Wednesday, September 24, 2003 Classic Racers Hit New Smyrna High Banks The Classic Auto Racing Series makes its second appearance of the season at the high-banked half-mile New Smyrna Speedway Saturday night. Current CARS point leader Ben Booth, a rookie in the Classic Cars this year, is certainly no rookie when it comes to New Smyrna having won several times in Modifieds when the class was just forming in the late 80's and early 90's. The high cost of racing forced Booth to "retire" from the sport for about ten years before he found a new lease on his racing life with the Classics. Booth has a 33 point advantage over fellow Deland resident Daryl Grief headed into action Saturday night and has a whopping 102 point edge over yet another Deland driver and CARS rookie, Joey Strehle, who is third in points. Grief's win at Orlando Speedworld on September 13th gives him three for the season, the most of any driver. Grief will have his work cut out for him at New Smyrna as he'll have to start last in the field per CARS rules. If he wins however, he'll pick up an extra $100 and a Bahamas cruise courtesy of DAWB Motorsports and A-1 Discount Vacations as will a lucky race fan. Patrick "Bam Bam" Sanders has parlayed some steady runs of late into a fourth place standing in the points, but just ahead of fifth place Bud Spencer and CARS rookie Bill Posey in sixth. Al Hagan looks like he's put his early-season bad luck behind him, moving to seventh in points while George Hall, Jr. is eighth, Jim Rahman (who won at New Smyrna in April) is ninth in points despite an abbreviated race schedule this year and George Hall III rounds out the current top ten. It will be the first time ever that the Classic Auto Racing Series has run along with the FASCAR Sunbelt Super Late Model Series which will be running a 125 lap event Saturday at New Smyrna. All in all, it should be quite an evening of quality racing. CURRENT POINT STANDINGS - CLASSIC AUTO RACING SERIES (as of 9/13/03): 1) Ben Booth (R), Deland #12 618 (2 wins) 2) Daryl Grief, Deland #1 585 (3 wins) 3) Joey Strehle (R), Deland #X11 516 (1 win) 4) Patrick Sanders, Winter Garden #8 492 5) Bud Spencer, Palm Harbor #7 491 (2 wins) 6) Bill Posey (R), Rockledge #00 478 7) Al Hagan, Merritt Island #6 452 8) George Hall, Jr., St. Petersburg #32 437 9) Jim Rahman, Clermont #5 434 (2 wins) 10) George Hall III, St. Petersburg #9 424 11) Frank Conrad, Ft. Pierce #11 350 (1 win) 12) E.B. Carr, Okeechobee #90 335 13) Greg Helton (R), Orange City #3 259 14) Simeon Spagnuolo, Vero Beach #21 234 15) Ed Yates, Orlando #74 203 16) Tim Ousley, Windermere #88 184 17) Wayne Ashton, Ft. Pierce #78 172 18) Harvey Ewing, Brooksville #17 170 19) Keith Baiga, Deland #42 160 20) Randy Grief, Orlando #31 157 Have an opinion on this story? Post a message on our Message Board! <news@karnac.org>or send a letter to the editor!