While some tracks have closed out their points season already, there's still plenty of great racing to be found in the area. Hilltop ended their points chase with one hell of a show, but they still have a few events left on the schedule. September 11th and 12th will bring the Mini Stock Nationals to Millersburg and this one could be wild. Mods, Street Stocks, Cruisers, Trucks, and Outlaw Minis will all be part of this show. I'm pretty curious to see what shows up in the Outlaw Minis to be honest. This will be a "run what ya brung" class kinda like the stuff we used to see at the Lakeville Dirt Blowout. On September 18th Hilltop will bring a different kind of show to the Hill with the Hill Of Rock Music Fest. Sounds like a party to me! ;-) The Ohio Outlaw quads return to Hilltop on Sept. 25th and October 9th also. You sure as hell don't want to miss the Enduro race at Hilltop on October 2nd either. This show will be the first in the area to feature mini vans! Leave it to the folks at Hilltop to bring you a variety of fun like this.
Lakeville still has one regular points race left before they close out their points chase on September 17th. Then comes the 15th annual Ohio Dirt Blowout. Final details on the Blowout should be out soon so stay tuned. This is always a wild and crazy weekend at Lakeville and your last chance for action there until next season.
Midvale will run their Season Championship event this Saturday and I can think of more than one old fella that's anxious to get this over with. After leading the points every night but one early in the season, things have really tightened up over the past month of racing. We went into Saturday night with just a 19 point lead so there was no room for mistakes or failures. Thankfully Miller has certainly been in this position many times before and he handled it as calm and cool as opening day. Practice times were good but not exactly what we needed. However, when it came time to qualify this veteran was up on the wheel squeezing more than an extra tenth out of his ride to wind up second. Damn nice run but it still cost us one point. The heat race was a tight battle that lost us another point. The pursuit race is one way we've picked up a few extra points recently but not this time. At least we didn't lose any either. Now we really couldn't afford any mistakes or get held up in traffic in the feature. With it being "pick your lane" night we didn't know what to expect. On the initial start Miller chose the inside lane which I have to admit surprised the shit out of me. Before they ever got a lap in he got another chance to choose and this time he picked the high side. From the drop of the green he set sail for the front and picked up 4 spots in just a couple laps. He quickly found himself in second with that damn Smith kid in his mirror. They ran the rest of the race that way without a real challenge from behind and that was enough to even out the points again for the night. We left with the same 19 point advantage. Our job this week is to hang onto all of those points that we can on a double points night. Sounds easy enough right? ;-) With Miller behind the wheel the only thing I fear is getting torn up in a worthless pursuit race or worse yet in the feature, or some crazy call from the tower. It wouldn't be the first time for either of those and it would be a shame to lose a championship in that way. Stay tuned til next week to see how it all turns out.
