Odds and Ends

Now that my mid-week excursion to JMS is behind me, I'm looking forward to getting down to Belleville tonight for the start of the 30th Annual Belleville Midget Nationals.

The High Banks is one of my favorite tracks to watch a race. It's really a freakish design of a dirt track. There's also nothing state-of-the-art about the facilities, it's just your classic fairgrounds half-mile dirt oval.

Now that I think about it, I've been to every Saturday night at the Belleville Nationals since '92. That first year I watched Leland McSpadden win driving Andy Bondio's silver 47 car.

There's more midget racing around here now than when I was growing up, but they're still not real commonplace. We're lucky that one of midget racing's biggest events is held so close to home.

I swear time is standing still this afternoon as I wait until I'm free from work and on the road to Kansas.

Hopefully if it's not the Klatt car this weekend, one of the other Ford powered entries will win. Hey, it's the only time when it's good to be a Ford guy and an open wheel fan.

-Speaking of Belleville...Only 16 cars showed up for the NCRA 360 show at the High Banks last night. Perhaps next year they should run with the ASCS and boost their count a little. Only 16 cars is embarrassing.

-Brian Brown won the event, no surprise there, but he did it in Gary Swenson's 24A car. As my friend Randy "Racetracker" Lawrence, of http://www.racetrackerphotos.com/ fame pointed out, that win marks the 48th year in a row that Gary Swenson has had at least one win as a car owner. That's an impressive record.

-Don Droud Jr. experienced some bad luck in the Ochs Brothers 1X car. While running third in the feature the motor let go, relegating Jr. to a 13th place finish. Hopefully that luck will take a turn for the better tonight for Jr. in the Klatt midget.

-Other area drivers running with the NCRA included Stu Snyder (7th), Tige Jensen (10th), Mike Chadd (DNS), and Roger Sundquist from Holdredge, NE.

-Hard to believe that we're almost to August. The 360 Nationals are set to start next Thursday night at Knoxville. I'll be there until the end of the 410 Nationals Saturday the 11th, so the updates might have to wait unless I can get my hands on a computer while I'm there.

Next Up...
Belleville Midget Nationals, tonight and tomorrow night.