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COLORADO SPEEDWAY - DACONO, CO

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Memorial Day Weekend May 23 – 26, 2008

Thursday the plan was for some sprints at Terre Haute Indiana then a new track Friday and head north on Saturday. When the weather looked cloudy with a chance of rain for Thursday night and Friday I set plan B in motion. I went east with a stop at Carrie’s folks in Ohio and a visit with Lee and Carrie who were there for the weekend.

Friday night I ventured north to Painesville Ohio and a stop at the Painesville Speedway. The track is celebrating its 50th anniversary and although it shows its age they have done some upkeep and appear to be doing OK. The track is a 1/5-mile paved oval surrounded with concrete walls and just some pavement drop offs and some traffic cones to mark the inside. They also have a figure eight with a paved crossover “X” in the clear infield. The spectator walkways were paved and seating was in a large 16-row wooden bleacher or several other 11-row bleacher sections on the straightaway and in the first turn. The pits are outside of the backstretch and outside of the 3rd and 4th turns. The speakers seemed to be working off one pole but were loud enough and although the lights are old they have been supplemented and were fine. Racing got underway about a half-hour late at 8PM in front of about 200 spectators. Car counts were not too large (11 Detroit Iron, l8 factory fours, 6 sportsmen, 9 heavy fig. 8 and 11 small fig. 8) but for a tight short track that may have been best. The race events were dashes, heats, Australian pursuits and features. After the preliminaries they had some spectator cars race during the intermission and went to features around 10PM. Joe Lombardo led from the front of the Detroit Iron race for 21 laps when a car stopped on the track for the only yellow of the race. Joe lost his big lead but still held off Don Lombardo for the win of the 25-lap feature. The stock fours raced best with a five car battle for the lead in an all green 20-lap feature. Rocky Nails started 10th and won over James Caplick from 13th and James Hayes from 14th. Randy Henrick won the sportsmen feature from the pole although he was challenged by Jay White on the outside for several laps in another caution free race. Then they watered the figure eight track and Mike Reed took the big car figure eight feature from 7th starting spot in a clean non-stop run. In an interesting note the figure 8 classes ran their dashes, heats and pursuit races on the oval track. The factory four division ran their figure eight race to finish the program and in another non-stop race it was Melvin Martin from 7th that was given the trophy when it was declared that apparent winner Tom Hayden did not cross the finish line before coming to victory lane. The races were over at 11:20 and I was headed back to Michigan.

Saturday I had plans to see two tracks that are 18 miles apart in central Michigan. I first stopped at the Farwell Fairgrounds in Farwell at about 5PM where there were already 20 cars in the pits and some fans sitting in the stands. Knowing that this USA promoted figure eight was drawing well I drove up to the Clare County Fairgrounds in Harrison. I had been here last year for a figure eight race but today was an off road race promoted by Unique so I wanted to add another new track to my total. There was a festival going on and they had a car show in the afternoon with a burnout contest set for 6PM and races at 7PM. There was a large crowd in the big grandstand and the burnouts started around 6:20. There was an oval track constructed in front of the grandstand that consisted of two large tires marking the inside of the turns and some telephone poles laying on the outside of the turns. There were some orange traffic cones to outline the straights and a small jump on the backstretch. They had a good field of about 40 cars and started with 10-lap heats. Much to my dismay the course was run by starting off the track from a standing start and going diagonally through the infield to the left of the tire marker and right around it back to the third turn where the traditional oval pattern was completed for the next 10 laps. This is kind of like a “flagpole race” where the cars make a circle within a circle or could be considered a figure eight with one crossover per race but I will have to wait for a ruling. (I later found out this will count as an oval.) I watched two heats with Randy Reynolds winning from 6th and Todd White winning from 9th and then headed out. I arrived back at Farwell in time for the 7th heat. The USA promotion of their figure eight series is one of the best running. They have a format for 49 cars (7 heats of 7 cars) that transfers only the winner to the feature, giving you another 7-car event to close the program. It’s fast and with efficient cleanup and racing not crashing it is a good format for the fair to get you back to the fair in a couple of hours. This track at Farwell is a nice rectangle set back from the many sections of 8 to 10-row bleachers that were nearly full tonight. The track is surrounded with Armco fencing with concrete blocks placed behind for additional strength. The turns are marked with two huge implement tires that are somehow permanently fixed as there was grass growing inside them and around their base. These tires did not move when contacted during the night! There were good lights but a terrible speaker system left Sonny Hall’s announcing inaudible. The track has good clay and was well watered as they made a large cushion outside the turns during the dust free races. After the 7 heats for the full sized cars they divided the 15 front wheel drive cars into two features. Russ Hamilton started 5th and won the first 15-lap affair that was stopped on the 6th lap for a rollover by John Benske. The number 7 won the second race from the third starting spot. To close the night the 7 big car heat winners go 25 laps in the feature and after trailing the Schooley brothers for the first half of the race Bill Eison got the lead and ran clean to take the victory. Jim Schooley crossed second in the feature that was stopped twice - when the M5 rolled onto the roof and when the 40 caught fire.

Sunday night I was back at Angell Park in Sun Prairie Wisconsin for the Badger Midgets. Twenty-two cars were here for the second night of the year at “The Prairie” and Buddy Luebke came away with fast time at 15.011 seconds around the 1/3-mile dirt track. The starting order for the dash is a draw and Luebke started outside the first row and led for over half of the 6 laps but Jerry Coons JR came from the back to take the trophy. The track was excellent with two lanes wide of smooth track below the cushion. Coons started last in the first heat and picked up another win as he got by Joe Wipperfurth. Wipperfurth was driving a new car, as the Imhoff team had to work long hours to replace the destroyed car of last week. Chad DeSelle got the win in the second heat over Brandon Waelti. By this time there was lightning off to the West and the dark clouds were building. Davey Ray got the win in the third heat over Jon LeJeune. The feature was pushed off and all 22 cars were on the track when the light rain started to increase. The cars were pulled in and the push trucks were running in the track when the big drops started and after several minutes of heavy rain and some hail the towel was thrown in and the night called complete with equal money and points awarded for the feature.