Pictures from the WoO show on 7-01-2007

I made the trip from Forks to Fargo for the World of Outlaws sprint car race on Saturday 7-01-2007. One might say it's a religious experience for sprint car racing fans, it's the chance to see the best sprint car drivers in the world race against the home town boys. Hint: I don't recommend taking a picture while driving down the highway at 80 miles an hours.






This picture is a really good illustration of how fast the cars get spread out on the big half mile track. Qualifying and doing well in your heat race really determines how that driver is going to do during the feature race. If that driver starts out in the rear, that drivers chances are really poor for a high finish unless they are able to get a good start and pick off drivers one by one. On a dry slick that is usually possible. On a quarter mile track that disadvantages isn't as bad, if you start out near the back there is still a chance to make up the distance especially on restarts. Now mind you, the drivers still have to be careful to not use up their tires early in the feature race so they can fight off any challengers during the race. Brook Tatnell had a huge lead when he blew a rear left tire in the last couple of laps.

Pictures from the WoO show on 6-30-2007

The World of Outlaws came to North Dakota for the Duel in the Dakotas. Night was was in Grand Forks, ND. It was a historic occasion, the World of Outlaws Spring Cars had never been to Grand Forks, ND. A lot of the drivers from the World of Outlaws had been here at one time or another but never as the WoO sprint car tour.

When the World of Outlaws come to North Dakota every summer it gives ND fans like me an opportunity to watch North Dakota native and top driver Donny Schatz drive in front of the home town fans. Of course most of us hope that Schatz will put on a winning performance and woo the hometown fans. Honestly, there can't be many sprint car fans in North Dakota are that don't recognize the Parker Stores, Shatz Crossroads, Bellerud Trucking, Snap-on tools, Petro entry of Donny Schatz. It used to be the first thing we looked for when Donny used to race at River Cities Speedway was the Blue Beacon symbol on the side of his hauler.

I think for the most part we can call the first night of the duel in the Dakotas as a huge success. There were about 6000 people crammed into River Cities Speedway, lets just say there was a ton of beer drank at the speedway that night. In it's self the beer consumption has to be an all time record. Mind you I think if River Cities speedway gets 4000 it should be considered a good night. I do have one complaint; there were not enough port a potties to accommodate the size of the crowd and you can judge that by the number of people that were relieving themselves where ever they felt like it. I can't blame them though, you should not have line 40-50 deep to go to the bathroom. That's unacceptable. The speedway could have added something like maybe 10-15 more and they would have had the right number.


From a fan's perspective the track was pretty good, and frankly I have never seen a race whether it be on television or at the track where the WoO boys didn't lay a bunch of rubber down on the track. I have seen it happen at the hallowed Knoxville Nationals as well as at Red River Valley Speedway.


Joey Saldana had never been to River Cities Speedway took the first ever WoO feature race at River Cities Speedway. Joey had the trifecta: he won his heat race, won the dash and took the 10,000 to win feature. This is a picture of Joey being pushed back to his car after winning the feature at RCS.


This picture is of Trin in the hauler of Paul McMahan which is owned by Tony Stewart Racing.



I really love this picture: this is Trin with the crew of the Paul McMahan race team after the races.





This is a pretty good picture that shows how high tech and expensive and racing motors in a WoO sprint car are. This is a motor out of the 10C Jeremy Campbell car. The price of a motor to race in the WoO sprint car tour is 45,000.00, incidentally that was the first night of racing on that motor and the motor was broken when the 10c car flipped during race action.




Goon's Dad

What's on the Race Car...

Local kids Tommy "T-Bone" and Seth aka "hopper" with a River Cities Speedway's mid season champions car. Of course its no secret that Balcaen is an awesome super late model driver: According to River Cities Speedway track announcer Tim Mooney; Mike Balcaen has won something in the neighborhood of 30 track championships. That is a life time of championships.


One could say that whats on the race car says a lot about the driver and his personality. This car (a Midwest Modified) has a funny eye catching phrase on the back of the car. Lets just say It shows original thought and its funny. It's one of those statements that makes you at least take a second look. I have no idea who's car it is, but it is a funny phrase.

Wade Nygaards sprinter has a funny slogan on it too. This driver carries no cash, LOL... Wade Nygaard an awesome sprint car driver and has won something like 212 feature races during his racing career. So it wouldn't be an understatement to say that if Wade actually had some cash on board his race car, your going to have to drive fast to take it from him. Another fact about Wade Nygaard: he is sitting third in the points at Hussets Speedway in Brandon South Dakota (as of 6/17/2007).

If you look around the pits you will see quite a few Jon Seitz Memorial stickers on the Late Models cars and as well as some of the other cars in the pits. I honestly don't know of anyone that doesn't miss seeing the 92 car racing around the track, it's a sad deal and defiantly the loss of Jon has created a hole in the River Cities Speedway program. For that reason I will be in the stands during September 6th and 7th special for the 9,200 to win feature in Jon's honor. I can't imagine the crowd that race is going to bring in. That is a big purse and I believe that is probably the second biggest to ever be awarded for a race at River Cities speedway. The WoO Late Models raced for the 10,000 on the 12th of June.