{"id":5224,"date":"2011-02-24T14:46:57","date_gmt":"2011-02-24T14:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/?p=5224"},"modified":"2011-02-24T14:51:40","modified_gmt":"2011-02-24T14:51:40","slug":"auburndale-speedway-season-opener-features-seven-classes-saturday-night-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/tracks\/auburndale-speedway\/auburndale-speedway-season-opener-features-seven-classes-saturday-night-2\/","title":{"rendered":"AUBURNDALE SPEEDWAY SEASON OPENER FEATURES SEVEN CLASSES SATURDAY NIGHT"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Dave Westerman<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n
 Coming off a very successful Winternationals program last week, Auburndale<\/span><\/span>\r\nSpeedway is set and ready to begin the 2011 regular racing season with\r\nseven<\/span><\/span> divisions seeing action on Saturday night.  The Sportsman cars\r\nheadline the<\/span><\/span> class list this week and will be joined by the Modified Mini Stocks,\r\nStreet<\/span><\/span> Stocks, Mini Stocks, V-8 Bombers, Scramblers and the Kids Club.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n One of the biggest early-season announcements is that this will be the final<\/span><\/span>\r\nseason of driving for Lakeland racing veteran Dave Dunkin.  Dunkin, who\r\nbegan <\/span><\/span>his racing career back in the late 1960s and has always considered \r\nAuburndale<\/span><\/span> his home track, has countless feature wins and track \r\nchampionships here <\/span><\/span>including last years Sportsman title.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\nDunkin is hoping for one last championship this year as he will campaign a<\/span><\/span>\r\nbrand-new Sportsman machine.  However, his biggest competition may come\r\nfrom<\/span><\/span> his own teammate.  Mark Medeiros, who was runner-up to Dunkin in\r\nSportsman<\/span><\/span> points in 2010 driving his own unsponsored effort, will be behind\r\nthe wheel of<\/span><\/span> the car that carried Dunkin to the title last year.  Dunkin will run\r\nhis<\/span><\/span> familiar #71 \"Blue Goose\" while Medeiros will run car #171.  The team\r\nwill <\/span><\/span>have a third car as a back-up.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n Long-time local car owner Chuck Harrison plans on fielding four Sportsman<\/span><\/span>\r\nmachines this year for himself, Brandon \"Bones\" Duchscherer and sons\r\nChuck,<\/span><\/span> Jr. and Dustin.  Richard Elkins, Jr. will be back in action along with\r\nBrandon<\/span><\/span> Morris, Lance Daubach, Bart Weatherford and many others.   \r\n\r\n The Modified Mini <\/span><\/span>Stock class, on the verge of being dropped early last year,\r\nsaw a big resurgence<\/span><\/span> late in the year and looks to be a very strong division<\/span><\/span>\r\nfor 2011.  Mini Stock class <\/span><\/span> champion Chris Spring will be moving into the\r\nMod Minis while former Mini Stock<\/span><\/span>  champion and last years runner-up\r\nFred Harrison, Jr. has a new Mod Mini ready <\/span><\/span> for action.  Harrison also\r\nplans to branch out and run other tracks this year along <\/span><\/span>with his home track.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n  Jason Rendell has a new Mod Mini ready to go plus a back-up car.\r\nAshton<\/span><\/span> Hunt will run her first full season in the class and will join a great\r\ngroup<\/span><\/span> of drivers including Bo Collier, Mike Sweet, Dennis Jones, Nathan\r\nFlorian and<\/span><\/span> many more.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\nExpect another strong field of cars in the Street Stock class for 2011<\/span><\/span>\r\nheaded by defending champion Matt McCrary.  Jeff Waterman and his\r\nbrother Mark<\/span><\/span> will both return to action along with Dave Colpritt, Cody\r\nMcDuffie, Bobby<\/span><\/span> Mobley, Kyle Hall, Kyle Peters and a host of others.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n  With the departure of Spring and Harrison from the Mini Stock ranks,\r\nthe<\/span><\/span> class will be wide open this year and will see a new champion for\r\nthe first<\/span><\/span> time in several years.  A number of new driver\/car combos are\r\nexpected as well<\/span><\/span> as in the V-8 Bomber and Scrambler classes too.  A\r\nnumber of new drivers have<\/span><\/span> been added to the Kids Club roster and that\r\n\u00a0class will be an interesting one<\/span><\/span> as well in 2011.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n  Pit gates open this Saturday at 2PM, grandstands open at 5PM and\r\nracing<\/span><\/span> begins at 7PM.  Adult admission is still just $12, seniors are\r\nadmitted for<\/span><\/span> $10, kids 5-12 are $5 and all kids under the age of 5 get in\r\nfree.  A family <\/span><\/span>\"four pack\" (2 adults and 2 kids aged 5-12) remains at $25.\r\nFor more <\/span><\/span>information, log on to www.auburndale<\/a> racing.com powered by\r\nPalm Tree<\/span><\/span> Computers.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\nNOTES:  The management of Auburndale Speedway would like to thank\r\nall of the <\/span><\/span>drivers, crews and staff for a very successful Winternationals\r\nprogram last<\/span><\/span> week that saw close to 100 Legend Cars and Bandoleros\r\nin action over a five<\/span><\/span> day period.  U.S. Legends Car International has\r\nalready announced that <\/span><\/span>Auburndale Speedway will once again be host\r\nto the Winternationals in February <\/span><\/span>2012 and the event should be even\r\nbigger that it was this year.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n  Auburndale Speedway owner\/promoter Rex Guy will be absent from\r\nthe first<\/span><\/span> night of racing at his track this year, but he has a good reason.\r\nGuy will<\/span><\/span> accompany his son Johnathan who will be taking part in the\r\nfirst-ever race for<\/span><\/span> the Florida United Promoters Late Model Series at\r\nDesoto Super Speedway <\/span><\/span>Saturday night.  Between 25-30 cars are\r\nexpected for the season opener.  The <\/span><\/span>second race in the Series will\r\nbe held at Auburndale Speedway on March 19th.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n  The Legend Cars and Bandoleros will have the first week of the season\r\noff to<\/span><\/span> \"recover\" from the Winternationals, but look for a strong field for their<\/span><\/span>\r\nopening night on March 5th.  Several new drivers will be in action in both<\/span><\/span>\r\nclasses.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\nThe Auburndale Little Racers program is already off to a strong start for 2011\r\nas two new bicycles will be given away to a pair of lucky youngsters on\r\nopening night courtesy Stewart's Auto Repair of Winter Haven.  All kids aged\r\n10 and under will get an extra ticket as they pass through the gates that\r\nmakes them eligible for the prizes.  One girls bike and one boys bike will be\r\ngiven away.  Precision Air of Winter Haven and \u00a0Aaron's Rent to Own are\r\nreturning as corporate sponsors and there's more to come.\r\nThe kids will be having a banner year at Auburndale Speedway.<\/span><\/span>\r\n\r\n  Drivers are going to be given the opportunity to have their own personal web\r\nsite at a very low cost through Palm Tree Computers of Oviedo.  Look for\r\nmore information to be available in the next couple of weeks.<\/span><\/span>\r\n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Dave Westerman Coming off a very successful Winternationals program last week, Auburndale Speedway is set and ready to begin the 2011 regular racing season […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"publish_to_discourse":"","publish_post_category":"","wpdc_auto_publish_overridden":"","wpdc_topic_tags":"","wpdc_pin_topic":"","wpdc_pin_until":"","discourse_post_id":"","discourse_permalink":"","wpdc_publishing_response":"","wpdc_publishing_error":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5224","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-auburndale-speedway"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5224","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5224"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5224\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5227,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5224\/revisions\/5227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5224"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5224"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/karnac.com\/flanews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5224"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}