CONCORD, NC – July 2, 2007 –
 
SUPER DEBUT: Saturday night’s inaugural ‘Firecracker 100’ at Lernerville Speedway – the biggest dirt Late Model event ever run in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania – was the huge success that so many people predicted it would be as soon as it was announced last October.
 
The parking lot was filled with more campers than Lernerville’s grounds had ever accommodated. The stands were nearly filled to capacity. A top-notch field of 60 cars participated. Fans and teams enjoyed a full weekend of activities, including fireworks; a post-race concert on Friday night; the ‘Lernerville Wienie Roast’ and horseshoes tournament on Saturday afternoon; and a huge pre-race driver autograph session underneath the grandstands on Saturday.
 
And there was a true feeling of electricity in the air throughout the entire event, signaling that the ‘Firecracker 100’ has the goods to become one of the country’s crown-jewel dirt Late Model shows.
 
In that regard, Lernerville general manager Gary Risch Jr. announced to the crowd on Saturday night that the ‘Firecracker 100’ will be back on the track’s schedule in 2008. A date near the Fourth of July holiday will once again be reserved for the event.
 
“We’re thrilled with the inaugural ‘Firecracker 100,’” said Risch. “Our staff at Lernerville worked hard for months to make this weekend memorable for everyone, and now we only want to make it even better in the future.”
 
HIGH PRAISE: The ‘Firecracker 100’ got a seal of approval from none other than 2004 World of Outlaws Late Model Series champion Scott Bloomquist, who added the event to his already bulging list of big-money victories.
 
“They’re probably gonna have to build more grandstands (to handle future crowds),” said Bloomquist, speaking during the post-race press conference while holding his young daughter, Ariel, and Jack Russell Terrier, Buddy. “People got to see one helluva show. Next time they’re gonna bring some friends with them.
 
“You couldn’t ask for a more raceable facility,” he added. “You could run three-wide. Any place you can go and race like this, you enjoy coming to it.”
 
Bloomquist sees the two-day, mega-event format of the ‘Firecracker 100’ as being great for dirt Late Model racing.
 
“This is what we really like running – the big, two-day shows,” said Bloomquist. “You can relax after the heats (on Friday night), hang out, spend time with fans. There’s time for autograph sessions, because you don’t have to jump in the rig and get down the road to the next race.
 
“Eventually, huge races like this will be the only ones I run,” concluded the 43-year-old superstar.
 
STRONG RETURN: Chris Madden was back on the WoO LMS at Lernerville – and judging by his strong second-place finish in the ‘Firecracker 100,’ he’s better than ever.
 
After entering the first 17 events of the 2007 tour, Madden reluctantly decided to drop off the series following the June 2 show at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway. Ranked eighth in points at the time, Madden had to step back from traveling after his wife gave birth to the couple’s third child one month premature, his fulltime crewman suddenly departed and he determined that his equipment needed some re-energizing for the grind.
 
“We took a couple weeks off and regrouped,” said Madden, whose last start with his Henderson Amusements/Century Plastics No. 44 prior to Lernerville came on June 8-9 for the ‘Dream’ at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway. “I didn’t have my stuff together for a few weeks, so we planned on coming here and running good.”
 
Madden, whose five-week-old son Avery is doing very well (in fact, he spent last weekend at Lernerville inside the team hauler with his mother), is planning to enter this weekend’s $20,000-to-win WoO LMS ‘Freedom 100’ at Pike County Speedway in Magnolia, Miss.
 
HEATED COMPETITION: The action wasn’t as loud as what occurred on the track, but the eight dirt Late Model drivers who competed in Saturday afternoon’s horseshoes tournament at Lernerville definitely had winning on their minds.
 
The tourney’s roster included WoO LMS travelers Clint Smith, Steve Francis, Shane Clanton, Rick Eckert and Brian Shirley; Lernerville regulars Lynn Geisler and Alex Ferree; and West Virginia’s Steve Shaver. The eight drivers were paired with fans for the tournament, with $200 in cash going to the winning team.
 
Geisler (with partner Rich Baumgartner) and Clanton (with partner Justin Taylor) squared off in the finals. Team Geisler took the victory, 21-14.
 
Valencia, Pa.’s Baumgartner, a big Geisler fan, donated his half of the tournament winnings to his driver’s racing effort.
 
MORE FROM THE GREAT NORTHERN TOUR…
 
WHAT A SHOW: The first-ever WoO LMS held in Canada, on June 23 at Autodrome Drummond in Drummondville, Que., was memorable indeed.
 
Drummond’s staff, including longtime DIRTcar Racing Northeast official Gaston Salvas, rolled out the red carpet for the traveling dirt Late Model teams. They made sure that the racers’ long haul to French-speaking Quebec was appreciated and didn’t include any unnecessary headaches crossing the border.
 
Bert Robidoux, the well-known owner of Bert Transmissions outside Montreal, welcomed the dirt Late Model teams to Canada by providing them St-Hubert restaurant chicken dinners in the pit area on Saturday afternoon. The teams then spent the remainder of their day in Quebec in the spotlight of a huge, standing-room-only crowd.
 
The teams were impressed by the show-stopping driver introduction that punctuated the pre-race festivities. The race’s 22 starters were lined up along the homestretch in single-file formation facing the grandstand, with each driver positioned at the right-front corner of their machines. After the track lights were shut off, a booming cannon shot awakened the crowd to a fireworks display that was set to music on the speedway’s top-notch p.a. system, then a spotlight illuminated each driver as they were introduced. More theatrics followed during the four-wide pace lap – fireworks were set off on both sides of the homestretch as the cars passed by.
 
The young hierarchy at Autodrome Drummond – assistant promoters Yan Bussiere, 34, and Carl Labonte, 30, and race director Steve Salvas, 35 – has brought a new enthusiasm and outlook to the track, as evidenced by the entertainment that is part of the racing program. To wit: the track has a D.J. in his own booth spinning high-energy tunes during the program; a mascot named ‘Gasoline’ frolics with kids throughout the stands; and breaks in the action are juiced up by Bud Girls slinging t-shirts and other prizes into the stands.
 
“It’s unbelievable,” A-Main winner Steve Francis said when asked about the atmosphere at Autodrome Drummond. “The fans see a whole show all night long, not just cars running around the racetrack. They had the fireworks, the girls, the music. It’s professionally done, and that’s why there were 5, 6,000 people here.”
 
Added feature runner-up Rick Eckert: “Wow, this whole place is cool. The fans were awesome. I’ve never heard fans scream and holler like they did.”
 
In the wake of the wildly successful international event, the WoO LMS teams were receptive to the idea of making a two- or three-track visit to Canada in 2008. WoO LMS officials are already considering options for next season.
 
EIGHTEEN YEARS LATER: The trip to Autodrome Drummond was nostalgic for Ohio dirt Late Model veteran John Mason, who finished second to Larry Moore in the only previous Super Late Model event held at the track, a STARS-sanctioned show on June 22, 1989.
 
Mason made the 12-hour haul to Drummond with fellow Buckeye State racer George Lee, who works at Mason Racin’, Inc. Mason also provided a dirt Late Model ride to young French Canadian DIRTcar 358-Modified driver Kayle Robidoux, whose father Bert is a close, longtime friend of Mason, and he visited nearby Autodrome Granby on Friday night with his race cars to promote the WoO LMS event.
 
Ironically, Mason’s 1989 visit to Drummond came just six weeks after his second daughter, Kerry, was born, and ended up being the first race she attended. She returned to Drummond on June 23 as an 18-year-old who recently graduated high school and is now her father’s crew chief.
 
GETTING THE HANG OF IT: One of the most notable runs of the ‘Great Northern Tour’ was turned in by Leicester, N.Y.’s Vic Coffey, whose fourth-place finish on June 24 at Cayuga County Fair Speedway in Weedsport, N.Y., showed he might have turned the corner as a dirt Late Model racer.
 
A veteran DIRTcar big-block Modified driver, Coffey has spent the last four years entering selected dirt Late Model shows as a Sweeteners Plus Racing teammate of 2006 WoO LMS champion Tim McCreadie. He’s struggled to find his rhythm, but at CCFS – a track he knows well from his big-block Modified exploits – he ran up front for all 50 laps to record his first-ever top-five finish on the tour.
 
“We made some spring changes and scaled the car and found something,” said Coffey. “I’m finally starting to feel confident in these cars. I’ve been feeling like I’m in the way all the time, but now I feel like I can go out there and race.”
 
For more information on the WoO LMS, visit www.worldofoutlaws.com.