Eagle Night Number One

It's always nice to get back to the home track. Eagle Raceway opened it's 2007 season with the Icebreaker Challenge. With 26 sprints, 55 mods, 40 or so hobbies and another 32 hornets it was a busy night on the 1/3 mile.

My Take...

-When the wind stops blowing in Nebraska everyone will fall over. Watching in the pits was a tough task last night. That 30 mile per hour breeze blowing right out of the south...I'm still feeling gritty after two showers.

-The windy conditions didn't help out with the track at all. Between turns one and two especially, with a staircase of ruts 1/3 of the way up. Again it's hard to be too critical of the track condition. First race of the season, dry, sunny and windy all day, and over 150 cars are tough on a track.

-As bad as some of those ruts were it was amazing no sprints got upside down. That was the best part of the evening.

-The feature had some very good racing throughout. Mike Chadd is still tough to beat after all these years. He and Jay Russell had a tough battle for the lead.

-Russell looked very good last night. I'm sure he wanted that win but anytime you're parked on the frontstretch after the feature is a good night.

-I was glad to see Adam Gullion back this week after that nasty accident at I-80. Gullion was running one of Mark Schmidt's old cars and brought it home 11th.

-Gene Ackland quietly put together a good showing. He passed several cars in his heat race and then came home 9th in the feature.

-Trevor Grossenbacher got his first taste of 360 competition and did a nice job. On a rough track in less than ideal conditions the kid kept his nose clean and finished the feature 19th.

-Where was the Swenson 24 with driver Frank Galusha?

-The crowd looked pretty solid last night. I'm glad to see the stands full for the first race. The trick is to keep it that way week in and week out.

-That was quite the marathon program last night. The 4+ hour wait from the end of the sprint heats until the feature was a long one.

-I think Roger Hadan is doing a very nice job running the track and making improvements to the facilities and the quality of racing.

Oval Operators
3. Jay Russell
9. Gene Ackland
12. John Klabunde
18. Mark Pace
19. Trevor Grossenbacher
22. Nick Bryan
24. Josh Riggans
25. Doug Lovegrove


And Finally...

Night number one is in the books with all the cars able to come back next week. It looks like it's going to be another exciting season for the 360 Championship Sprints. For complete results visit www.eagleraceway.com.

In addition to the action at Eagle, Knoxville Raceway kicked off their season last night. Nebraska is well represented in the weekly series at Knoxville. Springfield's Jack Dover qualified for his first Knoxville 410 A feature and brought the car home 13th. Seth Brahmer from Wisner finished 19th. Defending 410 champ Billy Alley from Lincoln had a bad night, dropping out of the B main with mechanical problems. Brian Brown was the winner.

Former Eagle regular Rick Ideus formerly of Roca finished 8th in the 360 feature, Ryan Roberts from Aurora ran 15th in his Knoxville debut. Josh Higday grabbed the feature win.
www.knoxvilleraceway.com

Next Up...
Knoxville Raceway, World of Outlaws on April 28th
Kansas Speedway, Indy 300, Indy Racing League, April 29th