by Dave Westerman
Auburndale Speedway continues a big month of May this Saturday night as the Auburndale Trucks headline an eight division racing card. Along with the Trucks, the Legend Cars return to action along with the Modified Mini Stocks, Street Stocks, Mini Stocks, V-8 Bombers, Scramblers and Bandoleros.
Keith Lilley dominated the first Truck race of the year in a substiute role for his machine’s regular driver. It’s not yet been determined if Lilley has a ride this week, but if he does look for the Lakeland veteran to be up front.
Lance Daubach, Tommy King, Tim Sozio and several more will also be looking for victory lane.
The Legend Cars return after a week off to run a Tour race at Citrus County Speedway which was won by Jake Perkins. Gerald White, Jr. continues to lead the Legend Car points on the strength of three consecutive feature wins. Justin Brown is now second in points, 24 behind White and just two ahead of third place Perkins.
Scotty Sharpe has moved out to a 44 point advantage over Jason Rendell in the Modified Mini Stock standings. Mike Sweet, the winner two weeks ago, is third in the standings, just two markers behind Rendell while Burt Morse is only four points in back of Sweet.
Jeff Waterman continues to lead the highly competitive Street Stock division point chase by 14 markers over rookie driver Matt McCrary who has a 38 point bulge over third place Dave Colpritt. 2009 track champion James Wright III was back on his game last week picking up the feature win and moved to fourth in the standings but is still far behind the leader Waterman.
Chris Spring ended Fred Harrison, Jr.’s win streak in the Mini Stocks last week. Spring’s third win of the year helped him trim Harrison’s point lead to just eight. Chris Narramore, Sr. blew an engine early in the feature last week and lost ground in the points battle as he’s now 34 points behind Harrison.
V-8 Bomber point leaders Josh Borem and Buddy Phillips, Jr. both had a rough week last week but maintain a healthy advantage over third place Paul Bookmiller.
Kim Gullett battled back from an early race crash to finish fifth in the Scrambler feature and maintained her point lead. Brian Tyre, who is second in points, finished one spot ahead of Gullett last week and was able to trim his deficit to ten points.
This Saturday, pit gates open at 2PM, grandstand gates open at 5PM and racing begins at 7PM.
NOTES:
The big news this week is that Auburndale Speedway will be receiving a make-over that will be ready when the Open Wheel Modifieds return on May 15th.
Work to add a tapered four feet of concrete on the inside of the turns is slated to begin on May 9th and take about three days to complete. It’s hoped the change will create two-groove racing in the faster classes and even three-wide racing in classes like Mini Stock, V-8 Bombers and Scramblers.
Loxahatchee’s Jeff Choquette has let it be known he’ll be in the field for the next Late Model race scheduled for May 22nd. Choquette’s car owner, Gary Fountain, was at the track for the AMF Chassis 100 last month scoping things out and even put up an award for the driver towing the farthest to the race. Mark Medeiros is one of those “true” racers who is there each and every time his class (Sportsman) runs at the track. Unlike most racers though, Medeiros is a disabled veteran who races because it’s “in his blood” and is smething that gives him tremendous satisfaction. Running on a very limited budget, Medeiros is third in the point standings despite missing one feature when his car suffered mechanical problems in hot laps. Medeiros wants to finish out the season but, like so many drivers working with tight purse strings, could really use some sponsors to help out. Just look for the black #13 in the pits or let any track official know you are interested in sponsoring Mark or any other driver that catches your eye. Many could really use the help right now even if it is just enough to buy gas or a tire every now and then.
Speaking of the Sportsman class, Dave Dunkin’s big crash last week saw his
30 point advantage in the standings dwindle to just three over second place Austin Carr. Carr won both the Sportsman heat and feature last week (career firsts) driving for Chuck Harrison, Sr. Austin is just 16 years old but has been racing since stepping into a Quarter Midget at the age of five. His dad, uncle and grandfather have all raced at Auburndale and other Central Florida tracks over the years.
The awesomely competitive Open Wheel Modifieds saw their point standings really get jumbled around after last weeks race. Kyle Macy came in leading the points but finished well back in the feature run-down allowing race winner Wayne Morris to take over the point lead. Kyle Bookmiller took over second in the standings while Macy dropped to third just seven points ahead of James Wright III.
Auburndale Speedway will soon have a new-look web site that will be easier to navigate and contain much more information. Thanks go out to Paul Rosarius and Ed Swinford of Palm Tree Computers in Oviedo, FL for helping put it all together.
POINT STANDINGS (as of 5/1/10):
AUBURNDALE TRUCKS:
1-#72 Keith Lilley 50
2-#77 Lance Daubach 46
3-#16 Tim Sozio 36
#1 Tommy King 36
5-#8 Roger Blevins 34
6-#13 J.R. Garcia 32
7-#2 Jim Cowhey, Jr. 28
8-#49 Louis Potter —
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LEGEND CARS:
1-#38 Gerald White, Jr. 314
2-#9 Justin Brown 290
3-#59 Jake Perkins 288
4-#71 Mason Ketterman 268
5-#07 Dave Gleason 232
6-#31 Lynn Wiles 186
7-#4R Zach Napoleon 160
8-#7 Dakota Baggette 136
9-#83 Danielle Stratton 122
10-#51 Roger Englund 114
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MODIFIED MINI STOCKS:
1-#89 Scott Sharpe 220
2-#15 Jason Rendell 176
3-#55 Mike Sweet 174
4-#38 Burt Morse 170
5-#45 Dennis Jones 154
6-#26 Jimmy Pugh 136
7-#07 Bruce Anderson 94
8-#09 Jessica Robbins 82
9-#33 Chris Allen 46
10-#44 Mike Lawhorn 40
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STREET STOCKS:
1-#42 Jeff Waterman 360
2-#5 Matt McCrary 346
3-#4 Dave Colpritt 308
4-#56 James Wright III 236
5-#17 Kyle Hall 208
6-#48 Eddie Hartin 178
7-#65 Ken Lawrence 166
8-#29 Bobby Mobley 162
9-#3 Kevin O’Quinn 150
10-#16 Andy Harvard 122
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MINI STOCKS:
1-#21 Fred Harrison, Jr. 480
2-#42 Chris Spring 472
3-#3 Chris Narramore, Sr. 438
4-#33 Donnie Guy 428
5-#88 Kevin Steadman 262
6-#46 Randy King 246
7-#40 Jason Swilley 202
8-#4 Marilyn McCrary 164
9-#90 Danny Pearson 136
10-#551 Mark Wells 130
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V-8 BOMBERS:
1-#111 Josh Borem – 436
2-#05 Buddy Phillips, Jr. 390
3-#0 Paul Bookmiller 304
4-#56 James Wright, Sr. 272
5-#42 Brandon Duchscherer 178
6-#96 Larry Chumney, Sr. 128
7-#14 Donnie King 124
8-#29 Brian Harbin 118
9-#18 Kevin Barton 94
10-#60 Greg Valdez 92
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SCRAMBLERS:
1-#28 Kim Gullett 310
2-#66 Brian Tyre 300
3-#00 Chad Cutting 262
4-#51 Matt Johns 216
5-#62 Richard Brown 214
6-#71 Dave Canfield 184
7-#4 Scott Russ 174
8-#52 Gary Brown 138
9-#42 Mike Bauer 126
#88 Gene Harrison 126
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BANDOLEROS:
BANDITS:
1-#38 Cameron White 342
2-#5 Derek Sobel 98
3-#11 Coty Bibeau 44
4-#30 Noah Cornman 42
OUTLAWS:
1-#13 Ryan Shattuck 146
2-#96 Teddy Lively 142
3-#48 Andy Metz 138
4-#1 Mark Bibeau 34
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LATE MODELS:
1-#07 Jeff Scofield 201
2-#407 Jason Vail 167
3-#21 Kevin Ingram 165
4-#50 Perry Lovelady 156
5-#49 Ron Lofquist 153
6-#54 Ryan Lisak 132
7-#82 Danny Maddox 122
8-#39 Tyler Lang 120
9-#36 Tim Russell 103
10-#27 Cody Lane 100
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OPEN WHEEL MODIFIEDS:
1-#98 Wayne Morris 517
2-#03 Kyle Bookmiller 499
3-#19 Kevin Macy 496
4-#56 James Wright III 492
5-#87 Keith Lilley 464
6-#75 Bobby Blake 436
7-#01 Von Pope 381
8-#00 Shawn Harper 357
9-#35 Ron Abney 324
10-#3 Harold Cannon 303
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SPORTSMAN:
1-#71 Dave Dunkin 198
2-#22 Austin Carr 196
3-#13 Mark Medeiros 180
4-#51 Kyle Alford 146
5-#1 Bart Weatherford 118
6-#92 Ted Head 88
7-#60 Richard Fiore 84
8-#19 Chris Lewellen 70
9-#8 Brandon Duchscherer 66
#47 Bobby Mobley 66
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MINI CUPS:
1-#14 Sam Scott 88
2-#07 Harold Crooms 84
3-#74 John Beach 76
4-#1 Rick Ragan 68
5-#08 Tyler Scofield 56
#47 Brandon Beach 56
7-#27x Dale Pulst 54
#22 Rick Cline, Sr. 54
9-#48 Carlos Pinto 52
10-#24 Mike Holt 42
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DWARF CARS:
1-#42 Jonathan Guy 98
2-#0 Sonny O’Sullivan 92
3-#25 Johnny Bass 68
4-#00 Bo Bass 44
5-#00 Donny Bass 42
6-#99 Terry Taylor 32
#9 Zane Davis 32
8-#0z Dan Statter 30
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