by Bill Green, From Behind The MIC

Buzzie Reutimann had every fan on their feet Saturday night at East Bay Raceway Park. Starting eighth, outside row four, the local racing legend drove to the front with a renewed since of enjoyment normally seen in a much younger competitors eyes.

Climbing out of the car in victory lane the very fit 66 year old Reutimann, ever the jokester said with a huge smile, “Was that a hundred laps?” Pause, breath… “It sure felt like it!” The crowd laughed with him.

Winning his second race of only three he has been able to run in the young season, seems to have put a new-found spring in his step and a fresh twinkle in his eyes.

“I tell you what, there is a lot of competition here at East Bay in this class.” said Reutimann, father of NASCAR racer David Reutimann. “The car was really working on the bottom and I knew a lot of the guys like the 27 (John Bradley) and the 22 (Dale Kelly) were going to have to run the top side, (laughing) so I figured the shortest way around was the bottom.”

Reutimann’s crew chief Terry Peters enjoyed this win as much as any other.

“He bent the right front wheel in the heat race, but the only one we had to replace it with was bigger in diameter. Buzzie and I talked and we really wanted to keep the front stagger the same. So we decided to leave the bent wheel on.” said crew chief Terry Peters. “It worked!”

When asked about his rising popularity this late in his racing career, Buzzie was very modest.

 

 Buzzie Ruetimann Interview - March 2008 [20:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

“It’s quiet an honor for the Reutimann family, all our lives we have raced because that’s what we enjoyed doing,” said Buzzie “I raced all those years and really you don’t think about how many people’s lives you’ve touched. Like when I was injured at a race in New York and broke my back. All the notes, letters and well wishes you get from fans that have never come down out of the grandstands to see you. I mean, I was sure I’d met every fan I’d ever had, more than once (he laughed), but in the last couple years it has been a great compliment to feel the admiration and have them still recognize me for what I have done in racing.”

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KARNAC MEDIA

Mark Whitener, Middleburg, FL, set fast time and was the fastest car all night en route to a big win at East Alabama Motor Speedway in Phenix City, AL. Saturday night.

Jay Johnson started outside pole, took the lead on lap 1 and held it for the first three laps, but Whitener drove to the front and lead the rest of the way.
Fourty-Seven cars came to race for the $4000 top prize at the 40 year old track, in the third race of the season for the United Dirt Late Model Challenge Series. The series ran qualifying laps, three “B” Mains and started 28 cars.

Ken Kinney, promoter of the series said, “East Alabama was one of the nicest dirt racing facilities I have ever been to, and kudos to the owners for their operation and their hospitality to the United Dirt Late Model Challenge Series.”

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Jeff Firestine is named Pandora Jewelers Driver of the Month

When it came down to picking this person, it was a unanimous decision by many”, stated Rob Elting, co-host on the Inside Florida Racing weekly Internet radio show.

Jeff Firestine, 2006 DeSoto Truck Series Champion, won multiple events at Charlotte County Motorsports Park in the Road Warriors, and also won in the Bomber class at DeSoto Super Speedway. Two wins in the Road Warriors at Charlotte were backed up with a win on March 29th at DeSoto. On that night Jeff finished a dismal 14th at Charlotte, packed up and headed the 50 miles to DeSoto where he won the Bomber feature. April started off with a bang with a win last Saturday in both the Road Warriors and the Figure 8’s at Charlotte.

It is understandable if the month of March may seem like a bit of a blur to Jeff Firestine. February was a nightmare for Jeff Firestine. The second week of the month Frank Firestine, Jeff’s father, best friend and mentor, died suddenly and without warning. So on February 23, Jeff Firestine found himself in the flag stand as honorary starter at Charlotte County Motorsports Park, waving the green flag to start the Frank Firestine Memorial late model race.

 

 Jeff Firestine - Interview [18:56m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Friendship Motor Speedway, a fixture in the ASA Member Track program since 2003, is making a major change for the upcoming season – they are turning the 0.4-mile facility into a dirt track.

“We are putting red clay on top of the pavement” said Phil Hall, Friendship Motor Speedway (FMS) promoter. Hall, along with his partner Dennis Woods, is now managing the Elkin, N.C., racetrack.

“The response has been pretty overwhelming since we made the announcement that we are going to be a dirt track this season,” Hall said about the interest in the small North Carolina community that surrounds FMS. “We have people stopping by (the racetrack) daily to check out the progress. We expect a great turnout of around 2,000 people on opening night and are hoping to have that level out to around 1,000 (fans) each week. The people in the area are very excited and extremely supportive of the change so far.”

 

 Friendship Speedway Promoters Dennis Wood & Phil Hall [15:25m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Hall said that the clay would be approximately 48-inches deep at the top, 16-inches in the middle of the track, and 10-inches deep at the bottom. The transformation to a dirt track is nearly complete, just in time for the April 26 opening night.

The regular Saturday night program will feature Fastrak Crates, Super Streets, Four Cylinders and U-Cars. Hall mentioned that there could be some Super Late Model shows added to the schedule, and the track is also looking to add a Sprint Car event during the season.

“We are also looking to bring in the Legends cars. Some of them are talking about how much fun it would be to run on the dirt. And we are still taking a look at how we could fit something like the Ford Focus program into our schedule also,” Hall said about the race calendar which can be found online, along with other information about FMS, at www.FriendshipMotorSpeedway.net.

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Virginia Beach, VA – The Kalbones Grill’n Sauce Alcohol Funny Car Team took the field by storm over the weekend during the first event on the 2008 IHRA Knoll Gas Nitro Jam Tour. Spectators were kept on the edge of their seats as driver Laurie Cannister of Johnstown, Ohio smashed record after record on her way to her third career IHRA AFC event win with the victory at the Amalie Oil Texas Nationals at San Antonio Raceway.

With what could be considered to be a racer’s dream weekend, the Kalbones team literally grilled just about every thing in sight from the first fire of the engine starting with grabbing the number one qualifying spot during the Friday night session. The team posted a strong 3.842 pass at 196.85 and never looked back.

Saturday’s weather was absolutely fantastic, which would make one think that the Kalbones team would be thrilled preparing the car’s set up for the afternoon pass. This was not necessarily so, as Tuner Dale Cannister does not have a plethora of information on this car’s combination just yet.

The sun blasted down on the event during the second session making it very difficult for teams to figure out just what the track would hold. In typical “Cannister Style”, Dale used his common sense approach to tune the car again to another superb run, clocking a 3.788 at 197.62. Not only did this keep the team provisionally in the number one spot, but it also would give them the World Speed record and a pending World ET record for the 1/8-mile. With the weather forecast for race day being very similar to this session, this run also proved to be quite a good bit of information for the Kalbones team’s arsenal.

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Team News Release

Series rookie J.R. Hildebrand gave Palmetto, Fla.-based RLR/Andersen Racing its best finish ever in Firestone Indy Lights competition by finishing second Sunday on the St. Petersburg street course in the Allied Building Products No. 25.

The runner-up finish came in only the fifth start ever in this series for Hildebrand, a native of Sausalito, Calif., who resides in Indianapolis. It was also the second top-five finish for Hildebrand in less than 24 hours, as he finished fifth Saturday in the first half of the Firestone Indy Lights doubleheader that supported the Honda Grand Prix of St. Petersburg IndyCar race.
The race was quite wild, and Hildebrand escaped numerous close calls to take the checkered flag 1.5415 seconds behind Richard Antinucci. Logan Gomez was third followed by Dillon Battistini and Sean Guthrie.

Hildebrand’s RLR/Andersen Racing teammate, Andrew Prendeville of Las Vegas, was the victim of one of the numerous accidents. He ended up 20th, completing 22 of the 40 laps in the Best Friends Animal Society No. 5.

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By Skip Wall

Some people are baffled that a young female won the season opener a couple of weeks ago at Tri County in the Super Cup Stock Car Series.

Megan Reitenhour was the official winner. Her crew chief thought she could win this season. He car owner expected her to win. Was it the pressure? Who knows. But could it be luck?

One of the members of her team found a penny after qualifying stuck to a rear tire. So the team member taped it to the cars dash. And yes she did win and believes in luck.

Hats off to the advisory board of its decision to NOT allow the fiberglass bodies now being used in ProCup to participate this year in Super Cup. This proves that this new series is all about the smaller teams and using the left over and outdated steel bodied cars. Those smaller teams have a place to race and go have fun.

Tri County proved that a few weeks ago.

 

 Listen: Megan Reitenhour Interview March 2008 [7:50m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

And just why is it that only after one Super Cup race that some ProCup drivers are already wanting to move fiberglass bodies over to the Super Cup??? This may have USAR officials in the Myrtle Beach offices scratching heads already.

But one thing for sure is that the Super Cup series is having an effect on ProCup. At Lakeland they barely filled the field. At the Georgia race this past weekend they didnt fill the field.

So maybe the switchover to the fiberglass body in ProCup wasn’t such a good deal after all.

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REAL RACIN’ USA Media

“It really gets the wheels turning when you hear about that much money, it gets the juices flowing and you think about how you can go after it.” That was veteran short track ace Eddie Hoffman’s reaction to learning about the $100,000 Bonus offered to a driver who can win all three ASA Late Model Triple Crown races in 2008.

ASA Late Model Series President Ron Varney broke the news about the added prize on The Real Racin’ USA weekly “ASA Fastlane” show recently. The series signed a deal with O’Reilly Auto Parts to sponsor the newly created Triple Crown, with races at the O’Reilly Raceway Park ,Salem Speedway and Memphis International Raceway and Memphis Motorsports Park. “We’ll have a $100,000 bonus if anybody can win all three races, that is pretty exciting”, Varney said. “Anytime you can throw up that $100,000 mark up there, that’s pretty big in this asphalt side of it,” he added.

 

 $100,000 Triple Crown [24:59m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Varney explained, “We are very excited about it, O’Reilly’s is excited about it, we have been trying to get together with O’Reilly for a few years now, and Terry [Wall] kind of helped get this deal put together, and we are real excited, not only what we are going to be doing with O’Reilly’s this year but what could come for the future.”

There has been a blizzard of news coming out of the ASA Late Model Series in 2008, before a race has even been run. At a press conference at Tri-County Speedway, site of the ASA Late Model Challenge Division rainout earlier in the month, Varney announced that the series will be the support race for the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series at Gateway International Speedway on September 6th.

The ASA Late Model Series kicks off its Southern Division Championship chase this weekend at Bronson Motor Speedway, near Gainesville, Florida.

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Real Racin’ USA Media

“What’s going on here in the spec motor world, between Alabama and Pensacola and down here in South Florida is it’s a motor war, and it’s all about money,” says Jeff Choquette. Last year’s winner of the Florida Governors Cup and World Series of Asphalt Stock Car Racing 2008 champ added, “It’s all because who is going to sell more motors.”

Choquette was responding to comments made last week by Wayne Anderson on Real Racin USA Live!, the Tuesday night offering from Real Racin’ USA. Anderson indicated the Florida spec motor was at the root of problems with Florida super late model racing. Choquette took exception to some of the comments made by Anderson and wanted to clarify for race fans the issues Anderson spoke of.

Choquette laid down a challenge, “If anybody at any point in time wants to bring me a spec motor fresh out of Steve’s shop, I will be more than happy to give them my spec motor out of my car. That’s how equal I know they are and that’s how much trust I have in Steve at Progressive.”

Anderson’s main argument against the Florida spec motors seemed to center around the lack of a chip to limit performance. “The Florida spec motor is way out of whack right now, they don’t have a chip. There is three spec motors in the United States running and two of them are on a chip and the one in Florida doesn’t have a chip so it’s a whole different ball game.”

FASCAR Touring Series operator Don Nerone, who created the Sunbelt Super Late Model Series, weighed in with a promoters point of view, “Now the FASCAR Spec motor is the preferred motor. When the 9-1 cost was in the $35,000, the Ford was about $40,000 and the Chevy was $30,000. Soon all the teams after losing with a motor that cost between $30,000 and $50,000 were happy to change to a $16,000 motor that will last and be competitive. This rule saved teams 50 percent on their engine bill. How can that be wrong.”

DeWaine McGunegill from McGunegill Engine Performance spent about 20 minutes addressing questions about the motor issues facing super late model promoters, teams and drivers. “Anytime you have a spec engine it’s a little different, the standards are a little different than say, a sealed engine,” the Indiana based engine builder explained. “There is definitely one thing that all spec engines or a sealed engine has to have, and that’s a rev limit. The whole purpose of a spec engine is basically two-fold, save costs and money of the racer and improve car counts for the promoter. And I think a rev limit is a necessity in anything like that, for longevity and to accomplish that goal.”

Steve McInnis, owner of Progressive racing engines, countered some of the points made by McGunegill, including the sealed versus spec motor concept. “The spec motors are sealed, every motor has three seals, each seal has numbers on the seals. Each time we update or freshen somebody’s motor or build a new motor, it gets faxed to all the tracks, to all the promoters. We have things in the seals themselves that we can quick check at the track to see if anybody has tampered with it.”

Don Nerone pointed out in a phone interview earlier in the day that there will be a motor auctioned off Saturday at New Smyrna Speedway, at the Goodyear Challenge Late Model race. McInnis explained further, “We have caught people before tampering with the limited late model motors, which they are going to auction off at the first Goodyear race”. The owner of the motor was rebuilt to be legal.

Another issue tackled by Steve McInnis was the list of parts in the Florida spec motor. Several drivers have said that the list of parts inside the sealed motor are not made public or available to the drivers. “I faxed a list of every part that is in that motor to CRA. All the tech officials, all the promoters have a list of everything that is in that motor.”

 

 McGunegill - Progressive - Choquette - Anderson - Nerone - Motor Wars! [63:37m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The whole segment is 1 hour long and is a fascinating insight into the inner workings of late model racing, and hopefully will spark positive debate that may lead to some solutions to continue and make improvements to the sport of late model stock car racing.

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