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kkfan91

Everyones an outlaw til its time to do outlaw s%&#
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I always feel weird posting about non-WoO stuff in that thread and sometimes we just want to talk about something cool at our local tracks.

So last night I was at Grandview Speedway for Pa Speedweek for 410 sprint cars, Christopher Bell won. The undercard was a modified race that featured a great battle including a 3 wide pass that ended up being the winning move. During the heats a bit of a scary moment as a car hooked and flew into the catch fence but the driver was alright and hopped right out. By far the largest car I've seen take flight in person.
 
Grandview was one of those tracks that I'd wanted to visit back when I was living in Middletown, PA. But I never traveled that far since at the time I was a typically broke college student. They would sometimes show highlights of races at that track on the local TV station sports reports.

I did get to see some sprint car races at Williams Grove (it was much closer). Also at Silver Spring (which closed in 2005 - I was there in the early 1980s).
The first race I attended at Williams Grove turned out to be a WoO race - and back then the Pennsylvania Posse (the nickname of the local racers) could give the WoO teams all they could handle. In the feature, for several laps, Keith Kaufman (driving the Weikert #29) led - followed closely by Steve Kinser, then Lynn Paxton, and Doug Wolfgang. (Paxton was a several time track champion at Williams Grove.) They all kept trying to slide job each other, but none of it worked. Then suddenly Kaufman hooked a rut going into the third turn and flipped off the track - landing on his wheels on the elevated thin grass strip between the track wall and the catch fence / advertising billboards. They had to use a crane to get his car out of there, and of course he was done for the night. Kinser won, followed by Paxton and then Wolfgang. After the races it was cool going into the pits and watching Karl Kinser lifting kids in and out of Steve's ****pit, and getting to talk to all of the drivers.

Another interesting thing about that night was how I found the track. I'd left home with a general idea of where it was, but wasn't sure... then at a big intersection in Mechanicsburg I saw a truck pulling an open trailer with a beat-up sprint car on it (#99), so I followed it to the track. Since it was going to the pit entrance I ended up seated on the back side of the track - and in perfect view of Kaufman's flip off the track. I was never ever to verify it, but that #99 might have been a Jan Opperman ride and he might have been driving... but it didn't fare very well, which might be expected if Opperman was still driving because this would have been after his bad wreck in the Hoosier 100 that he never really recovered from.
 
Grandview was one of those tracks that I'd wanted to visit back when I was living in Middletown, PA. But I never traveled that far since at the time I was a typically broke college student. They would sometimes show highlights of races at that track on the local TV station sports reports.

I did get to see some sprint car races at Williams Grove (it was much closer). Also at Silver Spring (which closed in 2005 - I was there in the early 1980s).
The first race I attended at Williams Grove turned out to be a WoO race - and back then the Pennsylvania Posse (the nickname of the local racers) could give the WoO teams all they could handle. In the feature, for several laps, Keith Kaufman (driving the Weikert #29) led - followed closely by Steve Kinser, then Lynn Paxton, and Doug Wolfgang. (Paxton was a several time track champion at Williams Grove.) They all kept trying to slide job each other, but none of it worked. Then suddenly Kaufman hooked a rut going into the third turn and flipped off the track - landing on his wheels on the elevated thin grass strip between the track wall and the catch fence / advertising billboards. They had to use a crane to get his car out of there, and of course he was done for the night. Kinser won, followed by Paxton and then Wolfgang. After the races it was cool going into the pits and watching Karl Kinser lifting kids in and out of Steve's ****pit, and getting to talk to all of the drivers.

Another interesting thing about that night was how I found the track. I'd left home with a general idea of where it was, but wasn't sure... then at a big intersection in Mechanicsburg I saw a truck pulling an open trailer with a beat-up sprint car on it (#99), so I followed it to the track. Since it was going to the pit entrance I ended up seated on the back side of the track - and in perfect view of Kaufman's flip off the track. I was never ever to verify it, but that #99 might have been a Jan Opperman ride and he might have been driving... but it didn't fare very well, which might be expected if Opperman was still driving because this would have been after his bad wreck in the Hoosier 100 that he never really recovered from.
If you ever get the chance to get to Grandview for anything I recommend it. Igs such a fun little high banked 1/3rd mile.
 
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Greg Hodnett Memorial last night at Port Royal they had these 5 tribute schemes that he ran. They ran them 5 wide followed by a missing man formation.
 
Crazy finish last night at Port Royal between Dylan Cisney and Anthony Macri
 
There is some very bad news from Williams Grove tonight in the 410 race there. Robbie Kendall flipped and landed in the pits. Drivers are apparently ok, but if rumors and unconfirmed reports are true, there was a death in the pits. The Speedway has apparently confirmed the coroner has been called to the scene.

Awful.
 


Story seems to be the car killed a push truck driver or some other person in the infield, such a tragedy.
 
Man. I love sprint car racing, but safety is lacking at a lot of facilties and what not compared to other forms of racing. Maybe just me though.
 
In race track owners behaving stupidly news, one of our local tracks here, Willamette Speedway in Lebanon, OR, has been shut down by the county due to multiple code violations. Essentially it seems as if they have built several unpermitted structures and made unapproved upgrades in the site. It is a shame, because many of the additions have improved the facilities, and this track has in my opinion the best weekly show in Oregon or SW Washington, possibly outside of Cottage Grove Speedway. They were due to host WoO in September. I hope they can cooperate with the county and get reopened by then.

https://lebanon-express.com/news/he...cle_95338b20-ae71-5fb8-a7ce-981107ae2cca.html
 
Seems there's a perception that cars will wreck to the outside of the track, so at a lot of short tracks you see track workers, photographers, and fans/crew hanging on or near the inside of the track. Sprint and Midgets seemingly are very unpredictable.
 
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Nick Swigert running the 305 undercard to the ASCOC race at BAPS Speedway jumped the cushion flipped and got caught in the catch fence during his heat. Driver is ok.
 


Rico sweeps the Trophy Cup at Tulare, which is one of the biggest 360 sprint car races of the season. I believe they had around 90 cars this weekend.
 
Haven't been to the track lately mostly saving money for the WoO World Finals in Charlotte, but as hot as Danny Dietrich had been early in the year in PA hes had no luck lately, other then winning the William's Grove track championship hes had wrecks not of his making and mechanical issues like the one that put him out at Port Royal last night.
 
Checking out New Egypt Speedway tonight for the first time wingless Sprints and mods got a gap in the rain so looks like we get racing in. Though is going to be super wet mods looked really slow during hot laps. They been working the track for the last half hour or so.
 
Being my first time here I never realized how unique the track is don't see a lot of backstretch dog legs
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Great modified race Duane Howard Grandview track champion comes through in the small block in the small vs big block feature holding off a great race long challenge from Billy Pauch Jr.
 
I'm at or more correctly been at Evergreen Raceway in PA for their King of the Green Event...or as I've taken to calling it the 12 hours of Evergreen since heats started at noon and we still have 2 features left and the current 125 lap mod race to finish...its also like 38 degrees.
 
Made my first trip to Evergreen Raceway today/tonight as the event went like 6 hours longer then I expected. My first pavement short track race and while fun as always it was the absolute worst definition of a wreck fest. It began with a street stock feature, that was supposed to be 50 laps...they made 38 before they called it because it had taken over an hour and never had a green flag run longer then 5 laps. Then there was a bandelaro race, cars for kids basically, there were only 3 cars but they took turns wrecking each other repeatedly. The 125 lap modified feature took 2.5 hours to run thanks to constant wrecks a lot from guys running at the back and a long delay for scoring issues. The factory stocks actually got done their race pretty fast, but the legands cars were another wreckfest including a guy driving like a nut through the pits. The enduros to end the night went fast though. Overall was like an 11 hour race day, not that I'm going to complain other then it could of been warmer.
 
Danny Dietrich breaks his streak of bad luck and wins the final 410 race of the year in Pennsylvania at BAPS. 410s will be quiet here until Lincoln kicks off the season in February
 
A perhaps interesting event last night in the ongoing Larson / Bell dirt rivalry at the Copper Classic in AZ. Larson (#57) squeezed in front of Bell (#21) on the start, and rather than get on the brakes, Bell drove through him. Some are jumping on Bell over the move. I happen to see a racing incident without bad intent. Larson seemed to stall out, had no bite off the corner, and only barely cleared Bell. It was a wild start all around. But depending on how Larson felt about it, it could be the start of a rowdy winter.

 
A perhaps interesting event last night in the ongoing Larson / Bell dirt rivalry at the Copper Classic in AZ. Larson (#57) squeezed in front of Bell (#21) on the start, and rather than get on the brakes, Bell drove through him. Some are jumping on Bell over the move. I happen to see a racing incident without bad intent. Larson seemed to stall out, had no bite off the corner, and only barely cleared Bell. It was a wild start all around. But depending on how Larson felt about it, it could be the start of a rowdy winter.


Racing incident I mean from what I see that was just a small part of a much larger wreck.
 
Racing incident I mean from what I see that was just a small part of a much larger wreck.

Separate incidents happening at the same time. Some in the Larson camp weren't happy apparently. I see a racing incident too. I don't think you can judge it the way you might if it happened 15 laps into the race.
 
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