody Bova in the Bova Racing #20 entry this weekend in Michigan. Flick made the most of his first appearance at Butler driving from 14th to 6th in a race car he had never driven before Saturday.
• After starting in 21st position, Darin Naida ended up as highest finishing Michigan driver during the All Star event at Butler Motor Speedway finishing in eighth position.
The local contingent had a decent showing in the preliminaries with Dan McCarron and Tylar Rankin making the dash. Rankin was making his first sprint car start since October 2025. McCarron eventually dropped back to 15th starting spot while had run as high as sixth position before falling out of the even ton lap 23.
• One scary moment during the heat race took place when Boston Mead’s car caught fire on the front stretch after setting the fifth fastest time in his qualifying group. Mead confirmed he was uninjured in the fire, but some of the damage under the hood was too extensive to return to action on Saturday, but the team will be able to make repairs.
• Brad Lamberson appeared to be securely in a transfer position during the B-Main until an attempted pass for third position went ary and opened the door for Geoff Dodge to take the final transfer position, leaving Lamberson the first non-transfer car.
• Keith Sheffer Jr. picked up a ride for the weekend in Ron Jacobs’ #2 entry, but fought mechanical issues all night at Butler and did not make the feature event.