Twin 40's On Tap For Putnam County in Lieu of "Renegade 100"
By Jack Smith -KARNAC.com
Tonight (Friday) and Saturday night Putnam County Speedway and Rich Egli's Speed Sport Productions will run a 40 lap Open Wheel Modified feature each night paying $5000 to the winner and each participant getting a minimum of $250 for starting.
Over eighty racers from every corner of the nation as well as Canada will be firing up their open wheel modifieds to tackle the newly configured surface at Putnam County Speedway.
The big dirt show billed as the "Renegade 100" modified show paying $30,000 to win was originally schedule to take place late last year at Thundercross Motorsports Park in Ochechobee, Florida. Two events conspired to derail promoter Rich Egli's plan to bring a huge "midwest" type modified show to Florida, one of course being weather of historic proportions. The other was the fact that the Thundercross owners, dismal as race promoters themselves, decided to close the track.
Egli was able to keep the "Renegade 100" alive by striking a deal with the new ownership of Putnam County Speedway to bring the event there this weekend. The track was to supply the facility and the staff to run the scheduled four day event.
Among the factors that led to the current situation, besides the fickleness of the weather, was that though more than 80 teams did show up for the event scheduled to begin February 1, over 50 racers from across the country pre-registered and then did not show up. This followed by two days of rain at the Samsula, Florida facility made it impossible for the promoters to pull off the events as they were originally scheduled.
"We practiced on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we were supposed to be racing and we did nothing" he said lamenting Mother Nature's non-cooperation, "today is the first day we can get into these pits and it is a mess".
Elgi summed it up, "As far as the Renegade goes, there is no way I can run a $190,000 purse in two days."
What we did is call a drivers meeting, and everybody that is here understands, people on the Internet don't, but the people here do" Egli stated.
"We have guys from all over, four from Canada, two or three cars from California, some from Oregon and every which way." Egli explained, "To show our appreciation for these guys and so they don't have to go home with nothing,we are running these twin 40 races for $5000 to win".
Dwarf Cars will also be running tonight and tomorrow.
Mike Partin, General Manager of Putnam County Speedway, stands behind Egli and the two have begun the planning for a joint venture to promote a huge modified show in December of this year. "The low car count scared us both", said Partin, who went onto express confidence in both Rich Egli and the December event. "People have no idea how hard this guy worked to make this event happen", Partin said.
Putnam County Speedway has undergone renovations recently to make the track more entertaining for the fans, with wider turns and banking, as well as other improvements.
Visit Putnam County Speedway's web site at www.putnamcountyspeedway.com for more information, directions and contact information.
