UMP Late Model News & Notes: Tripleheader Weekend at Paducah International Raceway, I-55 Raceway & Springfield Mile
NORMAN , OK – Sept. 17, 2006 –
By Kevin Kovac
ONE FOR BOB: Friday night’s ‘USA World 50’ at Paducah ( Ky. ) International Raceway doubled as the Bob Memmer/Wayne Coakley Memorial.
That the event carried the name of late UMP founder Bob Memmer meant a lot to current UMP director Sam Driggers, who spent 13 years working under Memmer before the well-known advocate of the low-buck racers passed away three years ago.
“The good part about this is that Bob loved the World 50 that they had every year here,” said Driggers. “ Paducah was one of his favorite tracks, and he helped this place out a lot over the years.
“It’s real fitting that (a Bob Memmer Memorial) is here. And it’s fitting that Billy Moyer, who was always one of Bob’s guys, is here, as well as some of our other former champions (UMP Late Model national and Summernationals titlist Rodney Melvin, Terry English, Randy Korte and Shannon Babb).”
Driggers tries hard to carry on Memmer’s legacy.
“Bob was like my second father,” said Driggers, whose own father died 10 years ago. “I’m more like Bob Memmer than I ever thought I would be. A lot of his philosophies, and the way he looked at things, are the way I look at things.
“I love it that our ‘little guys’ are running just as well as these big-dollar guys. That’s what Bob wanted, and that’s what we’re still doing with UMP every single day.”
COMPLETE TURNAROUND: What a difference a couple months can make.
After beginning the summer racing stretch with his confidence level at an alarming low, Brian Shirley of Chatham , Ill. , closed the temperate season sitting on top of the ‘world.’ He won the ‘USA World 50’ at PIR, giving him nine victories since July 15.
“I was questioning myself whether I was supposed to be doing this for a living,” the 25-year-old Shirley said when asked what his mindset was like two months ago. “I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. I was thinking about going back to work.
“But you just never give up. I went back on that old adage: ‘Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.’ That’s kinda been my motto for these last couple months after I struggled so bad.
“Earlier this year a lot of people were questioning me, asking, ‘What’s wrong?’ We’ve been getting stronger every year, stepping up and doing something better every year, but when this season started we struggled, so people were asking if I was a fluke.”
Shirley’s struggles are a distant memory.
“It’s just a wonderful feeling,” he said of his roll. “I finished fourth at the (recent) Prairie Dirt Classic (at Fairbury American Legion Speedway), and I was so disappointed. A fourth in that race isn’t bad – and two months ago I would’ve been thrilled with a fourth – but now, it’s like, I go out and try to win every race.
“Nobody’s gonna win every race; it’s just impossible. But as long as I feel like I have a car capable of winning the race and we’re in the hunt, then we can go home satisfied.”
With that said, Shirley wasn’t smiling after he finished a quiet fifth in Saturday night’s UMP-sanctioned Pepsi Nationals 50 at I-55 Raceway in Pevely , Mo.
“When you lose and know you had a good enough car to win, you can go home with a clear head,” said Shirley, who didn’t make the correct adjustments for an I-55 surface that was slicker than normal. “But tonight the ride home’s gonna be a long one because we’re gonna be trying to figure out what happened. It’s just horrible going home knowing that your car wasn’t even capable of winning and you were just hanging on.”
ON THE VERGE: Driggers can’t make an official pronouncement yet, but it appears that Randy Korte of Highland , Ill. , has all but clinched the 2006 UMP Late Model national title after a weekend in which he finished seventh at Paducah and second at I-55.
Korte, 41, will look to increase his total of 27 wins – and replace the few remaining poor finishes on his best-50-race UMP record in 2006 – in the coming weeks by racing at Missouri’s Lebanon I-44 Speedway (Sept. 22-23), his hometown Highland Speedway (Sept. 30) and the UMP Nationals at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway (Oct. 6-7).
SEARCHING: Defending World of Outlaws Late Model Series champion Billy Moyer of Batesville , Ark. , unloaded a new MasterSbilt car on Friday night at Paducah . It was the first time he’s driven a MasterSbilt machine since 2003.
Moyer, who fell one spot short of transferring to the feature in the night’s first B-Main, plans to run the MasterSbilt car in this weekend’s (Sept. 22-23) WoO LMS Pittsburgher 100 at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway. He drove his Rayburn mount to a 10th-place finish in Saturday night’s Pepsi Nationals at I-55 Raceway.
STRONG SHOWING: An eighth-place finish in Saturday’s Pepsi Nationals put a smile on the face of Michael Kloos.
“We’re real happy to finish in the top 10,” said Kloos, a regular at Highland Speedway. “There were a lot of good cars here tonight, and we learned a lot about the shocks and tires.”
Kloos, 22, of Trenton , Ill. , is in his fifth season of dirt Late Model action, but his first driving a car owned by Gary Gerstner, who fielded a Late Model for Kloos’s father for more than 15 years.
SPEED RACER: Brian Birkhofer of Muscatine , Iowa , had to skip Saturday’s Pepsi Nationals at I-55 Raceway because his mechanic suffered a kidney-stone attack and was hospitalized. But he made it to Sunday’s ill-fated Illinois Fall Nationals at the Springfield Mile, which was postponed to Sun., Oct. 1, when rain arrived just before feature time.
While many dirt Late Model drivers dread the fast mile oval, Birkhofer enjoys it.
“I like the bigger tracks,” said Birkhofer, who has won three times at Springfield . “You’ve got some straightaway, so you can kinda size up somebody before making a move. On the short tracks, you’re pretty much just winging it.”
Birky, who is scheduled to start second in the Springfield main after scoring a heat win, made some changes to his car to ready it for duty on the mile.
“You gotta get the body tight and the nose low to the ground,” he explained. “And you lay your spoiler back and get the rear weight out of the car because you just drive around the track straight.”
HE WAS READY: Darren Miller took the weekend off from racing elsewhere to gear up for Springfield ’s Illinois Fall Nationals.
The prep paid off for the Chadwick, Ill. , driver, who set a new track record of 27.581 seconds (nearly 131 mph average speed) in time trials. He’ll start from the pole when the feature goes to the post on Oct. 1.
“I like coming here,” said Miller. “I think it’s neat to do it once a year. It’s some extra work, but I think what we do to the car does help us when we run some of the bigger half-miles too.”
LAST RIDE ON THE MILE?: No one in Sunday’s UMP Late Model field at Springfield has run the Illinois Fall Nationals as much as Joe Ross Jr., a Springfield resident who has been in the field every year since the event’s inception in 1992.
Ross, 39, knows what it takes to go fast on the mile.
“Traction is your enemy here,” said Ross, who was running second in the 2003 Fall Nationals when he crashed with a lapped car. “You don’t need traction because you’re not stopping and standing on it like you do at most tracks. Here’s you gotta get on the gas as soon as you get in the corner.”
Ross, who drives a car owned and built by Bill West, was hoping for a good performance in front of his home crowd. That’s because he said this season might be the last of his 20-year racing career. With his trucking company very busy and three young children (ages 5-11) at home, he said he’s no longer able to devote enough time to racing.
ACCOMPLISHED ASSISTANT: Jackie Boggs of Grayson , Ky. , entered Sunday’s action at Springfield with a well-known racer on his crew for the afternoon: former dirt Late Model star Charlie Swartz, who won the Fall Nationals in 1994.
COMBATING THE AIR: Jimmy Mars of Menominee, Wis. , made his second career start on the Springfield Mile – and he made one change to his routine after remembering his first appearance in 2004.
“The first time I ran here the air got inside my helmet going down the straightaways and blew so hard that it made it hard to keep my eyes open to see,” said Mars, who will start third in the feature after winning a heat. “Today I wore little glasses that were close to my eyes and I didn’t have a problem.”
NORMAN , OK – Sept. 17, 2006 –
By Kevin Kovac
ONE FOR BOB: Friday night’s ‘USA World 50’ at Paducah ( Ky. ) International Raceway doubled as the Bob Memmer/Wayne Coakley Memorial.
That the event carried the name of late UMP founder Bob Memmer meant a lot to current UMP director Sam Driggers, who spent 13 years working under Memmer before the well-known advocate of the low-buck racers passed away three years ago.
“The good part about this is that Bob loved the World 50 that they had every year here,” said Driggers. “ Paducah was one of his favorite tracks, and he helped this place out a lot over the years.
“It’s real fitting that (a Bob Memmer Memorial) is here. And it’s fitting that Billy Moyer, who was always one of Bob’s guys, is here, as well as some of our other former champions (UMP Late Model national and Summernationals titlist Rodney Melvin, Terry English, Randy Korte and Shannon Babb).”
Driggers tries hard to carry on Memmer’s legacy.
“Bob was like my second father,” said Driggers, whose own father died 10 years ago. “I’m more like Bob Memmer than I ever thought I would be. A lot of his philosophies, and the way he looked at things, are the way I look at things.
“I love it that our ‘little guys’ are running just as well as these big-dollar guys. That’s what Bob wanted, and that’s what we’re still doing with UMP every single day.”
COMPLETE TURNAROUND: What a difference a couple months can make.
After beginning the summer racing stretch with his confidence level at an alarming low, Brian Shirley of Chatham , Ill. , closed the temperate season sitting on top of the ‘world.’ He won the ‘USA World 50’ at PIR, giving him nine victories since July 15.
“I was questioning myself whether I was supposed to be doing this for a living,” the 25-year-old Shirley said when asked what his mindset was like two months ago. “I didn’t know if I was doing the right thing. I was thinking about going back to work.
“But you just never give up. I went back on that old adage: ‘Luck is when preparation meets opportunity.’ That’s kinda been my motto for these last couple months after I struggled so bad.
“Earlier this year a lot of people were questioning me, asking, ‘What’s wrong?’ We’ve been getting stronger every year, stepping up and doing something better every year, but when this season started we struggled, so people were asking if I was a fluke.”
Shirley’s struggles are a distant memory.
“It’s just a wonderful feeling,” he said of his roll. “I finished fourth at the (recent) Prairie Dirt Classic (at Fairbury American Legion Speedway), and I was so disappointed. A fourth in that race isn’t bad – and two months ago I would’ve been thrilled with a fourth – but now, it’s like, I go out and try to win every race.
“Nobody’s gonna win every race; it’s just impossible. But as long as I feel like I have a car capable of winning the race and we’re in the hunt, then we can go home satisfied.”
With that said, Shirley wasn’t smiling after he finished a quiet fifth in Saturday night’s UMP-sanctioned Pepsi Nationals 50 at I-55 Raceway in Pevely , Mo.
“When you lose and know you had a good enough car to win, you can go home with a clear head,” said Shirley, who didn’t make the correct adjustments for an I-55 surface that was slicker than normal. “But tonight the ride home’s gonna be a long one because we’re gonna be trying to figure out what happened. It’s just horrible going home knowing that your car wasn’t even capable of winning and you were just hanging on.”
ON THE VERGE: Driggers can’t make an official pronouncement yet, but it appears that Randy Korte of Highland , Ill. , has all but clinched the 2006 UMP Late Model national title after a weekend in which he finished seventh at Paducah and second at I-55.
Korte, 41, will look to increase his total of 27 wins – and replace the few remaining poor finishes on his best-50-race UMP record in 2006 – in the coming weeks by racing at Missouri’s Lebanon I-44 Speedway (Sept. 22-23), his hometown Highland Speedway (Sept. 30) and the UMP Nationals at Ohio’s Eldora Speedway (Oct. 6-7).
SEARCHING: Defending World of Outlaws Late Model Series champion Billy Moyer of Batesville , Ark. , unloaded a new MasterSbilt car on Friday night at Paducah . It was the first time he’s driven a MasterSbilt machine since 2003.
Moyer, who fell one spot short of transferring to the feature in the night’s first B-Main, plans to run the MasterSbilt car in this weekend’s (Sept. 22-23) WoO LMS Pittsburgher 100 at Pittsburgh’s Pennsylvania Motor Speedway. He drove his Rayburn mount to a 10th-place finish in Saturday night’s Pepsi Nationals at I-55 Raceway.
STRONG SHOWING: An eighth-place finish in Saturday’s Pepsi Nationals put a smile on the face of Michael Kloos.
“We’re real happy to finish in the top 10,” said Kloos, a regular at Highland Speedway. “There were a lot of good cars here tonight, and we learned a lot about the shocks and tires.”
Kloos, 22, of Trenton , Ill. , is in his fifth season of dirt Late Model action, but his first driving a car owned by Gary Gerstner, who fielded a Late Model for Kloos’s father for more than 15 years.
SPEED RACER: Brian Birkhofer of Muscatine , Iowa , had to skip Saturday’s Pepsi Nationals at I-55 Raceway because his mechanic suffered a kidney-stone attack and was hospitalized. But he made it to Sunday’s ill-fated Illinois Fall Nationals at the Springfield Mile, which was postponed to Sun., Oct. 1, when rain arrived just before feature time.
While many dirt Late Model drivers dread the fast mile oval, Birkhofer enjoys it.
“I like the bigger tracks,” said Birkhofer, who has won three times at Springfield . “You’ve got some straightaway, so you can kinda size up somebody before making a move. On the short tracks, you’re pretty much just winging it.”
Birky, who is scheduled to start second in the Springfield main after scoring a heat win, made some changes to his car to ready it for duty on the mile.
“You gotta get the body tight and the nose low to the ground,” he explained. “And you lay your spoiler back and get the rear weight out of the car because you just drive around the track straight.”
HE WAS READY: Darren Miller took the weekend off from racing elsewhere to gear up for Springfield ’s Illinois Fall Nationals.
The prep paid off for the Chadwick, Ill. , driver, who set a new track record of 27.581 seconds (nearly 131 mph average speed) in time trials. He’ll start from the pole when the feature goes to the post on Oct. 1.
“I like coming here,” said Miller. “I think it’s neat to do it once a year. It’s some extra work, but I think what we do to the car does help us when we run some of the bigger half-miles too.”
LAST RIDE ON THE MILE?: No one in Sunday’s UMP Late Model field at Springfield has run the Illinois Fall Nationals as much as Joe Ross Jr., a Springfield resident who has been in the field every year since the event’s inception in 1992.
Ross, 39, knows what it takes to go fast on the mile.
“Traction is your enemy here,” said Ross, who was running second in the 2003 Fall Nationals when he crashed with a lapped car. “You don’t need traction because you’re not stopping and standing on it like you do at most tracks. Here’s you gotta get on the gas as soon as you get in the corner.”
Ross, who drives a car owned and built by Bill West, was hoping for a good performance in front of his home crowd. That’s because he said this season might be the last of his 20-year racing career. With his trucking company very busy and three young children (ages 5-11) at home, he said he’s no longer able to devote enough time to racing.
ACCOMPLISHED ASSISTANT: Jackie Boggs of Grayson , Ky. , entered Sunday’s action at Springfield with a well-known racer on his crew for the afternoon: former dirt Late Model star Charlie Swartz, who won the Fall Nationals in 1994.
COMBATING THE AIR: Jimmy Mars of Menominee, Wis. , made his second career start on the Springfield Mile – and he made one change to his routine after remembering his first appearance in 2004.
“The first time I ran here the air got inside my helmet going down the straightaways and blew so hard that it made it hard to keep my eyes open to see,” said Mars, who will start third in the feature after winning a heat. “Today I wore little glasses that were close to my eyes and I didn’t have a problem.”
