POSTED APRIL 26 , 2003

JOHN HACKLER won his first Mottville Mini Cup feature ever at the Mottville Speedway on a beautiful Saturday night! It was the first appearance out of 15 scheduled this season for MMC cars and Hackler won the 20 lapper over Tim Brundidge and Freeman Hochstetler. Results in the heat were the same.

Two time defending Mini Thunder Car season points champion Fred Garrett returned to the winner’s circle by winning a hotly contested 15 lap feature in which 5 cars battled within a car length the entire 15 laps! Richard Allbee led the first 4 laps before Steve Clifford took the point. After lap 6 he was sent to the tail for violating the lead rule and Allbee took the lead back until lap 9 when Garrett got by for good. Chuck Hall battled Garrett the final 6 laps but had to settle for 2^nd with Clifford coming back for 3^rd, Allbee 4^th, season points leader Derk Sargent 5^th and newcomer Brian Powers 6^th.

Allbee won his first heat of the season over Hall and Garrett while Hall took the dash over Garrett and Sargent.

Mini Stock season points leader Eric Root won is 3^rd feature of the season with a 12 lap victory over Glenna Sargent. Sargent, driving for just the 2^nd time ever, won her first heat ever over Root.

Mike Grand won the street stock feature and heat for his first wins of the season and should take over the season points lead Sunday night!

We had one of our better crowds in front this season. I can never remember a night when we had more people telling me that they had cars almost ready to race! Earl Maxwell of Earl’s Towing in Niles told me he has 2 MTC and 1 SS coming out soon, Barry Harrison should have his MS out next Saturday and Charley Krontz his SS next Saturday! Plus a registered a MS at practice Thursday which should be out Sunday! In the MMC division they expect at least two more cars next Saturday and then two more by May 17 for a full field of 7!

Interesting reading some of the comments of track promoters who opened last week. Some need to get in touch with the computer age as it is not 1950 anymore! One promoter said he had “between 40 and 50 cars”. Well first of all any promoter knows how many cars he had, he doesn't have to say between 40 and 50! Secondly on his web site and in the racing newspaper it clearly shows how many cars he had! About half of what he said he had! Then he gave a crowd estimate which was double what I had heard from people who were there! Another promoter said his track had their best opening night crowd ever but one of his track officials said the crowd was “disappointing”!

For Mottville the last two Saturdays of April are always a struggle because the rest of the tracks open those two week-ends. Then we begin to gradually pick up some cars each week! Sundays so far this season have been better than Saturdays and this Sunday should prove to be same again! We should have several Pro Stocks join the field Sunday plus more SS and MS! Maybe even some karts!

It should not be long before we have 12 MTC on an average with all the reports of cars being built.

The low car count of late in the MS division makes we wonder if we made a mistake in going to radial tires instead of sticking with the track tire. I am open for suggestions from our MS drives on going back to Goodyear tire at some point later in the season if they want.

Sunday kids ride in the race cars for the first time this season! Should be an interesting night with 5 divisions racing!