Sunday, October 24, 2010

Crazy Weekend Wrap Up: Plenty of 2011 Tidbits

Well, it was a big racing weekend, and it turned out to be a crazy one. Eastern States Weekend highlighted the weekend that included the Delaware State Championships and the Steal City Stampede Weekend at Lernerville.

On Friday the weekend kicked off with Billy Pauch cruising to an easy $5,000 win in the small block modified portion of DE State Championships at Delaware International Speedway. He backed up that performance by going around Matt Jester in the middle stages of the big block race on Saturday night at Delaware to complete the sweep on the weekend and collect another $6,500. At Lernerville Speedway arguably the race of the year took place, as Brian Weaver led as the field took the white flag, then had Rex King and Chad Homan split him going down the backstretch, the top 2 made contact coming to the line and Homan picked up his first career big block modified win in the BRP Series finale by just .019 seconds. King's second place finish clinched the BRP Modified Tour title to the #65 team. Brett Hearn dominated the small block race at Orange County Fair Speedway's Eastern States Weekend and picked up $7,500 for the win. Then, on Sunday, the $20,000 to win Eastern States 200 looked like it was going to be Stewart Friesen's to lose until a questionable call by the officials placed Friesen behind Tim McCreadie for a late race restart, Friesen proceeded to have a meltdown and was DQed (eventually he was allowed to rejoin the field) which allowed McCreadie to survive a few late race restarts and win the $20,000 feature. This was a fantasy league race, and I'll have the standings updated by Tuesday.

Also, Brett Deyo reports that Doug Manmiller has parted ways with the Breitenstein Motorsports team, which is the team he ran weekly with at Grandview Speedway. The team ran the last race of the year with Kenny Gilmore driving the team's second car, but Manmiller ran it weekly at Grandview throughout the season. Rumors have swirled since the early summer that the team would be shutting down at the conclusion of the season, but Deyo's articles quotes the owners as claiming they'd like to continue racing but are looking for sponsorship. Manmiller will run for Josh Biever, whom he won the Big Diamond championship with this year, at Grandview next year.

Deyo also informed me that you can expect to see the return of Donny Radd to competition in 2011. Right now he's working on an engine program that will see the driver return to weekly competition aboard his self-owned 15R, most likely at Delaware International Speedway.

Keith Hoffman has parted ways with the Moose Eisenhard Racing team. Hoffman ran weekly with Eisenhard at New Egypt Speedway, but the team also traveled to select shows throughout the year. Hoffman finished in the top 5 in points at New Egypt. Eisenhard will sell his big block equipment in favor of crate sportsman equipment for his grandson, Jordan Henn, who's raced slingshots for the past handful of seasons. Keith Hoffman currently has nothing lined up for 2011, and if he doesn't find a ride he won't be racing in 2011. Hoffman ran for Jonathan Kumernitsky for a few shows at Big Diamond Raceway at the end of the year and also ran for Blue Hen Racing at the Delaware State Championships, but don't expect him to run for those teams full-time next season.

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