Fan Notes from Mansfield's Sprint Car World Championship Night #1

Mansfield Motorsports Park (Tom Myers) 4/28/2018-We are very fortunate in Ohio, having numerous dirt tracks located so close to each other. For me, Eldora is furthest away at 3 ½ hours. Waynesfield, Limaland and Atomic are about 3 hours away. Then we have Fremont and Millstream, both 2 hours away. Attica, Mansfield and Sharon are an hour away and then there is good old Wayne County Speedway which is just fifteen minutes away from my house! Every one of these facilities attracts the very best sprint car drivers in the world. Some folks on social media lament the lack of racing in their area. I have seen some comment that the closest dirt track is over 4 hours away. Some are even further away than that I am sure. I can’t even imagine. So, I will always be happy for where I live. And to top it all off, Cody Summer turned Mansfield into a dirt track again and is putting on a $100,000 to win World Sprint Car Championship! Holy Torsion Bars Batman!

I felt fortunate to be able to leave work early Friday…so I could get out to the track as soon as possible. I didn’t know what to expect because this was going to be some uncharted territory. I mean, this is a big race at a fairly new venue. How big would the crowd be? There was camping. Would there be enough parking and seating by the time I got there? Would the colder temperatures keep folks away or would there be an overflow crowd? How many cars would there be? Would the track be in good shape?

Well, as I was heading west on route 30, it clouded up and started raining. When I arrived at the track, the rain had stopped and I could see the water truck circling the track as fans were just starting to enter to facility. So I found a place to park along the pit entrance road and made sure it was firm ground. I got out and stretched and put on my hoodie and grabbed my carrying bag and headed for the pit gate. Man, that wind was COLD!

Lance Dewease At the pit gate, a nice lady asked for my name and when I told her she said, “Are you the guy who writes the fan notes about the races?” And I said yes and she said that she really likes reading my stories. She said she liked reading the things I include….that are not talked about in regular event reporting. I thanked her for reading and told her that now I know…I have at least one reader! Ha Ha

When I entered the pits, there were haulers everywhere. Some cars were still inside the trailers because of the rain but most were out and getting ready to go. As I passed the pit board, I counted 72 cars……a nice amount of cars. I then made my way to the grandstand to find a seat, put down a blanket, grab my camera, and head back to the pits. It was 5:30 now and the water trucks were on the track and it was sloppy! The mud was deep and so sloppy that one of the water trucks was covered top to bottom with a layer of mud.

As I wondered around the pits taking pictures, I noticed some cars I don’t always get to see….. Lance Dewease, Sammy Swindell, Gerard McIntyre, James McFadden, Danny Dietrich, Brian Brown, Kerry Madsen and Terry McCarl…to name a few. Randy Hannagan was driving the Howard Johnson sponsored 57 car that Gary Taylor drove a week or so ago. Bryan Sebetto again was in the Buch 13 and Gio Scelzi was driving the Indy Race Parts 71. Cap Henry was driving the Coomer 21, subbing for Dale Blaney who injured his hand at work. Dale will be out until mid summer at least.

Mansfield Motorsports Park After an hour or so of trying to run the track in, it became evident that the dirt was too soupy. So, they started scraping mud off the track, going down about 5 inches.. That continued for another couple of hours. The road grader wasn’t powerful enough so they called in a big John Deere 8 wheel tractor with a dirt scooper attached. That helped and by 8:45 they pushed off the cars for engine heat. And it was getting colder and the wind was still blowing steady.

Jac Haudenschild was fast in hot laps but developed a problem and stopped on the track. He would make it back out for his time trial. Tim Shaffer, Aaron Reutzel, Carson Macedo and Sammy Swindell were all fast in hot laps too. During the second to last hot lap session, Joey Saldana went hot into turn one while passing a car and slid up into the wall, making hard contact. He obviously misjudged the track and did major damage to his car. He would come back out and get a time trial in.

During time trials, at least 18 cars broke the track record. Brian Brown first broke it and when all was said and done, Parker Price Miller was the fastest timer and holder of the new track record at 13.6. The fastest timers were PPM, Ruetzel, Shaffer, Bayston and Abreu….in that order. Saldana was the last car out to time and he turned decent laps in his repaired car. Haudenschild came out to time and was obviously having motor problems. In fact, he struggled all weekend with the car and never looked comfortable in it. That was a shame because I had Jac as one of my favorites to win this.

James McFadden The track was developing some bumps and ridges in it, mainly in turns one and three. Some guys avoided the ruts while others braved them and drove right through them. In the first heat, Brock Zearfoss was the winner with Joey Saldana grabbing the 4th and final transfer spot...while blowing a motor on the last lap! He would come back for his feature. PPM bounced up the track at the start and fell back to 6th, missing a transfer. In heat 2, Terry McCarl missed the transfer. Austin Pierce grabs the transfer spot. Including Pierce, other surprising names were at the top of the speed charts and heat races. Gerard McIntyre and Hunter Schurenburg were in the mix all weekend.

Sammy had a transfer spot wrapped up in heat 3 but he had to pull off and missed a transfer spot. Caleb Helms won that heat. Schuerenburg wins heat 4. Cole Duncan passes Broc Martin for final transfer on last lap in heat 5 as McIntyre wins that heat. In heat 6, Trevor Baker gets sideways and takes out Spencer Bayston and Bryan Sebetto. Rob Chaney wins the heat followed by Max Stambaugh who was driving the Matus 33 car and looking really fast in it. Rico wins heat 7 followed by Tyler Gunn and James McFadden in the nice looking Bully Hill sponsored 3 car from PA. Trey Starks wins heat 8 followed by Danny Dietrich and youngster Geo Scelzi.

In the first B main, leader Lee Jacobs cuts down a right rear in turn 4 sending parts of his tire and nerf bars flying. He was okay but hit pretty hard. Price Miller wins the first B main followed by Cory Crabtree. I think it was McCarl winning the second B main followed by Justin Peck. McFadden wins B main 3 followed by Broc Martin. D.J Netto, driving one of the Linder wrenched #11 cars wins B main 4 followed by Spencer Bayston, who threw a big slider at Bryan Sebetto to grab the transfer spot on the last lap.

Mansfield Motorsports Park Now onto the two A mains. Top 4 finishers are locked into the Saturday night big race. In the first A main, Tim Shaffer, up from his 10th starting spot, takes the lead on lap 15! Tim is just driving through the ruts, bouncing and powering to the front. Brown, Schurenburg, Helms, Philo and Saldana follow. Saldana works up to fourth and a transfer spot at the checkers. The win and $5000 goes to Shaffer, followed by Brian Brown, Hunter Schurenburg and Saldana. PPM finishes in 5th.

In our second A main, Spencer Bayston spins on lap 11 and Rico cuts down a tire. Tires became an issue all weekend as many racers cut tires down and lost a lot of money because of it. Rob Chaney leads followed by Stambaugh. Chaney is fast and running away with it until lap 21 when he….cuts a tire down. Stambaugh then loses a tire too. Macedo now leads with McIntyre, Starks, Dietrich, Ruetzel and Scelzi following. On lap 26, Rico pops another tire! Now the running order is Macedo, Starks, Ruetzel, McIntyre Scelzi and Dietrich. At the finish it is Macedo grabbing the $5000 followed by Ruetzel, Scelzi and McIntyre.

Wow, lots of bad luck for some, while others have it going their way. The last feature was done at 2:30. The track crew did everything they could and there was just no avoiding the late finish with the rain that hit right before hot laps. I will say that the push trucks were on the spot and the program was run as fast and as efficiently as possible. Good job Mansfield Motor Speedway. With all the good racing and some drama mixed in, I was able to ignore the cold. Almost! Now onto Saturday and the big money race!!