Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

PennLive releases No. 24 on list of top Sprint Car drivers, and the selection is....

No. 23 will be released today at noon.

No way. How many times have you seen Mark race? I love Mark, great guy, great team, even have a shirt of his, but you can't just look at the wins in less than stellar competition at River Cities and Husets - he beat the WoO at Huset's the other night however was the only local in the top 14. He goes to Vegas every year and isn't exactly a "lock" to make the A Main out there. He's good, but shouldn't be sandwiched inbetween Brian Brown and David Gravel, who have both proven they can run anywhere in the country competitively. Mark is a great local driver at River Cities, Huset's and Knoxville but even there, I'd take Henderson, McCarl, and Ian Madsen over him. He's a great guy, so I'm not trying to bash him because I root for the guy every time I see him run. One of the cool facts about the Lunstra team is that 100% of what Mark earns goes back into the car (at least that was what it was a couple years back when I talked to him)

Resume' also comes into play here. Justin Henderson has very little as far as wins. McCarl, let's just say he is coming up. Dobmeier, who I feel is very under-rated, has performed admirably at the Nationals at times. Would like to see him on the road, because I feel he could make some noise. 

It's always tough when you are comparing guys from regions. But, I will say that coming from 10th in a World of Outlaws race is nothing to sneeze at.

I don't see how you'd put Henderson ahead of Dobmeier, although I am not really seeing him as top 25 either.
I am interested in seeing how you rank the top 5, because if you put emphasis on past history, Kinser is obviously still #1, however going off the current status, Schatz is clearly #1.

It'll also be interesting how you rank guys like Pittman, probably #2 currently, but #11 of current drivers in WoO career wins.

It's a fun debate. Let me say, I meant at Knoxville I will take Ian, McCarl and Henderson (3rd at Nationals last year) over Dobmeier.

Mark is definitely underrated. No doubt about that. 

I strongly considered Ian Madsen. But just not enough of a resume at this point. A few years from now, he probably gets on it. There were a lot of tough calls with the guys I left off. Two in particular were difficult to leave off. They will be in the honorable mention part of the list, which may be released before the top 15.

I like the idea of releasing it before the top 15. 

I will say, it's an extremely difficult list to put together. Part of that is my fault. I could have taken the easy way and made it a lifetime achievement or just this year list. Just thought that was a cop out. I like the idea of making it difficult. These things shouldn't be easy.

Something else I think is worth mentioning...this team competes on Fri nites in Grand Forks, tows 9 hours to race knoxville on Sat nite, then 5 hours to race Husets on Sun nite, them 5 hours back to Grand Forks, presumably to go back to work during the week.  Anyone who has been on a race team knows how grueling it is to race, load up, wash the car, etc, and get down the road to the next track, and if you crash or break, it gets worse from there.   This team does this every weekend all summer, and they are always competitive.  Not sure it's fair to call this competing locally.