Lucas Oil Series notebook
Notes: Lucas fines Wall, Mason for treating tires
John Mason (left) and Chris Wall (right) face $1,500 fines.
Two drivers face $1,500 fines, 300-point penalties and loss of purse earnings for using chemically-altered tires during qualifying at Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series events earlier this month, the series announced Tuesday.
John Mason of Millersburg, Ohio, faces discipline for an illegal tire used during the Sunoco Race Fuels North-South 100 at Florence (Ky.) Speedway and Chris Wall of Holden, La., was penalized for using illegal rubber during the Comp Cams Topless 100 at Batesville (Ark.) Motor Speedway. | Lucas Oil Series schedule/results
The punishment was handed down after an independent testing laboratory found tires to be chemically altered prior to the events "to enhance the performance of the tire," a series release said.
According the series rulebook, drivers found using illegal tires for the first time face a $1,500 fine, $450 in lab testing fees and loss of any earnings from the event. Also, a 300-point penalty is levied against the driver, who also loses any points accrued for the event.
In Mason's case, he's subject to pay the series $2,050, including the $100 he received after failing to make the Aug. 8 North-South 100 feature event. In Wall's case, he must pay $4,750, including the $2,800 for his 10th-place finish in the Aug. 15 Topless 100 feature.
Series begins home stretch
With eight races remaining in the 2009 season, Lucas Oil Series drivers head for two critical points races Aug. 28-29 with visits to Indiana and Kentucky. Lawrenceburg (Ind.) Speedway hosts Friday's event while Bluegrass Speedway in Bardstown, Ky., hosts the Bluegrass Classic on Saturday. Both events pay $10,000 to the winner and will be taped by cameras for winter broadcast on Speed.
Lawrenceburg, a track that has undergone a multimillion renovation in recent years, has drawn attention in 2009 as the new home for the unsanctioned Dirt Track World Championship, scheduled for Oct. 16-17. That event pays $50,000 to the winning.
Bluegrass Speedway draws some of its biggest crowds for Lucas Oil Series events. Scott Bloomquist dominated the Bluegrass Classic with three straight victories from 2005-07, but Jimmy Owens halted that streak by winning last year's event. There could be another Bloomquist-Owens showdown with Bloomquist leading the Lucas Oil Series title chase by 215 points over Owens heading into the weekend.
Short trip for Casebolt
When Steve Casebolt leaves his Richmond, Ind., race shop on Friday, he'll begin his shortest journey this year on the Lucas Oil tour, traveling some 65 miles to Lawrenceburg Speedway for the Friday's event. It's a welcome relief from long trips that mean he and his team don't see many familiar faces.
“We will have a lot of family and friends there to watch us race. They don’t get that much of a chance to see us unless we are at tracks like Lawrenceburg, Florence (Ky.), Brownstown (Ind.) and some in western Ohio that we get to," said Casebolt, who won a 1999 Northern Allstars event at Lawrenceburg, long before the track was reconfigured as a high-banked oval. "I really enjoyed running on the old track. It was circular, fast and you could pass all over it, but it did get rough quite a bit. But times change and they really have a track and facility now that is more conducive to Late Model racing, and we hope to do well there Friday night."
Casebolt enters Lawrenceburg off a tough streak in the past three Lucas Oil Series events. He was caught up in a heat race accident after a strong qualifying effort at Batesville (Ark.) Motor Speedway's Topless 100, got tangled up in another accident at Volunteer (Tenn.) Speedway's Scorcher 100 after starting on the pole, then rode the turn-two wall in qualifying Aug. 21 at Tazewell (Tenn.) Speedway.
Casebolt finished third in Lucas Oil points the past two seasons, but he's seventh this year with a deeper talent pool on the tour as World 100 winners Scott Bloomquist, Jimmy Owens and Dale McDowell are among series newcomers in '09. Getting his first series victory of the season and fourth of his career could help him end the year on a high note.
"We come into each season wanting to win the championship, we have led the points twice at midseason in the past two years, but we failed to finish out strong enough to beat (four-time champion) Earl (Pearson Jr.)," Casebolt said. "This season is not what we had hoped. It has been tough at times — with the drivers that are following the series it would be tough for anyone to finish where we have the last two years.
"We had hoped for two, maybe three, wins this year. It just hasn’t happened, we have three wins elsewhere this year, but we need to come through more often on the Lucas Oil Series."
Odds and ends
NHRA funny car champion Cruz Pedregon plans to enter his Dirt Late Model in Friday's event at Lawrenceburg. Pedregon, who's tuning up for Eldora Speedway's NASCAR all-star race on Sept. 9, recently won his first Dirt Late Model feature at Kamp Motor Speedway in Boswell, Ind. ... Pedregon will be on Tuesday's Lucas Oil Motorsports Hour along with Lawrenceburg Speedway promoter Dave Rudisell and Bluegrass Speedway regulars Dustin Neat and Tim Tungate. The show begins at 8 p.m. Eastern at www.racecastlive.com. ... Series points leader Scott Bloomquist has posted three straight second-place finishes in Lucas Oil competition. ... John Blankenship leads Lucas Oil's Quarter Master Rookie of the Year standings.
