Bristol Motor Speedway
State Your Case: Ohio, Tennessee rolling along
By Todd Turner
DirtonDirt.com chief writer
The top seeds in the men's NCAA basketball tournament came through, and it's just the same in DirtonDirt.com's exclusive State Your Case bracket-style tournament that will determine the best state for Dirt Late Model racing. Top-seeded Ohio and second-seeded Tennessee led the charge into the quarterfinals as a few contenders were found to be pretenders in the second round of the state-vs.-state showdown. | First round | Second round
Tennessee, a state of high-banked tracks as well as Hall of Famers Jeff Purvis and Scott Bloomquist, had the most impressive performance in reaching the quarterfinals in a tournament where 24 writers — proponents of each state entered in the tournament — vote on the winning matchups. Tennessee nabbed all but one vote in routing South Carolina, a first-round winner over Minnesota.
Ohio, third-seeded Illinois and fifth-seeded Indiana weren't quite as dominant as Tennessee, but all three cruised into the quarterfinals. Fourth-seeded Iowa topped Arkansas and sixth-seeded Georgia outpointed North Carolina with relative ease, but eighth-seeded Kentucky and seventh-seeded Pennsylvania had their hands full.
Early voting saw the Kentucky-Missouri and Pennsylvania-West Virginia matchups even, but the Bluegrass State and Keystone State pulled away in the final balloting to win by three votes apiece.
The quarterfinal brackets might be even tighter. On the left side of the bracket, top-seeded Ohio faces its southern neighbor Kentucky. In a matchup of Midwest states seeded fourth and fifth, Iowa will try to fend of Indiana.
On the right side of the bracket, Pennsylvania will have its stiffest test yet in Tennessee, while Georgia carries its Southern roots into a matchup with the Prairie State of Illinois.
Quarterfinal voting will be revealed Friday to set the semifinals. Semifinal voting will be pushed back an extra day and revealed on Monday, and the championship will be revealed next Tuesday.
State Your Case Tournament
Eliminated first round: New York, Alabama, Louisiana, South Dakota, Michigan, Minnesota, California, Virginiia
Eliminated second round: Missouri, Mississippi, Wisconsin, Arkansas, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia
