"The 2004 Season in Review"
Every year a couple of rookies make some noise and win a race or two, but can anybody remember when two different 16 year olds won their respective series championships in the same year? It happened this year, as it was Cameron Dodson of Greenfield, Indiana taking the inaugural Mid-American Sprint Series crown, and Cody Geldart of Mossley, Ontario winning the Southern Ontario Sprints title.
Dodson had what can only described as a spectacular season. Besides winning the MASS Championship, he also compiled 8 sprint car feature wins along the way, 7 coming in dirt 410 sprint car competition, and 1 other coming in pavement 410 sprints. Dodson raced only 3 races on pavement this year, all in the Myers #8, set 2 track records in qualifying for those 3 races, won 1 of them, and finished in the top 4 in the other two. On September 10th at Dixie Motor Speedway in Michigan, Dodson raced a full sized sprint car on pavement for the first time, but nobody would have guessed that when watching the young racer hot lapping at track record pace. Then in time trials, he blew away Jeff Bloom's track record by more than 2 tenths of a second, with a lap of 12.539 seconds on the tricky 4/10's mile high banked oval. He then backed up his time trial heroics by finishing 3rd in the main event. 2 weeks later at Fort Wayne, Indiana's Baer Field Speedway, Dodson took the track record down by an unbelievable 4 tenths of a second, from 14.55 to a staggering 14.137 seconds on the relatively flat paved half mile. In the feature event, Dodson started 8th, was in 2nd place by lap 8, and made a daring winning pass 3 wide around leader Hank Lower and a lapped car during the 9th circuit. From there he cruised to victory, never seriously challenged. Dodson also discovered he's got a lot left to learn though, as his first visit to the world's most important sprint car race - the Knoxville Nationals - resulted with his week ending in the Saturday night C-feature. This is no small feat though, as the Nationals bring together some the best sprint car racers in the world, and entries from 120+ teams. Many tracks and series would love to have the drivers and cars which can only muster finishes in the consolation features at Knoxville starting in their A Feature. As veteran Danny Smith says, the C-Main at Knoxville is really the "First A-Main".
Geldart's season, though not as spectacular as Dodson's, is still impressive. Cody racked up 5 wins in Southern Ontario Sprints competition, finished 12th out of nearly 80 cars at the Brodix Tournament of Champions at Knoxville, set fast time at the Canadian Sprint Car Championships, and won the SOS title. Next season Geldart will move up to 410 sprints and make an attempt at the All Star Circuit of Champions rookie of the year title, as well as competing in some World of Outlaws races. Geldart, in fact, has already gotten his 410 career underway, competing in a handful of All Star and World of Outlaw events after finishing the season here in Ontario.
Some other notable teenage racers who made an impression this year are the Breen brothers, Blake and Bobby, who are 18 and 15 years old respectively, 18 year old Kyle Patrick, 18 year old Jack Pillon, 17 year old Ryan Litt, 16 year old Travis Rutz, 18 year old Mike Lichty, and just turned 16 year old Bryan Clauson.
Blake Breen beat a stellar field of 48 of the best sprint cars in the Northeast at New York State's Black Rock Speedway in the "Earl Halaquist Memorial", while brother Bobby fought him all season for the Patriot Sprint Group rookie of the year crown and won a PSG feature race in June at Black Rock.
Tilbury, Ontario's Kyle Patrick, a finalist for last year's National 360 Sprint Car Poll Rookie of the Year award, won an SOS feature race this season at the Brighton Speedway, while Pillon, a native of Belle River, Ontario, took home the 2004 SOS rookie of the year award.
Ryan Litt, from Lyons, Ontario, racked up 6 2nd place finishes and 2 wins on the USAC Ford Focus Midget trail, but could only muster a 3rd place finish in the points because of some costly accidents and mechanical failures. Ryan also competed in 2 USAC National Sprint Car races on pavement, at Anderson, Indiana and Nashville, Tennessee, but had disappointing finishes due to a sputtering engine. Next year Ryan is geared up to run for the USAC National Sprint Car rookie of the year title. Even though he will only compete in the pavement events, and no dirt events, other pavement only racers have won the rookie of the year award in the past.
Out West, Travis Rutz was the rookie sensation. The Langley, British Columbia driver won multiple 410 sprint features at Washington State's famed Skagit Speedway, competed strongly on the Northern Sprint Tour (360's), and with the World of Outlaws when that tour made it's annual trip to the Pacific Northwest. One of the highlights of Travis' season was previously detailed in an earlier column - his win in the Gold Cup at Edmonton's Budweiser Motorsports Park in August. The win was worth $5,000 to Travis and his team, which was the highest amount of money paid out to a 360 Sprint Car race winner in Canada this year.
Innerkip, Ontario's Mike Lichty has had an excellent rookie campaign on the ISMA Supermodified tour. In the most recent ISMA event at Seekonk, Mass., Mike started 13th, behind such talented Supermodified racers as Oswego Supernationals winner Bobby Santos III, 5 time champion Russ Wood, former champions Mike Ordway, who won this year's Sandusky Hy-Miler Classic, and Pat Abold, winner of this year's "Fastest Short Track Show in the World" at Toledo Speedway, and Lichty passed them all to finish in 2nd place. Mike is almost certainly a lock for the 2004 ISMA rookie of the year title, and sits 6th in ISMA points, sandwiched between fellow Canadians Dave KcKnight and Mark Sammut. With a good run in the last race at Thompson, CT this coming weekend, Mike could move as high as 4th in the season points standings, as he is currently only one point behind McKnight and Nokie Fornoro, who are tied for 4th.
Indiana driver Bryan Clauson, just recently turned 16, has been tearing up the very tough short tracks in his home state, winning 6 features in his non-winged sprint car, to go along with a myriad of 2nd and 3rd place finishes at such demanding bullrings as Gas City, Bloomington, and Lawrenceburg. The future looks bright for Bryan as he is seemingly following much the same career path as those of NASCAR stars Jeff Gordon and Tony Stewart.
For the sake of brevity, and so as not to rehash the topic too much, I will keep the next few paragraphs short. Open wheel racing in Ontario has grown exponentially over the last couple of years. A few examples during this past season drove the point home. One instance came at the South Buxton Raceway during the SOS club's return to the Raceway for the first time in 5 seasons. 6 cars started the Dash race that evening - Glenn Styres, Keith Dempster, Adam West, Cody Geldart, Kyle Patrick, and John Reigling - and I suddenly realized that any one of those 6 could be a good bet to win, and good drivers like Warren and Dick Mahoney, Mark Schultz, and Bobby Crawford, were not even in the dash! The competition in the SOS has never been stronger. There were 9 different winners on the SOS tour this year. In the 8 SOS races held at Ohsweken Speedway alone, there were 7 different winners. Province wide, 5 sprint car organizations sanctioned a combined 28 sprint car events (more than half being SOS events of course) at 6 different tracks in 2004, and 109 drivers took part in at least one of those events.
The future certainly looks bright for open wheel racing in Ontario. SOS President Peter Turford's comments in a recent interview hint at some very big things coming up for next year, including continued growth of other co-sanctioned events with other series such as the SOS/SOD Can-Am Challenge series which took place in August, what he termed as a "HUGE" announcement which will be made in late November or early December regarding next year's Canadian Sprint Car Championships. Continued improvements at Ohsweken Speedway are on tap over the winter, track owner Glenn Styres has expressed his desire to make Ohsweken a "showcase for racing in Canada", and rumours persist about the All Star Sprint Cars coming to Ohsweken, along with what has been termed as a "big money 360 race".
In the last few weeks, some more news from the rumour mill gives reason for even more optimism: Recent ownership and management changes at Delaware Speedway, and a meeting for teams and owners shortly thereafter produced some very interesting news. Apparently the remaining owners of the track are interested in bringing the ISMA Supermodified organization back to the London, Ontario area paved oval for the first time in 20 or more years. Schedule conflicts could prevent it from happening, but we'll be keeping our fingers crossed. No matter what, it's just nice to even hear this sort of thing being discussed. ISMA has a strong contingent of Ontario drivers, including Mark Sammut from London, as well as Mike and Brad Lichty, and 2001 ISMA Champ Dave McKnight. Many years ago, Delaware once featured Supermodified racing on a weekly basis.
Along with ISMA, there is also talk of a return visit by the AVSS. The Michigan based 410 pavement sprint car organization ran races at Delaware in 2001 and 2002, but were not on the schedule in each of the last two years. Mount Brydges, Ontario native Mike Ling competes on the AVSS circuit, so a return visit would be great for both Mike, and his many fans who don't get to see him run very often. Another area racer, the aforementioned Ryan Litt, could also be a possible entrant in an AVSS race at Delaware. Stay tuned; this is potentially very big news for racing fans in Southwestern Ontario.
"Odds and Ends" - Season Review Edition
A few personal highlights of the 2004 racing season:
….Bobby Crawford's first sprint car win was my personal favourite moment of the season. It goes to show that nice guys sometimes finish first…….
…...Watching Kevin Feeney smoke his way around Toledo Speedway has basically become a yearly tradition for me. This year he broke his own track record, lowering it to 12.94 seconds, over 139 mph around the high banked paved half mile. Makes me wonder what Cameron Dodson could do with the place……
……Timmy J's car was a rocket during the ISMA portion of the Jim Shampine Memorial at Oswego Speedway back in May. He and his team had that big block engine just screaming down the straights, and the way he drove into the corners reminded me of an Indy car. It was racing in its purest form, and a joy to watch. I wish ISMA would run time trials there……
……The Canadian Sprint Car Championship was once again a great race. The early battle between John Reigling, Nick Mulheim, and Adam West was as good as it gets in sprint car racing. Unfortunately neither West nor Reigling seemed up to the challenge at the end. Nick Mulheim is another teenager with a bright future. The kid can sure drive a racecar………
Well, that's it for another season. I hope it was as much fun for everybody else as it was for me. As always I can be reached via my website: www.TheRaceChasers.com . See ya at the races!