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2001
NEWS ARCHIVE
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| Visiting Citrus County Speedway | By Jane Smith
Last Saturday night my daughter and I had the great
pleasure of making a somewhat long trip for us to
Citrus County Speedway. 
The Racecar Engineering Sunbelt Super Late Model series had their first race there and their first race away. We knew this was the home track for Ricky Carlton and Jeff Sloan but as we learned, a number of other drivers that were in the pits also considered Citrus as their home track.
Getting to Citrus County Speedway had us going thru some of the prettiest countryside of Florida that we had seen in quite some time. In fact, at times, you might think you were in my home state of Mississippi with all the hanging moss and hillsides. We knew that Citrus was in Inverness but being us, we ended up going the wrong way when we got into Inverness. But we were smart enough to stop and get directions to the track and luckily we ended up following one of their hobby stocks.
Citrus is like Orlando SpeedWorld with the pits outside of the track and a figure eight in the middle. The pits were paved but due to the lack of rain, the pits were also very dusted for the guys. But other than that, I heard no complaints. The gentlemen at the pit gate was extremely jolly which made you want to go into the track. They greeted each of their home drivers with a smile and hello and the newcomers with "glad to have you here".
I did not get to see the grandstand side of Citrus but the pit side was very nice. Very clean bathrooms and I imagine very good food since everyone was eating it up. The local people were very friendly and very interested in the Sunbelt drivers. In fact, both pit side and grandstand side were packed full.
One error from the track reporter for Citrus in his story of the race for the Sunbelt was the pill drawing. When Powell sent down his crew member to draw the pill, my daughter was the one who was mixing up the straws. A seven was picked and Dick Anderson was seventh in time. This gave Dick the pole which we all know by now. But he was offered $2500.00 to start tenth which he did decline. Even with the new groove at Citrus, it was somewhat hard for the Super Lates to pass. If you were on the outside groove, you seemed to lose footage except for James Powell who did most of the passing and bettered his starting position.
The only problem that I had at Citrus was the lighting to write by in the pits - none. But then again, they don't expect someone to be writing. Their scoreboard was easily seen from the pit stands which is something that is almost impossible at St. Augustine in the pit grandstands.
Citrus County Speedway is located in the fair grounds which gave it, to me, a different feel than my home track. And like Columbia Motorsports Park, there is no wall between turn three and four so if you leave the track, you go over a hill into grass. But the banking seems to prevent much of that kind of ride. And the track had just been newly repaved and widened and in spite of the fact that it was coming up due from the heat, it was very nice.
If you love racing and love going to new tracks and seeing all the different kinds of racing that we have in our state, Citrus County Speedway is a track that should be on your "must see" list.
Jane Smith
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