Race Report 20

Lincoln Trail Motorsports October 8, 2011

Thursday and Friday were beautiful fall days with near record highs and would have been great race trip days but I had to help Aunt Mary out with some nursing decisions at Saint Mary’s Hospital. The USAC midgets were running in Granite City Illinois or Oktoberfest was running at LaCrosse Wisconsin but time was not sufficient for me to make either of these on Thursday or Friday. Saturday morning I was on the road for a quick trip to southeastern Illinois and another stop at Lincoln Trail Motorsports in Casey Illinois. I had seen the enduro racing on the long 4 mile course in 2004 but today would be racing on the short course that is about ¾-mile long and has lots of elevation changes and Sunday would be the long course race. The race is put on by the Mid American Off Road Association (MAORA) and consists of three 10-lap races for each of the three classes. Today they drew good fields of 12 entries in the small buggy class, 5 trucks and 15 in the big buggy class. The short course is a dirt road course with some left and right hand turns and some natural jumps as they head down hill and a few smaller man-made jumps along the course. I arrived right at noon as the first of the 9 races was lining up and paid my $10 single day admission. I found a spot where they had a 5-row bleacher set up under the high power line that goes through the property and is the highest point on the premises. They start the races in a land rush start from behind the woods that lines the pit area so you don’t see the start. They run downhill from the starting area and after a sharp right hand turn they head into a high-banked left turn that is right below this viewing area. They run down a short straight with a small jump and head left with another jump as they start back uphill. There are some turns on the upper level by the starting area before they come back down and those turns were the only part of the track not visible from my first viewing spot. I moved to the other side of the short straight and from that hilltop you could see about 90 percent of the short course. This is where they have a nice new building that has restrooms and showers. There are no lights and no speaker system. The track was well watered with a big tractor pulling the water wagon and a water truck both in use. Terry Fitzgerald won all three races for the small buggy class and Timmy Shear with co-pilot Adam Shear won all three in the truck class. Dustin Pittman, Mike Geiser and John Frana won the big buggy races. There were two lost wheels in the buggy races and one roll over in the trucks but most of the day was good close racing. I had a good relaxing day of off road racing and they were done at 3:30PM and I headed home. No racing for me on Sunday as I was back with Aunt Mary.

Bryant Speedway Sunday October 16, 2011

Last week was spent caring for Aunt Mary and making some more plans as she was moved back to Karmenta Nursing Home. Then I needed some time to prepare the year end reports for the old fraternity that still has some assets but no longer an active chapter to serve. Saturday morning was the homecoming game at Wisconsin as they played Indiana and I stopped by the former fraternity house to see who might be around. Only about 6 of the old alumni were there and most told of how many old faces were at the last game against the nationally rated Nebraska Cornhuskers. I guess the Indiana game was not a big enough game to draw them back so we just talked informally and did not conduct any fraternity business although I had the report and did give out our profit numbers. Saturday afternoon was another visit to the nursing home and some yard care at home before I left for a racing trip. Saturday night I was going to stop at the Farmer City Raceway in Illinois but they had posted that the races were canceled. Rockford was having the heat races for the Bahama Brackets that would have the six features on Sunday but no feature and I needed to get part way to Indiana so I passed on that and headed south. Sunday Afternoon I pulled into the Bryant Speedway in Bryant Indiana at 1PM to see what the go-kart races would be like today. The track is a 1/10-mile banked dirt oval with some wooden walls on the outside as well as the inside and has just opened under new ownership. They had a couple of senior champs listed a couple of weeks ago but today they had about 50 flat karts and 3 junior champs racing in 8 classes. I met Roger Ferrell just as they started the first round of heats and we walked through the pits and saw 3 senior champ karts but two were on stands and not running today and one was still in the trailer. So we just spent the afternoon bench racing while they quickly went through the two sets of heats and moved into the features. It was a windy day but there were some clouds so the sun did not bake the track. There were some light sprinkles off and on during the day but never enough to stop the races. The last of the money features started 15 karts and had three tries to get a lap completed and then had several yellows but the rest of the day’s races went very fast. They are making improvements and have some lights and will have some speakers shortly. Roger and I took a last swing at each other and went on our separate way home vowing to continue our fighting another day. With no countable class for track chasing or race chasing it was just a nice day to practice driving another 400 miles as I headed home.