April 2001 - Inside Line Column - by Floyd Busby

By the time this column is read, the 2001 season will be on its way with the April 1 season opener at the Stockton "99" Speedway in the record books.

That race kicks (kicked) off the season for the BCRA midgets with the first of a number of co-sanctioned races with USAC. Last season there were no co-sanctions, this season we have seven such events. The cooperative will bring us to Kings Speedway in Hanford for the first time with two events, May 12 and October 13. We return to the Santa Maria Speedway for the first time in several seasons on September 8, and to Madera on April 21 and September 22.

That accounts for the original six agreed upon co-sanctions, but a recent announcement added a seventh, and perhaps more stunning event in Carson City.

The "night before Indy" date of May 26 had been a solo BCRA scheduled event, but some very major changes have taken place at the Nevada speedway.

Les Kynett recently purchased the track from Larry Burton. It had been Kynett who sold it to Burton about ten years ago.

The first thing Kynett did was change the name of the race track from Silver State Raceway to Carson Tahoe Champion Speedway (I don't know of any other track that has had so many name changes over the years as Carson City!).

Kynett and his associates have planned to promote some major events at the facility, among those, changing the May 26 date from a straight BCRA program to a BCRA/USAC program, and - a 100 lap main event! Now, a 100-lapper might be commonplace for some of the USAC'ers, but nobody in BCRA can even remember specifically when the last time was that BCRA ran the century route. From what we can determine, it was perhaps in the early 1980's.

The midgets will be the feature with some of the local stock cars running their preliminary events the previous evening and competing only in main events on the eve of Indy. The midget portion will probably consist of several races prior to the 100-lapper, giving BCRA's new Division-2 the opportunity to run among themselves and then transfer to the "last chance" race prior to the feature.

Kynett has arranged for a big weekend. The official hotel is the Plaza Hotel in Carson City. Pre-race registration will start Thursday evening at the hotel. Friday morning an "all you can eat" breakfast will be held at the new Empire Ranch Golf Course for $5 and golfers will play 18 holes for only $30 with cart. That evening the midget will practice from 5-9 p.m. and the stockers will have their heat races. If the ladies and kids in the crowd aren't particularly interested in the happenings, a special shuttle bus will take them to visit historic Virginia City on Friday.

The hotel rates are $49.50 per night double occupancy. The three-night package is $130. Fans are encouraged to get their reservations early by calling 1-888-227-1499.

Kynett plans to run several major, high-dollar events such as the SRL Super Modifieds during the 2001 season. 

The new BCRA Division-2 will be adding a part-time owner/driver to the roster. Silver Dollar Speedway 410 sprint car champion Jason York as purchased a Chevy II powered CanDo midget and will join us on dates that don't conflict with the defence of his sprint car title. Jason hopes to get in six or seven D-2 midget races.

The young and personable pilot took his newly acquired midget onto the Silver Dollar Speedway oval during a recent play day. After repairing some arrant electrical wiring, he gave it a try. "I really had a ball," York stated. "I've never driven a car without a wing before. Its different, but I really liked it and look forward to racing a midget." - BCRA looks forward to Jason's participation!

The Terry Caves CMR team operation has moved from the Central Valley to Marysville. Marysville is the home of Shain Matthews, one of the drivers who competes in a CMR Gaerte Lightning. Unfortunately, Matthews, a emancipated 15-year-old, will not be allowed to compete in the BCRA/USAC co-sanctioned races because of USAC's ruling against under 16-year-old drivers.

BCRA's Board of Directors recently addressed this issue and also is going the route of not allowing the under-16 drivers to compete. Sixteen and 17-year-olds must now be legally emancipated, as in USAC. Matthews and Brian Azevedo who fit that category will be "grandfathered" and allowed to compete in BCRA.

BCRA has a new website. While it is not as yet complete, you are welcome to log in and take a look. It is at: www.BCRAracing.com. Dennis Daniels is our new webmaster. Dennis also handles the website for the Antioch Speedway and is doing a superb job on the BCRA site. The old site will be eliminated as soon as the new site is complete and will usher web viewers to the new site with a link button.