Justin Zoch's Upper Midwest Ramblings, Part Two
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
Billy Alley, minus Kraig Kinser, may have had the best month of August of all Sprint Car racers. Alley was crowned Mr. Sprint Car, started the Nationals on the front row after finishing fourth in his preliminary, won the 360 Nationals and $10,000 and was the show at the Huset’s Gold Cup, charging from 10th to third. Alley has also been hired to drive the potent Mark Burch, who sold Alley his first car, racer for selected shows. To round out his month, Alley scored a second to Brian Brown at Knoxville. Alley is still searching for his first 410 victory at Knoxville. It always seems that someone new steals the season finale, ala Colin Northway. I’ll put my money on Alley this week…It was nice to see Stevie Walsh back at Knoxville after two, seriously, TWO life-threatening accidents within a week at Knoxville during Southern Iowa Speedweek. Walsh has photos that show the cage being smashed into the ground when the wing tree actually penetrated his helmet. Walsh purchased a car from Christi Passmore and scored seventh with his new ride. Walsh will remain stateside until the end of September. As for Passmore, she returned to the winged wars and scored a two barrel victory at Creek County Speedway on Saturday…Davey Heskin has been racing all summer at Knoxville on Saturday nights but, on Sundays, he and his brother Danny have been racing karts at Flying Pines Speedway in Balsam Lake, Wisconsin. Each of them won their respective championships. Their father D.J. promised that each would be racing Knoxville next summer in the 360 division…Nice to see Jerry Richert Jr. back at Knoxville on Saturday night in Joe Kouba’s 55. The team was loaded to race Red Cedar against the IRA on Friday and, following the rainout, decided to head south to Knoxville. Richert was pumping up the pending Jerry Richert Memorial at Cedar Lake Speedway, which will feature the Knoxville racers against the IRA and NOSA clubs. Richert promised the customary bonuses for racers and special family tributes to one of the all-time greats that hallmark the event. It is scheduled for Saturday night September 10.
Tidbits
Randy Hannagan has had quite a month of August. After hauling nearly $15,000 out of Knoxville for his work during the Nationals, he has scored a win at the Kenosha County Fair against the IRA and this week added MASS to the organization’s he defeated this year by besting a big field at Butler’s World War III. Hannagan’s fifth win of the year paid him $5,000…Justin Zimmerman was a surprise victor at Nodak Speedway in Minot, North Dakota. The resident of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, and 358 racer, hooked up with Rhys and Pam Layton’s K9 team while driver Donavon Peterson was at Huset’s. Zimmerman scored the win from the pole over Chris Shirek. The 21-year-old is a friend of Dustin Lindquist crew chief Brad Sparks and was certainly impressive in his Midwest debut…Mark Dobmeier swept to two victories last weekend, on Friday at River Cities and Sunday at Huset’s. He is now ten for 12 in starts at River Cities and has at least 16 wins in 2005…Gregg Bakker scored his seventh Jackson win on Saturday night as AJ Childs got his second career win in the Double Barrel Sprint Series. Coupled with a 410 win at Huset’s, Bakker has quietly had another great season…Huset’s Speedway is really pulling out the stops in the promotional department and is going to open the grandstands to everyone free of charge for their September 11 season championship event. That’s FREE 410 Sprints and 360 Sprints. A nice move by management and hopefully the weather will cooperate and the place will be packed.
That’s going to do it for this week’s edition. E-mails are accepted and corrections are welcomed. I’m currently convinced that Ike Reilly has it right with his lyric “Cars and drinks and songs and girls/Make this whole world spin around.” Pretty much sums it up for me. Send something better to me at justin@mompub.
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