Thursday June 16th,Hoosier Tire East will present "Hoosier Daddy night" featuring RoC Qualifiers for the Sportsman Modifieds and Street Stocks. On the line are guaranteed starting spots for the respective events at the 61st annual Sunoco Race of Champions weekend at the Oswego Speedway on July 22nd – 24th. The Sportsman Modifieds and Street Stocks run their RoC events on Sunday July 24th.
Jimmy Zacharias is the defending Shangri-La II Motorspeedway champion in the Sportsman Modifieds, and knows his way to victory lane very well. Zacharias leads the All Time Wins list in the Sportsman division with 7 wins in the first two seasons in Shangri-La II history. His closest challenger is Tony Hanbury with 4 wins. Second year driver, Bryan Sherwood is also no stranger to victory lane as he collected 3 wins in his rookie season. You also can not count out T-J Zacharias who picked up his first ever win this past Sunday. Jimmy Zacharias also holds the Fastest Lap record in Sportsman Modified competition with a lap last September 4th of 18.076 seconds, 99.580 mph.
When you think Street Stocks at Shangri-La II, the name Lee Sharpsteen is immediately thought of. Sharpsteen collected the track championship last season, and took a huge first step toward defending the title by edging out his brother Gil on Sunday afternoon for the win. Like Zacharias, Sharpsteen also holds the All Time Wins lead for Street Stocks at the track with 8 wins. Lee Sharpsteen has a fast car, no doubt, but Cricket Clonch is always near the front and holds the track record speed in a Street Stock with a lap timed at 20.746 seconds, 86.764 seconds on August14, 2010.
The Street Stocks will run a 100 lap feature, while the Sportsman Modifieds will compete for 50 laps. There will also be a set of Hoosier Race Tires given away in both divisions courtesy of Frenches Auto Parts – the official tire supplier to Shangri-La II Motorspeedway.
Make sure to bring your wristbands from Sunday to receive $2.00 off the admission price. For Thursday night, June 16th, the Pit Gate will open at 4:30 pm, Grand Stand Gate opens and practice begins at 5:30 pm. Racing gets underway at 7:00 pm.
Just a reminder that there is no racing scheduled for Saturday night June 18th due to the running of an IHRA National event at Skyview Drags. The next event on the schedule is Crazy George's Concrete Craziness featuring "Cone races" for all divisions on Saturday night June 25th.
Four in a row!!! Enough is enough, is the phrase being heard around the "Concrete Castle". With race teams coming into the pits, and fans beginning to come through the gates, everyone braced themselves for a 45 minute deluge of rain, thunder, lightning and high wind. Once the storm passed, the sun tried to break through the clouds, and the track began to dry nicely. There were a few spots where the ground water was weeping across the track, but wait a minute – hold the happiness. Here came more light sprinkles of rain. The drivers were asked to go to the tech barn to meet with the track and decide what to do. The drivers gave some ideas, but Mother Nature had ideas of her own as another downpour forced the cancellation of the program. "We need to get some races in. It's just that simple" said a dejected track manager, Amy Stilson. "We went for it today, and it just didn't work out. We had people coming in, food cooking in the concessions and employees and teams eager to go racing. We are exploring a lot of alternatives right now including running some Sunday shows in addition to the scheduled Saturday races. We might run some double point's shows, double features shows or even run a double feature each for one of the classes on a rotational basis. We are talking with the teams to see what would work out for them before we make any announcements". With the rain out, fans that had paid their admission for Saturday night need to bring their wrist bands back and they will be admitted to Sundays show. The Tobias SpeedSTR's will stick around and be back at the track on Sunday. The Burnin' Rubber Night to benefit Traci's Hope will be re-scheduled to a later date.
Several new concession items will be available at Shangri-La II Motor Speedway in 2011.
Shangri-La II Motor Speedway and the Race of Champions Modified Series open their 2011 schedules together on Sunday afternoon, May 15, with the "Return of the RoC'n Concrete Rumble". Last year the event was the biggest in the short history of the Concrete Castle and this year's renewal should be even more spectacular.
"It should be a great way to kick off the 2011 season," said track manager Amy Stilson, who reminded fans that Shangri-La II will race every week on Saturday night from Memorial Day to Labor Day with the exception of June 16, when the weekly program will be on Thursday, and July 22-24, when the track will close in support of the 61st annual Sunoco Race of Champions at Oswego Speedway.
