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| 50 Lap J.R. Wilbanks Memorial for Street Stocks Set for Friday, Fritz named new GM at Ocala Speedway | by Dave Westerman
The K-Country 93.7 FM Street Stocks have a very special event on tap for this Friday night at Ocala Speedway.
The 50-lap, $1000 to win Street Stock race has been re-named the J.R.
Wilbanks Memorial to honor the young son of former track officials Rennie and Carleen Wilbanks. J.R. , at just 14 years of age, lost his valiant battle with cancer just over three weeks ago.
Current Street Stock point leader Tommy Roberts has spear-headed the move to have a special race to honor J.R. "It's been tough losing a neat kid like J.R., then I lost my nephew the following week. I know they'll be looking down on us, I just hope we can put on a good show for them," said Roberts.
Roberts has strung together a string of top five finishes and has moved two points ahead of Paul "Tweety" Fletcher and Bobby Taylor in a close battle for the second-half Street Stock championship. Doug Webster and David Chastain are still in the hunt as well in fourth and fifth.
The WIND-FM Classic Rock Modifieds return to action this week with the Gerstner Brothers, Jeremy and John, 1-2 in the current point standings.
Jeremy holds a slim five point advantage over his brother while their fellow Tampa driver Johnnie "The Rat" Newsome is third in points, 17 out of first. Modified rookie Bobby Valeo, who borrowed a car from Jeremy Gerstner to keep himself alive in the point chase two weeks ago, is fourth, just one point ahead of first-half champion David Baxley.
William Edwards finds himself back on top of the Diamond H Air & Heat point standings, tied with last week's winner Kyle Maynard after Tom Posavec missed the show last week with a blown engine in warm-ups and fell to seventh in the standings.
Frank Buchanan is just three markers behind Edwards and Maynard with Patrick Mennenga and Jim Higginbotham currently fourth and fifth.
Although Rick Kuhn hasn't won a feature since early May, he has finished either second or third seven out of the last eight weeks allowing him to build up a substantial 17 point advantage in the Four Cylinder Stocks over second place Harold Barup.
Barup has only a two point edge over last week's feature winner Tom Ellis while Terry Dunbar and Ric Fort round out the current top five.
The Four Cylinders will be gearing up this week in preparation for their big $1,000 to win Four Cylinder Stock Championship on October 3rd.
In other news, Buff Fritz has been named Ocala Speedway's new General Manager. Fritz, a former teacher and coach who has spent the last 28 years in sales and management, took over the GM duties full-time this week and plans to help Ocala Speedway continue to grow.
Fritz is no newcomer to the racing game having been involved with his son Ben Fritz's racing career in Sprint Cars. The younger Fritz has been honing his skills with the TBARA over the past few seasons and is set to take his career to the next level with the IRL Pro Infiniti Series as part of Sam Schmidt's team based out of Las Vegas NV.
Pit gates open Friday at 4PM, grandstand gates open at 6PM and racing begins promptly at 8PM.
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