Eddie Reichert and Bob Schafer defended their pro and amateur titles to earn Gary Jacob Memorial plaques provided by the National Speedway Directory in our annual SuperFans contest, which judges who sees the most races each year.
Schafer claimed overall honors with 269 races — a remarkable feat we’ll chronicle soon. However, this week, we will look at the folks that amassed impressive totals wearing press passes.
Wisconsin’s Reichert, who writes for Dirt Racing News and Hawkeye Racing News, attended 152 races, two fewer than he saw the previous season. It was his 27th straight season attending more than 100 races.
After visiting 58 tracks in 13 states, he rated October’s 100 car, three-day open competition modified show at Kentucky Lake Motor Speedway the best.
Ed called the Wissota Challenge LM show at Rice Lake, Wis., the most intense, as rain made the track heavy with the cars running wide open all the way around.
Perennial challenger Ron Rodda claimed the silver medal with 139 races at 40 tracks in eight states. The MARC Times columnist says the best race was Tim Kaeding’s final night win in the Fall Nationals at Chico.
He also praises the paved All American Speedway, now a third mile and only 15 minutes from home, a bonus for any SuperFan.
NSSN correspondent and multi-speedway announcer Al Robinson claimed third with 118 races at 52 tracks in 14 states. He rated Mike Rowe’s win in the PASS Pro-Stocks at Star Speedway in Epping, N.H., the best asphalt show, while dirt honors went to the Outlaw World Finals at The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway.
Crash of the year honors went to a Jimmy Blewett/Kevin Flockhart tangle at Wall Township Speedway in New Jersey and Lucas Wolfe’s spaceshot out of the May WoO show at Williams Grove Speedway. He says the worst idea was starting 34 supermodifieds and the resultant wreckfest at Concord (N.C.) Motorsport Park.
National Speedway Directory Publisher Allan Brown was fourth, seeing 102 races at 99 tracks in 22 states and one Canadian province.
From East Bay in Florida to Washington’s Skagit Speedway, he saw just about every kind of racing offered in the U.S. And after watching Tony Stewart win at Ft. Wayne in December, Brown declared that he hadn’t seen a bad race all year.
Area Auto Racing News columnist Don Davies was fifth with 92 shows. He said the World Finals at The Dirt Track @ Lowe’s Motor Speedway edged Fulton’s Victoria 200 as the best. He also lauds Albany-Saratoga as the premier weekly event.
American Motor Journal columnist Bruce Eckel was sixth on the pro side with 84 races, two ahead of wife Pat. They’ve now seen at least one a month for 18 consecutive seasons.
Their No. 1 pick was a rain-delayed Lucas Oil LM show at Hagerstown (Md.) Speedway, with a sticky surface that let Scott James win from 17th.
The Eckels also I.D.’ed some losers on their tour, led by the sandblasting they got at Volusia County Speedway during the WoO/UMP doubleheader in February. That drove them away for the week.
Tony Veneziano, the much traveled WoO sprint-car PR man, saw 78 Outlaw shows and one All-Star event to claim eighth. The best, he says, was at “River Cities Speedway in Grand Forks, N.D., where a huge crowd saw Jac Haudenschild run the high side of the high-banked bullring to finish inches behind Joey Saldana, who earned the win in the series’ inaugural event at River Cities.”
Area Auto Racing News columnist J.R. Kennerup, in ninth, says his totals were down because of “long shows and terrible track conditions.” But he still got to 46 races at 19 tracks in five states, with the two best being June mid-week shows at Five Mile Point Speedway in New York, that ran off in two hours and 22 minutes and an Albany-Saratoga Speedway special highlighted by “the best fireworks display I’ve seen in a long time.”
Losers on Kennerup’s card included a marathon at Wyoming County (N.Y.), with four divisions totaling 20 cars.
Dale Danielski completed the top 10, with 30 races. The MARC Times columnist says the best was at Upper Iowa Speedway, where four-wide racing right to the checkers saved an otherwise interminable program.
He says that the only track in the area that “has it together” is Chuck Deery’s LaCrosse (Wis.) Fairgrounds Speedway, with everyone else killing the fans with needlessly long shows.
Next time, we’ll check out the top amateur SuperFans.