Relight The Wick! Rescheduled Firecracker 100 Set For Tuesday

By Eric Westendorf

Sarver, PA — The long-awaited finale of the second annual Firecracker 100 presented by GottaRace.com is ready to roll this Tuesday night (July 29) at Lernerville Speedway.

The two-day show was originally scheduled for Friday-Saturday/June 27-28, but after a sizzling night of heat-race action Day 2 of the spectacular World of Outlaws Late Model Series program was washed out on both Saturday and Sunday’s raindate. The pesky weather forced officials to reset the headline night of the Firecracker 100 to a midweek date on Tues., July 29.

The buzz is now building back up for what promises to be the best dirt Late Model show of the summer.

All time-trial and heat-race qualifying results from June 28 will stand, and the fields for the C-Main, B-Mains and the first eight rows of the 100-lap A-Main are set. Drivers who were not in action on June 28 can join the program on July 29 and will start at the tail of the C-Main based on a random pill draw.

Eighteen drivers are locked into the $40,000-to-win A-Main, led by heat winners Shane Clanton, Steve Francis, Earl Pearson Jr., Josh Richards, Darrell Lanigan and Brian Birkhofer. Those six drivers will redraw for positions 1-6 in the Firecracker 100.

The remainder of the drivers locked into the A-Main include Coleby Frye and Brandon Kinzer (Row 4), Billy Moyer and Donnie Moran (Row 5), Tim Fuller and Chub Frank (Row 6), Shannon Babb and local hero Mike Blose (Row 7), Gregg Satterlee and Chris Madden (Row and Jeremy Miller and Tim McCreadie (Row 9).

Drivers set for action in the B-Main the B-Main include Doug Horton, David Scott, Davey Johnson, Rick Eckert, Clate Copeman, Dutch Davies, Mike Knight, Chuck Kennedy, Robbie Blair, John Flinner, Chad Valone, Brent Rhebergen, Josh McGuire, Danny Johnson, Gary Lyle, Jimmy Owens, Matt Lux, Ron Davies, Keith Barbara, Scott Bloomquist, Clint Smith, Tony Burke, Dan Stone, Bob Close, Todd Bachman, John Mollick, Dave Hess Jr., John Blankenship, Vic Coffey and Alex Ferree.

Drivers tentatively scheduled to run the C-Main, (which may be dissolved or expanded based on the number of cars in the pits on July 29), include Jason Covert, Nick Reges, Dane Laraway, Sean Beardsley, Joe Isabell, Lynn Geisler, Ken Schaltenbrand, Ryan Scott, Russ King and Jared Miley.

Tickets and pit wristbands from the original dates will be honored on Tues., July 29 – in fact, they will be upgraded! Any fan with a ticket or wristband from the original race on June 27-28 will be allowed to upgrade to a FREE pit pass and will also receive a $10 voucher good towards the purchase of any GottaRace.com merchandise purchased through the www.GottaRace.com website.

A limited amount of reserved seats are still available by clicking on the “Buy Tickets Now” link on the Lernerville Speedway website at www.Lernerville.com or by calling the speedway office Monday-Friday 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at 724-353-1511. One-day advance reserved seats are selling for $34 for adults. Senior and student pricing is available.

Newly purchased general admission tickets are not eligible for the Free Pit Pass upgrade, but as always, children 10-and-under are admitted FREE for general admission seating.

The Richest One-Day Show Gets Even Richer

by Eric J. Westendorf, Lernerville Speedway

SARVER, Pa. - The taillights of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series haulers are barely over the horizon, and already the headlights of the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws Sprint Car Series haulers are coming into sight! Yes, in just two short weeks, the “Greatest Show on Dirt” will roll into the legendary Don Martin’s Lernerville Speedway for the 17th running of the event that was created to honor and remember the man who put Western PA dirt track racing on the map. The Silver Cup continues to be the richest single-day purse on the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws schedule and this year the pot is even fuller! To honor the 40th Anniversary of the Lernerville Speedway, this year’s Cleveland Brothers CAT Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup XVII is paying $40,000-to-win!

The $40,000 question is; can anybody beat Donny Schatz? He has won the Silver Cup each of the past two years on his way to back-to-back World of Outlaws Championships. And after a slow start to the 2008 season, Schatz is back atop the Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws points standings after a torrid month of June in which he won six A-Main feature events including the three most recent races at Dodge City Raceway Park, River Cities Speedway and Cedar Lake Speedway. He has nine Outlaw wins on the season and the “Month of Money” hasn’t even started yet!

The hot streak has Schatz just a shade under 100 points ahead of second place Jason Meyers. Meyers, as you may remember, won the first Advance Auto Parts World of Outlaws race at Lernerville Speedway in May at the First Commonwealth Bank Clash.

Tickets for the Cleveland Brothers CAT Don Martin Memorial Silver Cup can be purchased in advance by calling the speedway office during normal business hours at (724)353-1511. For more details about the biggest one-day show of the season log on to www.Lernerville.com or www.WorldofOutlaws.com. You can track the Outlaws’ road to the Silver Cup by listening to all the races on www.DirTVision.com.

Showers On Sunday Force Postponement Of Firecracker 100 Weekend Finale At Lernerville Speedway

By Kevin Kovac, WoO LMS P.R. Director

Sarver, PA — Mother Nature wouldn’t allow the second annual Firecracker 100 presented by GottaRace.com to be completed on Sunday.

With showers continuing to hit Lernerville Speedway in waves and more still on the way, officials made a late-afternoon decision to postpone the blockbuster $150,000 World of Outlaws Late Model Series event.

A new date for the finale of the Firecracker 100 weekend will be announced soon by track and series officials.

The $40,000-to-win event kicked off in spectacular fashion on Friday night with a huge crowd watching six memorable qualifying heat races for 62 dirt Late Models, building the anticipation for the main event. But rain arrived just before race time on Saturday evening and refused to let up long enough for competition, pushing the scheduled program of a C-Main, two B-Mains, the $3,000-to-win Uncle Sam 30 and the Firecracker 100 to Sunday.

A late-afternoon start time was planned on Sunday, but thunderstorms began to strike the four-tenths-mile oval again before a car was able to hit the racing surface. Several strong storms followed, deluging the track and forcing the ultimate postponement of the Firecracker 100.

When a new date is announced for the Firecracker 100 finale, the action will pick up with the last-chance events that have already been aligned and end with the pomp, pageantry and excitement of the rich 100-lap A-Main.

Rainchecks and pit bands will be honored on the rescheduled date.

For more information, visit www.lernerville.com, www.worldofoutlaws.com or call the track office at 724-353-1511.

The WoO LMS will be idle until embarking the ‘Wild West Tour,’ a series of nine events over a 13-day period that will visit Minnesota, North Dakota, Wyoming, South Dakota, Kansas, Nebraska and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The ‘Wild West Tour’ begins on July 9 with the ‘Gopher 50’ at Deer Creek Speedway in Spring Valley, Minn.