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Los Angeles, CA - April 29, 2005- You
may now remove the TBA (to be announced) for the site of the 65th
running of the Thanksgiving Night "Turkey Night Midget Grand
Prix". The Agajanian family (brothers Cary, Jay and Chris) and
Irwindale Speedway have reached agreement within the last month.
Irwindale Speedway will host the Midget-racing classic Thursday
evening, November 24. It will be the seventh consecutive year that
IS has been the home of the great race. The site of the third annual
NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown (November 10-12) has not yet
been made known by NASCAR to date. Stay tuned.
Ray Wilkings, the long-time operator of Saugus
Speedway to 1995 and the 1999 VP/general manager at Irwindale
Speedway, has been named the new general manager at Atlanta Dragway,
in Commerce, GA. He said, "a return to race-track
operations and management is very exciting." Bob McCoy, the
retired CRA sprint car driver from San Diego, was in the news
recently. Bob, a talented artist, was at The Good Guys Nationals at
the Del Mar Fairgrounds April 1, 2 and 3 for Hot Rod heroes. Fans
were able to meet and greet the affable driver/artist.
Bobby McGowan, who won the USAC Ford Focus Midget
Thanksgiving feature last November at Irwindale Speedway, sold all
his Midget equipment and bought a truck to race this year. He
competes in the ASA Speed Truck Challenge CMKXtreme.com Series. In
his third race, on April 23 at Mesa Marin Raceway, Bobby started
12th and finished fourth in the 28-truck 75-lap feature. He raced
his No. 5 Otay Mesa Sales Chevy S-10, won $675 and collected 54
points. He even beat sixth starter, fifth finisher Lee Hatch, the
ASA truck series champion and frequent main event winner. In fact,
the first four finishers were series rookies. Kyle Cattanach (No.
59), Scott Dodd (No. 9) and Alex Haase (No. 66) were the top three
finishers. Moses Smith, an ex-Formula Mazda driver, qualified 13th
best and was one of 15 rookies in the race. However, Moses was the
first retiree in his flourescent orange No. 76 Chevy S-10.
Buzz Rose's next book, "The Eastern Bull
Rings", will be released in June 2005. The hard-bound,,
high-quality book covers the 1945-1960 Eastern Big Car
Championships. There is a foreword by eastern racing legends driver
Buster Warke and car owner Sam Traylor. There is a special chapter
on Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg,PA by Joe Heisler. There
are 16-pages of color and many unpublished photos. Cost is $59.95,
plus $9.00 for priority shipping & handling. The informative
website www.roseracingpublications.com
has a listing of all prior Rose books, including books about CRA,
IMCA and CSRA sprint car racing.
The Sunday, April 24 Los Angeles Times Magazine
Metropolis/Passing Through feature on page 8 was all about
Demolition Derbies at Irwindale Speedway. Writer Nelson Handel said
the automotive hysteria puts "South" in Southland. He had
photos of four Demo Derby drivers and profiled all four drivers-John
Zimmerman, Milton Eisenhauser, Bryan Hendry and Rick Pimentel. Each
driver answered these questions: What they love about DD? How many
points do you have on your drivers' license? Describe your keys to
winning a DD. Give us some DD lingo. What are you scared of?
Lindsay Nicole Kernohan, the 17-year old USAC
Ford Focus Midget paved track series rookie driver, has finished
both of her FF main events at Irwindale. With the April 9 FF Midget
rain-out at Stockton 99 Speedway, she had no race scheduled until
May 21 at Stockton. So Lindsay and her father came to Irwindale
Speedway April 9 to help in the pits. Lindsay almost landed a ride
in the No. 17 Chevy Pure Stock house car for the women's race. The
only problem was her feet didn't reach the pedals. On Saturday,
April 16 Lindsay was in the pits again to stay close to racing. She
was helping a Legend Cars crew and would like to race one of those
cars too. Maybe her desire to race more often will be realized in
one of those two IS racing series that also use the third-mile
track.
The NASCAR Auto Club Late Model series at
Irwindale this season has an impressive crop of rookie L/M drivers.
They include Austin Grabowski, Johnny White, Justin Lofton , Chris
Houwen and Sean Bennett. They usually qualify among the fastest
drivers and race up front. Two of them (Grabowski and Lofton) won
three of the first four L/M features. The L/M 2005 rookie of the
year battle will be as exciting as the L/M championship battle. The
Auto Club provides an all-expenses paid trip for two to Hawaii to
the L/M champion. Rick Lalor, the Auto Club racing director, attends
each IS L/M race. I told Rick the Auto Club should provide a special
trip for two to Mexico or Las Vegas for the L/M 2005
R of the Y to add even more interest to this race within a race. I'm
sure the above named drivers would agree, but don't sell any of them
short. They intend to win the championship and the trip to Hawaii.
By the way, Austin Grabowski, 16, reminds me physically of NASCAR
Nextel Cup star Ryan Newman. The two-year Legend Cars veteran has a
burly or stocky build, is a fast qualifier, and has stock car racing
talent like Newman. Proving that fact is Grabowski's last (20th) to
first victory in the April 16 IS 50-lap main event.
Greg Biffle won the recent Auto Club 500 at the
California Speedway in Fontana and earned $288,650. The Los Angeles
Times Sports section in Sports Viewpoint the next Saturday had a
reader letter under the lines "Drive for Show, Putt for Real
Dough". It said, "On the same day, in ideal playing
conditions at La Costa, David Toms wins the Accenture Match Play
Championship and earns $1.3 million. Morale: Mothers, let your sons
grow up to be golfers!"
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