It really was a great race for the number of cars. Car count was THE ONLY negative. Fike really had to work for his second Tony Bettenhausen 100 title in a row.
We just got home from Springfield early Monday afternoon and I will heartily chime in with everyone giving the Bettenhausen Memorial a thumbs up. It was a great show and was especially fun watching an Illinois boy get his second of back to back win's in a race that was completely in doubt up until the last 5 or 6 miles.
I do, however, think maybe A. J. got screwed out of winning the double when ARCA black flagged him for what they deemed as jumping the start while taking the green for the GWC restart. Haven't seen a race winner get booed at Springfield like Sunday's winner of the ARCA race did since AJ Foyt following a USAC stock car race back in 1979. That race had a few obvious sanctioning body shenanigans going on, too.
What a great 5 days at Springfield we had. Weather was great, Lake Springfield was at full pool, unlike last year during the drought, and some of the best racing you'll ever see, especially when you factor in the POWERi midgets at Lincoln Friday night and Macon Saturday night along with the racing on The Mile.
The only downside was way, way too many support divisions at Macon. Uhg!
We too are looking very much forward to doing it all again at Du Quoin in a couple of weeks!!
Silver Crown Championship Dirt Cars properly driven on a one mile dirt track are classic poetry in motion. Using that analogy, Jack Hewitt is one of the greatest poets of all time.
Haven't been to Springfield in many years, but I've done every DuQuoin since 1965. Hope we have some decent weather this year. Isaac messed up Labor Day weekend last year.
Originally Posted by ISF:
We just got home from Springfield early Monday afternoon and I will heartily chime in with everyone giving the Bettenhausen Memorial a thumbs up. It was a great show and was especially fun watching an Illinois boy get his second of back to back win's in a race that was completely in doubt up until the last 5 or 6 miles.
I do, however, think maybe A. J. got screwed out of winning the double when ARCA black flagged him for what they deemed as jumping the start while taking the green for the GWC restart. Haven't seen a race winner get booed at Springfield like Sunday's winner of the ARCA race did since AJ Foyt following a USAC stock car race back in 1979. That race had a few obvious sanctioning body shenanigans going on, too.
What a great 5 days at Springfield we had. Weather was great, Lake Springfield was at full pool, unlike last year during the drought, and some of the best racing you'll ever see, especially when you factor in the POWERi midgets at Lincoln Friday night and Macon Saturday night along with the racing on The Mile.
The only downside was way, way too many support divisions at Macon. Uhg!
We too are looking very much forward to doing it all again at Du Quoin in a couple of weeks!!
That was a ton of booing. You had Kovski fans convinced he won and Fike fans convinced he won and it was the third car to cross the finish line that ended up the winner. I'm waiting to see it on tv this coming Friday because I didn't see Fike take off on the restart. I was watching Kovski go from 3rd to 1st.
Also just curious, but were they telling people they couldn't go into the pits after the race on Saturday? We had pit passes Sunday and I saw them telling people that they weren't allowing anybody in without passes even after the race because of the concert.
Arctic, actually Childers was encouraging folks to visit the pit area following the Bettenhausen Memorial.
We went through the main straightaway pedestrian tunnel to the pits both Saturday & Sunday and we didn't have pit passes either day.
In regards to Fike jumping the start, we talked to AJ after the race and he said ARCA told him that he jumped the start on Gallaher (#23) not on Poole which is what the black flag was for.
I don't understand, since the race had gone past the advertised distance anyway, why ARCA didn't just throw the yellow and do another restart. At the point of the GWC it was basically a two lap dash regardless of how many laps run under yellow.
Gallaher, Poole and especially their car owners are ARCA regulars and we've seen it many times at Springfield & Du Quoin that ARCA is not necessarily friendly to the guys that run only run the dirt. The regulars and the big money developmental teams seem to be much beloved by ARCA.
The Kovski crew members were really givin' it to the ARCA officials following the race and the Illinois State Police was making their presence extremely obvious.
Silver Crown Championship Dirt Cars properly driven on a one mile dirt track are classic poetry in motion. Using that analogy, Jack Hewitt is one of the greatest poets of all time.
