Newswire

CEYLON, Minn. – The feature victories weren’t there like they were in previous years but his con­sistency made Michael Stien a big winner this season. Along with his second Sprint Series of Minnesota title in three years, Stien scored his career third Allstar Performance State crown plus third straight Arlington Raceway and first Jackson Mo­torplex track championships. “We set out to win the series and Arlington track championship,” said Stien, from Ceylon. “Every­thing started going our way at Jackson so we started chasing points at the end of the point sea­son.” Stien finished in the top five in half a dozen of his series starts. He complemented three wins with seven second-place showings while finishing fifth in the national standings. “We’ve had years where we’ve won more but we got a lot of seconds this season,” he said. “You’d always rather win but second places were good enough to have a good season this year.” Long-time driver Mike Sargent heads up the crew for Stien, who lives an hour and a half from the shop, [Read More]

GREENVILLE, Texas – After following the tour for the first time, veteran Jeff Day added the Sprint Se­ries of Texas championship plaque to his collection of IMCA awards. Day won three of the 11 IMCA EMI RaceSaver  events, finished in the top five in five more and – best of all – got to spend the summer racing with his son Michael, the SST runner-up. “We were competing against each other all season, and the races weren’t just between us, but a lot of times we were swapping slide jobs for the lead,” said the senior Day. “We both had a lot of fun on the series this year.” From Greenville, Texas, Day started racing a Sprint Car in 1996 and was champion at the IMCA Speedway Motors Super Nationals fueled by Casey’s two years later. This season, he traveled with and pitted next to three-time national champion Johnny Miller, who was successful in his pur­suit of the Elite Non-Wing Series title. “I thought we had a real shot at winning the series, but about [Read More]

VISALIA, Calif. – Blake Robertson came as close to IMCA EMI RaceSaver Sprint Car perfection as you can get in 2016. Robertson won 14 of his 15 Western RaceSaver Sprint Series starts this season, scooping up Allstar Performance California State honors in addition to the tour title. “We’ve never had a season like this,” he acknowledged. “When we needed luck it fell our way. The stars were getting in line at the Sprint Nationals before we ran out of time, but we had a very blessed season.” Robertson racked up all those wins at Thunderbowl Speedway, Bakersfield Speedway, Keller Auto Speedway at Kings Fairground and Santa Maria Raceway. The one race he didn’t win was the second of the season, when he tangled with a lapped car while running second at Kings and ended in 11th. The hands-on owner of BR Motorsports, a mail order parts supplier of parts for Sprint Cars and Midgets, and King Racing Products, which manufactures those parts, Robertson is from Visalia and began  racing Sprint Cars more than 20 years [Read More]

LINCOLN, Neb. – Jason Martin couldn’t have picked a better night to win his first Sprint Series of Nebraska feature of the season. Martin became the sixth different winner in as many IMCA EMI RaceSaver tour events on championship night at U.S. 30 Speedway. The victory made him the series champion by all of one point over Joey Danley. “We never really set out to race for points. We race for wins,” said Martin, from Lincoln and a 20-year veteran of the winged division. “U.S. 30 is a track where I’ve been successful at in the past. It just fits my driving style but we had so many rainouts in the series and a lot of them (four) were at Columbus.” Despite the rainouts and the resulting pro-rated bonus points, Martin was fourth in the national standings. He had five feature wins, including specials at the Iowa State Fairgrounds Speedway and Dodge City Raceway Park, along with 12 top five finishes. His 26 starts came at tracks in four states. “I like to travel and [Read More]

SELINSGROVE, Pa. – A Duke is king of the Pennsylvania Sprint Series. Third-year RaceSaver driver Kenneth Duke topped points for the IMCA-sanctioned winged tour, with a win and 12 more top five finishes in 25 PASS tour dates. “It’s a tough series here in Pennsylvania,” noted Duke, from Selinsgrove. “When you get 25-30 cars a night, it’s hard to get a lot of wins.” He raced go-karts up and down the East Coast before 11 seasons in the micro sprints. The Rac­eSaver cars caught his eye one night at Clinton County Motor Speedway. “We decided we wanted to give them a try but could never afford it until we started watching the 305s at Clinton County,” Duke said. “It was kind of surprising at first with the difference in horse­power. I really think the key was that I started to understand the car, what it needed to go fast and get­ting seat time on bigger tracks.” “After running micro sprints on quarter-miles, running on 3/8- and half-mile tracks took a little get­ting used to,” he [Read More]

DAYTON, Va. – A feature win in North Carolina proved the highlight of Jerald Harris’ third consecutive Virginia Sprint Series championship campaign. Harris already had victories at Eastside Speedway and Shenandoah Speedway before taking the much-hoped for IMCA EMI RaceSaver tour checkers at Dixieland Speedway. “We’ve tried for years to win there,” said Harris, who thought way outside the box ahead of the Aug. 12 event. “I was just trying a setup that went away from how you should set up a Sprint Car and it worked. And after our heat race, all I did was change a pound or two of air pressure.” While his win total was down from five in 2014 and six last year, the Dayton, Va., driver was consistent enough throughout the year to edge Anthony Linkenhoker for the series crown despite breaking and being scored 10th on championship night. “Each year it gets harder to win in this series. We were happy we won it again. There was some luck involved,” he said. “Some nights were easy and some were [Read More]