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  • USAC Amsoil Sprint Cars Start Season in High Gear

    The first points race of the USAC Amsoil Sprint Car series is in the books. Tonight was the first race of the season and the first of a 3 night show at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala Florida. The USAC stars were out in force with names like Bryan Clausson and series champion Levi Jones in the field.

    The qualifying of the 30 car field was smooth and uneventful save for one accident involving Jake Simmons who hit the wall and over turned following his second lap of qualifying. Simmons crawled from the car under his own power and walked away. He was however, unable to make call for his heat race and was done for the evening.

    Fast time went to Bryan Clauson with a lap of 14.409 seconds around the 3/8ths mile track. Clauson broke team mate Levi Jones record set last year with his run.

    The 30 car field ran 4 heat races with the top 4 transferring to the A main and a B main with the top 6 transferring to the A main.

    The heat races were hotly contested races with three and four wide competition through out the pack. Heat race winners included Brady Bacon, Jon Stanbrough, Damien Gardner, and Casey Schuman.

    The B Main was action packed event that was won by Justin Grant with a hard charging Chris Stockon coming home 2nd. The B main would set up an interesting scenario when Chris Windom would spin out of the final transfer spot with just 5 laps to go. Unable to climb any further than 7th, Windom would be forced to take a provisional to get into the A Main and start next to last.

    The A main was a fast paced event that ran with only one caution until lap 25 of the 30 posted laps. The hot dry track had begun to take rubber out of four and passing became difficult. On lap one Silver Crown Champion Levi Jones spun coming out 4 and collected two other cars. All cars were able to continue but it forced a complete restart with the three cars involved going to the back of the field.

    Damien Gardner lead for nearly the whole race only giving up the lead briefly on lap 25 when the caution flew for another series of spins out of turn 4. After 4 attempts the field finally went green and Gardner took the point for the final time. Brady Bacon ended up 3rd but paced Gardner for most of the race fading in the last 3 laps.

    Gardner whose A main victory is his 5th out of 6 attempts in Florida, made the victory seem effortless with the exception of the restart when he briefly lost the lead to Bacon.

    The final finishing order for the opening night of the season was: 1) Damion Gardner 2) Jon Stanbrough 3) Brady Bacon 4) Darren Hagen 5) Bryan Clauson 6) Bud Kaeding 7) Dave Darland 8) Casey Shuman 9) Kevin Thomas 10) Justin Grant 11) Chris Windom 12) Levi Jones 13) Tracey Hines 14) Robert Ballou.

    Silver Crown Champion Levi Jones made a courageous recovery after his 1st lap spin finishing 12th.

    Also on the card tonight was the unvieling of an electric midget built in Columbus Indiana. The car was driven around the track by Casey Shuman. The car which made almost no noise at all, seemed to have enough power to slide it sideways and get it’s front wheel off the ground out of four. The midget is the only car of it’s kind and Shuman seemed pleased with it’s performance. “If they can build a few more of them we can take them out and see how they stand up.” He stated.

    Tomorrow nights action begins at 6 PM EST and can be viewed via live stream pay for view at

  • 81 year-old Kenny Van Blargen Placed in an Induced Coma After Sprint Car Wreck

    81 year-old Kenny Van Blargen Placed in an Induced Coma After Sprint Car Wreck

    Automobile racing has always been one of the most, and exciting sports that has ever been viewed by the many fans who attend these weekly speed contests. The chance of the inevitable happening follows each driver lap after lap, as they compete for the right to be named as the best on that given day or night. Along with the thrill of watching each driver posses the skill it takes to maneuver their high speed vehicles in this competitive game of cat and mouse, also comes the risk of pushing the envelope a little too far which can and usually ends in a misfortune accident.

    [media-credit name=”Bobby Kimbrough” align=”alignright” width=”217″][/media-credit]Whether it be at one of the many local short tracks around the country, or the highly visible NASCAR touring series, the risk these drivers put themselves in for our enjoyment can almost be likened to coming face to face with the grim reaper. Accidents of any magnitude are always bone chilling and scary, since we never know to what extent the driver is hurt until they are taken from the carnage and checked out by the medical staff.

    Just last season there was a 35-lap race between former NASCAR drivers, Cale Yarborough, Dave Marcis, Rick Wilson, Phil Parsons, LD Ottinger, Jack Ingram, Tommy Houston, Jimmy Hensley, Larry Pearson, David Pearson, Charlie Glotzbach, and Harry Gant. The legends race, which was run after the Scotts Turf Builder 300 Nationwide race at the Bristol Motor Speedway, was marred by a horrific crash with five laps left between 56 year-old Larry Pearson, and 71 year-old Charlie Glotzbach.

    Rescue workers had to cut the top of Pearson’s No. 21 car completely off to help extricate the driver, and afterward,  Pearson was airlifted to Bristol Regional Medical Center as the crowd watched with a deafening silence. Pearson suffered a compound fracture of his left ankle that required surgery that same evening, along with a fracture of his pelvis and a fractured right hand.

    Ex-NASCAR driver Shane Hmiel also escaped death last season while attempting to qualify his USAC Silver Crown race car at Terre Haute Action Track in Indianapolis. Hmiel broke his neck in two places, and suffered a broken back as well and is still recovering from his injuries.

    Tragedy struck again this past Saturday night during a USAC event, when 81 year-old Kenny Van Blargen, who resides in Paso Robles, California was airlifted by medical helicopter to United Medical Center in Las Vegas Saturday evening from the center field of Havasu 95 Speedway in Lake Havasu City, AZ.  Reports indicate that Van Blargen was traveling around 25 to 35 mph in a 50 year-old Vintage Sprint open seat race car at the time of impact, because of a yellow flag  when his car climbed the wheel of another car and overturned.

    The accident occurred early in the evening during a heat race with about a thousand fans in attendance who witnessed the wreck. “The car had very little damage to it, and its part of racing,” said Bill Rozhon, track promoter and race director at the speedway.  Rozhon also added that, “When something like this happens everybody is shocked,” Rozhon said. “When people get hurt, people are concerned … it was very gloomy here.” It took rescue workers which included two paramedics and four track-safety-clean-up guys about 30 minutes, to get Van Blargen out of the car and into the waiting helicopter for the ride to the medical center.

    Rozhon said, “The River medical ambulance and the fire department responded immediately after 911 was initially called, and it took six guys to get him out.” Van Blargen was coherent and even though he had reflexes, he is still suffering from a broken neck and has a breathing tube. Rozhon, 64, said he has been around racing all his life and, as far as wrecks go, has seen some real nasty ones. “There’s no such thing as an average crash,” he said. “Things just happen. Some things are just out of our control.”  Van Blargen was put in an induced coma for six days to keep him still.