racing insider
john bombatch
While they didn’t win the overall team title, Team Tri-State finished ahead of area tracks Edgewater Sports Park and Kil-Kare Dragway at last weekend’s 34th annual NHRA North Central Division Summit Racing Series Finals in Clermont, Ind.
So they have that to brag about for a while at least.
Tri-State finished fifth overall, second among Ohio tracks to Norwalk’s Summit Motorsports Park, which finished second overall to event host O’Reilly Motorsports Park.
After two rounds, Tri-State was just one point out of first place with 32 points. But they finished with 41 total points and dropped to fifth place.
Tri-State’s own Kathy Louden turned in her team’s best performance while racing in the Track Managers event. Louden turned in a 15.144-second, 95.67 mph run to finish second in the final to O’Reilly’s Wes Collier, who had a slower 16.976-second, 82.15 mph run.
Edgewater still holds the record for most team titles with six, followed by O’Reilly Motorsports Park and Kil-Kare with five.
Apparently there hasn’t been any track champions crowned yet over at Tri-State Dragway. Last week, prior to the running of the NHRA Region 3 championships in Indianapolis, Cincinnati’s John Cook, Hamilton’s Darrell Jones and Fairfield driver Jeff Seither were listed as champions in the Super Pro, Pro and Sportsman Street classes respectively, but that was merely a listing of the current series leaders.
With five events still on the 2010 schedule, Cook, Jones and Seither may be the front-runners but none of those drivers has clinched a season title just yet.
Still wins junior title
Fairfield junior dragster pilot Austin Still has, however. Still earned the Tri-State junior dragster title with his semifinal placing performance last week at Bunker Hill Dragstrip in Bunker Hill, Ind.
Doubleheader weekend
Today is the final day of this weekend’s NHRA Sportsman Series doubleheader racing event. The area’s top sportsman class racers competed at Edgewater on Saturday, and they’re racing at Tri-State today. The two tracks posted purses of $5,000 to the winner and $1,000 to the runner-up in the Super Pro division. They also posted $1,000 to the winner and $500 to the runner-up in the Pro and Sportsman divisions.
Gates open at 9:30 a.m. at Tri-State with time trials set for 10 a.m. Elimination rounds are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Spectators and crew members can get in for $10. Kids 11 and under can get in free.
Enduro in Indy
Would you like a chance to spend the day racing at a first-class Indianapolis go-karting facility with a team of your friends, and do it for a worthy cause?
The Women in the Winner’s Circle Foundation is looking for drivers and team sponsors for their inaugural Classic 100 GoKart Enduro event, to be held Oct. 14 at the Fastimes Indoor Kart Track in Indianapolis.
Sixteen teams of five drivers each will turn laps to raise money for the foundation, which is chaired by former Indycar driver Lyn St. James.
If you’re interested, please contact Katie Pallone at (317) 519-9722 or send her an e-mail at: katie@lynstjames.com.