GAME ON!

Well, we are at the end of another great season at the Speedworld.

Hard to believe it but, even with the rainouts, this season has just flown by.

This week has been full of nerves for those drivers that are involved in championship chases. Whether it is for the first, second or fifth time, you’ll be able to feel the electricity that comes along with those nerves with when we go green on Friday night and Saturday afternoon.

Everyone asks about clinching scenarios for championships. How can Driver A or Driver B lock up their championship regardless of what anyone else does. With Scotia Speedworld paying points for heat races (ten to win, less one point per position until it hits zero), those formulas becomes a lot more clear after the qualifiers, but for three divisions, there are positions we can ponder.

The biggest lead coming into Finale Friday is Cole Butcher’s stranglehold on the Strictly Hydraulics Legends. Butcher lost 23 points last week when he pulled off on the last lap and his advantage is now 37 over Nicholas Naugle. Say Butcher was not to run the heat and Naugle was to win, it would be a ten point advantage for Naugle, narrowing the point gap to 27. Take the 100 points you could get for winning the race, minus 27 from that and you get 73 points. Fourteenth place in the feature gets 74, which means in order for Butcher to clinch the title, regardless what Naugle does in the heat or feature, Butcher will have to finish 14th on Friday night.

 The average field size for Legends in the last four races? Fourteen.

Naugle though, if he stumbles, will be back in the battle for third in the standings. He enters 18 points up on #7 Jeff Cruickshank in third, but third through fifth, featuring the #7, the #75 of Emily Meehan and the #15 of Jeff Atkinson is just a mere three points. This second place battle has been quite the yo-yo all season long, but with the Brycon Construction #88 taking two critical wins in two weeks, it has tipped the scales in the way of Naugle. Third though is still a mess heading into Friday.

The next biggest margin in a point battle is the lead that two-time and defending Coors Light Truck champion has heading into the finale. I could be wrong, but the 22 point advantage for Dan Smith may be the biggest leader margin heading into the finale in the history of the Truck class. Take away the ten point buffer from the heat race, and to avoid a tiebreaker with rookie Cory Leonard, Smith needs to finish fifth to take away his third title.

Dan Smith has finished outside the top five only once this season, when he finished sixth on June 13th.

Cy Harvey enters 45 points back from Smith and mathematically would need an 18 truck field to have a shot at the championship. Only 16 Coors Light Truck entries total have run in the 2014 season.

If Cory Leonard was able to throw a hail mary and somehow tie Smith for the championship, he would likely have the edge on tiebreakers. At Scotia Speedworld, tiebreakers go to feature wins, and trickles down the line if need be to second place feature finishes, third place feature finishes, so on and so forth. Going into the final feature of 2014, Leonard and Smith both have a feature win, while Leonard owns three second place finishes to Smith’s one. Leonard would likely need to win to have any shot at the title, which would break that tie, but the second place finishes would tip in the favor of Leonard if it came to a tie in the standings after 25 laps.

In the Tim Hortons at the Airport Rookie battle in the class, Leonard has a 116 point gap on Adam Carter, making it mathematically impossible to catch the #74 in one race.

Next closest is the Lighting class, with fourteen points between the top three. Clinch scenarios? Easy for Mike Brown if he doesn’t get any points in the heat - win the feature!
But, in the “perfect storm” situation, as seen below, if “Rational” Richard Patrick were to lose three points in the heat to Deven Smith, Patrick was to finished second in the feature, Smith third and they would be tied in the standings, the tiebreaker would fall to a fifth place finish by Patrick on August 22nd.

Again, 13 and 14 points is a “manageable margin” to try and lock down a championship, but with all three going for their first track title at Scotia Speedworld, no margin within mathematical reach is “safe.”

Richie Moore and Darrell Sullivan enter 49 and 52 points behind Brown for the title, but would need 20+ car fields and some help from Brown, Patrick and Smith to get into championship contention.

Steve Matthews has a 130 point advantage on Joey Holland in the Tim Hortons at the Airport Rookie of the Year chase and has clinched the freshman title in the Lightning class.

Now we get to the classes that have no clinch option prior to heats because the top two are within ten points or less of each other. The Thunder class is just that, ten points.

I know how frustrated Dave Matthews was earlier in the season with five consecutive second place finishes, but if it comes to a tie between him and two time champion Tim Webster, he may need to fall back on those second place finishes. Matthews currently has one win to Webster’s zero, but if Webster were to win and gain the ten points necessary and tie with Matthews, the #99 would have Webster on second place finishes - five to two.

It’s simple for Matthew Warren, who enters 26 points behind the top two. If he is able to win it and gain enough points on the top two, he has the title. Warren enters with two victories on the season and would win on any tiebreaker on the top two given he gained enough points on them to do so.

 The battle in this class is also on like Donkey Kong for fifth in the standings. Kyle Gammon enters with the fifth spot, one point up on leading Tim Hortons at the Airport Rookie Brad Hayes. Hayes has a single point on “The Ironman” Drew MacEachern, who won last time out at the Thunder on the Hill feature. Six points behind MacEachern is former champion Stevie Lively. Ask any race car driver and they’ll tell you they’d rather say they finished in the top five than finished “somewhere in the top ten.” With one spot on the line and four hungry drivers, you will need to keep your eye on this one in the final feature Friday night.

Hayes has a comfortable, but not mathematically out of reach, lead on Merle Corbin for the Tim Hortons at the Airport Rookie of the Year Award. The two have 28 points between them and is the closest rookie battle over the six classes in the Weekly Racing Series.

Eight points is the margin between point leader Braden Langille and defending champion Adam Meehan heading into the Hydraulics Plus Bandolero championship race. There are no tiebreakers to discuss here - because Meehan has five wins on the season, more than anyone else in the class. He will need to rely on Langille having a misstep though, because while Meehan has won the last three races, he has only been able to close in to Langille by seven points in those three events. Langille comes in on a streak of six consecutive podium finishes, the most of any driver on the Weekly Racing Series this season, making him one of the most consistent drivers over the last month.

Either way - it boils down to what will be a classic showdown between two of the rising stars of this sport.

Fifteen points is the gap between third and fifth in the class, with Cole Tanner leading Wyatt McCulloch and Luke Ettinger. Ettinger has had a breakout season, winning his first main feature while Tanner has had a return to previous glory by winning three of the first five races of the season. McCulloch has been very consistent and the three are sure to put on a show when it counts in the final race of the season.

Speaking of breakout season, our 2014 Tim Hortons at the Airport Rookie of the Year in the class has improved greatly in his first season. I had the chance to sit back and watch Austin MacDonald work at Oyster Bed Speedway last week. From the first practice to the feature, the #27 showed vast improvement on the quick track and was within times of the lead car at the end of the day. The same can be said of his Scotia Speedworld season as a whole. For example, on average, his last four races have outpointed his first four race by ten points a race. He’s going to be a star in our sport folks, mark my words!

That brings us to Saturday and what is set to be the biggest battle all weekend - the Dartmouth Dodge Sportsman point championship.

We have three guys coming in that will put it all on the line on Saturday, and all three come in on differing patterns over the last three weeks.

Yes, our top two are tied, but it is Darren Wallage that would have the current edge based on second place finishes. Wallage has struggled the last two weeks, salvaging a fifth place run last Friday night after a flat tire relegated him to 12th on August 29th. It appeared Wallage was on cruise control in the championship chase heading into the bulk of the season on the strength of two wins and three runner-up finishes but the last two weeks have brought him back to the field.

Harry Ross White, who enters tied with the defending champion with 1106 points, has made a net gain of 33 points on Wallage in the last two races. While Wallage was chasing his car the last two weeks, HOSS was on the podium, finishing second and first in the last two weeks. If you believe in carrying a hot hand into the finale, you have to believe that the #18 Archibald Drilling and Blasting Chevrolet is the favorite of the three to take away the championship.

The sophomore in the class and 2006 Hydraulics Plus Bandolero champion DJ Casey enters two points behind the pair heading into the finale on Saturday. Casey has been plain consistent all season long, and owns one win and two third place finishes. It is now down to one race though, and Casey will have to outperform the #18 and #3 in the feature. Another footnote that should be made, as you’ll be able to see below, even if Casey wins the race, he cannot win any tiebreaker on Harry Ross White or Darren Wallage, meaning he will have to outpoint either of the two in front of him to win the title.

But Casey is a kid that works hard for everything he has and works really well under pressure. Never, ever count out the sophomore from Prospect Road, he just may surprise you on Saturday evening!

Aaron Boutilier sits fourth in the championship chase, with three feature wins and 32 points between himself and the leaders. Mathematically eliminated? Not even close. He came from behind last year to win the NAPA Sportsman Series title from Ross Lewis on the last lap of the last feature of 2013. This is a bigger margin to overcome though and a lot of factors could go into this one. Like that championship he won last year where it was a two man race, this one has four drivers involved in it. Boutilier is the long shot and if it comes to the line first in the championship, you may be able to cash in on a lot of money if you’re a betting person.

The gap from fifth to ninth is 29 points and will be a slugfest to determine the final driver in the top five. Remember what I said about the Thunder fight and a top five meaning more than “somewhere else in the top ten?” Same could be said here. Brentley Pirri has a 13 point advantage on Fred Schofield and Schofield, in turn, has a 13 point advantage on Tony Leonard for sixth. Then, it gets tight. Travis Roma is only a single point behind the #54 for seventh in the standings, with Alex Johnson trailing the #38 by two points. That show is going to be good with a feature of 50-laps left in the season.

Those are just the point contenders, folks. We have dozens of others that are going to be vying for victories and others in point battles we just don’t have time to mention. All of our full time competitors (drivers who competed in 80% of point races in 2014) will be honored at our annual banquet, held Saturday, November 1st at the Best Western Glengarry in Truro but this weekend will be the final time they get to showcase their product of racing for the best fans in Atlantic Canada.

Oh, and Saturday night we have the finale for the Parts for Trucks Pro Stock Tour which will be a great way to close off 2014. From recent NASCAR Canadian Tire Series winner Jason Hathaway to Emily Meehan making her Pro Stock Tour debut and John Flemming on the cusp of a fifth title, there are a lot of storylines there as well. Head over to MaritimeProStockTour.com to get my preview on that one.

Until then, keep the hammer down and we’ll see you at the track!