Winning Moment: Local Florida driver Travis Varnadore stuck to the bottom through a chaotic opening stanza and got by Buzzy Adams for the lead for good on lap 11 of the 25-lap feature, scoring a $1,000 Winternationals feature win at East Bay Wednesday night (Feb. 1).
Dramatic Moment: Tuesday night winner Drake Troutman led the opening eight laps of Wednesday’s feature, but Adams broke the logjam up front on a lap 9 restart, going three-wide between Troutman and Varnadore up front to take the race lead.
In a Nutshell: Top-five finishes for Troutman, Adams and Lucas Lee has the points picture for the UMP modified Winternationals starting to take shape.
What They’ll Be Group Chatting About This Morning
The feature, with victory lane interviews, was done before 10 p.m. ET. That’s exactly how weekday shows should run. And that was with no shortage of caution flags throughout the program to boot.
The social media engagement that was prevalent throughout Flo Racing’s much-ballyhooed streams of the Chili Bowl Nationals and Wild West Shootout have given way to a social media graveyard for the Winternationals. I get that this isn’t a Flo Racing product like those other races are, but with all the promotion the streaming service is doing for its documentary content this week, it seems like engaging a little bit with their only live racing program would be in the cards.
Looking forward to the sprint car portion of East Bay’s Winternationals, the 360 winged sprint car field got a bit higher profile Wednesday with the announcement that USAC regular Kaylee Bryson will be competing.
I’m all for getting more attention paid to the non-late model divisions that contest the Winternationals, but I can also imagine that the wingless fans of the world are going to be watching this experiment with bated breath. Given how many standout drivers from the wingless ranks have gone winged racing in recent years to pursue bigger dollars, a strong run from Bryson could get the IndyCar prospect thinking in a similar way.
Leaving Florida, the Park Jefferson Speedway up in South Dakota made some waves with their announcement that, in attempting to expedite completion of their weekly racing programs, that the sport compact class would be run separately as part of a late-afternoon program before the track’s regular IMCA classes start in the early evening.
Even if one concedes this is well-intentioned, this is a disastrous…
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