Biggest Stories of the Past 30 Days
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Biggest Stories of the Past 30 Days
By: Pete MacDonald
It’s been exactly 32 days since the Northeast Dirt Modified season kicked off at the Georgetown Speedway’s Melvin Joseph Memorial. It made me think a little about what have been the biggest stories so far in 2016.
The top story on everyone’s mind was and continues to be the protest of Brett Hearn at the Short Track Super Series Hard Clay Open. Hearn’s crew members refused to remove his hood for technical inspection following his win. Hearn then went out and won the Sportsman feature, his first in 38 years. I’m sure that there is more to the tech story than what went down, but it’s over and done with and it seems that everybody has moved on.
It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint and a staff that cares about the sport as a whole does to a facility—which has contributed to the resurgence of Georgetown Speedway. I must admit that until this season I was never really a fan of Georgetown, but now I love the place. So far it seems to have paid big dividends for Brett and Heather Deyo.
Mother Nature – After such a mild winter, everyone’s hopes were high for a dry and warm early start to the 2016 season. The weather has been less than ideal across the area in the last couple of weeks. I’ve had more than my fair share of rain and wind in the past month to last me a while. Thankfully this weekend (at least right now) looks good.
The Harpell vs. Skotnicki war – In recent weeks this seemed more like a WWE storyline than anything else. When Joe Skotnicki bought the rights to the RoC Series last season, he was guaranteed it would be debt-free. Unfortunately for Andy Harpell’s sake it wasn’t, leading to a pending legal issue between the both of them. I really think Skotnicki should have started his own series and this wouldn’t be happening right now.
11 Cars – When the RoC Dirt Schedule was set to open at Selinsgrove Speedway on March 26th, only 11 cars had entered the pit area for competition. Track officials decided at that point to cancel the afternoon’s events citing “extreme circumstances.”
Good NEWS – For a division that started out with just two cars at the beginning of last year, it looks like as many as 18 North East Wingless Sprint Cars will show up for their first event of 2016 this Saturday at New Egypt Speedway. Multiple open test sessions have helped in the sudden surge in car counts. I have a feeling by the end of the season there may be cars going home before their feature hits the race track.
On March 19th, Stewart Friesen had a full afternoon of driving back and forth between race tracks. Friesen originally planned on racing at New Egypt Speedway until he looked at the weather forecast that morning. Friesen changed his plans and was almost to Selinsgrove Speedway, when they then cancelled due to the weather. Friesen finally high-tailed it to New Egypt, where he rescaled the car, borrowed sail panels, and raced to a $5,000 win.
Dominant Dominick – Dominick Buffalino absolutely dominated the Doug Hoffman Memorial on March 26th at Bridgeport Speedway. Buffalino–who hadn’t won in almost three seasons–took the lead on lap three and never looked back.
What do you think the biggest stories of 2016 have been so far? I can be reached at racersguide@gmail.com or found on Twitter @PMacDonald51. Thanks for reading!
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