Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Specials This Wekend: Petruska, Gable, Horton, Van Horn tidbits...

We may be approaching the end of the racing year, but there's still plenty of action left, especially this week. On Saturday night, Black Rock Speedway will host it's season finale, as the 358 modifieds highlight the car with a $3,000 to win show. Five Mile Point Speedway will be hosting the RoC Dirt tour for their season finale on Saturday with the Southern Tier 100 for the big blocks that will pay $5,000 to win, Pat Ward has already clinched the RoC title for the second year in a row. Also on Saturday, the 358 Super Dirt Series champion will be crowned at CanAm Motorsports Park as they do battle for $3,000 to win the 75 lap feature, this event was rescheduled from Wednesday night of Super Dirt Week. On Sunday (qualifying will be Saturday) Hagerstown has their annual Octoberfest race weekend, as big block and small block modifieds will be part of the action, each racing in their own 100 laps features that pay $10,000 to the win.

Reports are saying that Mike Petruska will field a car for Danny Johnson on the entire Super Dirt Series in 2009, and will be Bobby Hearn's Teo house car. Petruska started the year with Jeff Heotzler and Jared Petruska driving the cars, but then gave Danny Johnson the ride late in the year. Johnson and Petruska teamed up and won the Eastern States 200 last weekend, worth $20,000

Long time car owner Jody Gable made his return at Super Dirt Week with Bobby Varin behind the wheel of his known #1 big block modified. Gable hopes to make a return to full-time owning next year at Lebanon Valley in 2009. Look for two-time Lebanon Valley champion J.R. Heffner to be the possible driver of that seat next year. If Heffner leaves, that leaves another qualify seat open in the Ronnie Dwyer owned #88.

Jimmy Horton may be done with Dieter Schmidt again at the conclusion of this year. Horton and Schmidt only ran a partial season this year, focusing on traveling, and collected a $5,000 win at Volusia, but the team struggled with motor issues all year long which upset Horton. Horton drove for an astounding 7 teams this year including, the Gene Stravinksy owned #7A used for some specials at New Egypt and Hagerstown, Rich Scagliotta's #8 used at Orange County and small block action at Syracuse, Norm Hansell's #357 used for a few shows at Big Diamond and Grandview, Gino Postarivo's #7 used for weekly competition at Bridgeport, Wescott Racing's #71 used for specials at Bridgeport and Georgetown, and the Randy Ross #7 (team effort with Gino) used for the Rite-Aid 200, and of course Dieter Schmidt's #5 used for specials. No word on any possible replacements if the two split ways.

Also, when listing oddities on the Hagerstown entry list, I missed the fact that David Van Horn is entered in Rusty Smith's second car. Van Horn ran a few specials for Smith a few years ago as well.

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