By Dave Westerman

The month of March kicks off at Auburndale Speedway Saturday night with eight 
classes in action including the Open Wheel Modifieds, Legend Cars, Sportsman, 
Street Stocks, V-8 Bombers, Scramblers, Mini Stocks and the Bandoleros.

The Open Wheel Modifieds will be running their first races of the season and
will be led out the gate by defending track champion James Wright III.  Some
new cars are expected and a lot of old favorites will be on hand including
Keith Lilley, Bobby Blake, Big Wayne Morris, Von Pope, Travis Roland and 
many more.

It looks like the Legend Cars will be the class to beat this year when it comes 
to car count as over 35 are now registered with Legend Cars of Florida with 
a number of new drivers expected to begin participating in the near future. 
It's not yet clear whether defending champion Jake Perkins of Ocala will do 
much Legend Car racing this year as his team rolled out a new Late Model 
last week for the season-opening Florida United Promoters Tour race at 
DeSoto Super Speedway.  The 14-year-old had an impressive day in the 
"Icebreaker," coming from 19th on the starting grid to finish eighth.
It looks like there will be quite a few new drivers in the Bandolero class this 
year, especially in the 8-10 year old Bandit division.

Lance Daubach looks to be the driver to beat in the Sportsman class this year 
if his dominance of last weeks racing is any indication.  Another driver who 
also looked very good last week was Brandon Duchscherer as his new ride 
out of the Chuck Harrison stable was very stout.

The best surprise of the opening week of racing at Auburndale Speedway 
had to be the number of new Scrambler cars that were in action.  However, 
Richie Acres found a way to make his Saturn run "rings" around the 
competition last week and the action in the tech shed was almost as 
interesting as the racing on the track.

Some new V-8 Bombers made an appearance last week including a really 
nice new car for local veteran Matt Bozeman and a really sharp new Mopar 
for Greg King.  John Smith, a former hot shoe at Orlando Speedworld before 
moving to the Lakeland area, also brought out a new car last week and was 
running third when his engine started to sour late in the going.
Pit gates open Saturday at 2PM and grandstand gates open at 5PM with 
racing at 7PM. Adult admission is $12, seniors are $10, kids 5-12 are $5 
and kids under 4 are free.  A family "four pack" for two adults and two kids 
aged 5-12 is $25.

Girl Scout cookies will be available Saturday afternoon in the pit area and 
on the grandstand side from 6-8PM thanks to Auburndale Daisy Troop 95. 
Cookies are just $3.50 a box.

 For more information log on to www.auburndaleracing.com