2005 season ready for first races

ASCS Fires off 2005 Season at Champion Park Next Saturday TULSA, Okla. (March 1, 2005) -- A full season of racing action for the American Sprint Car Series gets under way next Saturday night, March 12, as the first of approximately 120 ...

ASCS Fires off 2005 Season at Champion Park Next Saturday

TULSA, Okla. (March 1, 2005) -- A full season of racing action for the American Sprint Car Series gets under way next Saturday night, March 12, as the first of approximately 120 scheduled sanctioned events for 2005 takes place with the Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores ASCS Gulf South Region season opener at Champion Park Speedway in Haughton, LA.

The following weekend, the O'Reilly ASCS National Tour presented by Love's Travel Stops & Country Stores fires into action with the 32nd Annual Devil's Bowl Speedway Spring Nationals on March 18-19 in Mesquite, TX.

Next Saturday night's event atop the high-banked, quarter-mile Champion Park Speedway clay oval, located just east of Shreveport, will kick off the fourth season of racing action for the ASCS Gulf South Region. Last year, in one of the nation's most intense point battles, Jerry Bell of Rowlett, TX, edged Humble, TX, shoe Chris Sweeney and Texas City's Greg Rilat for the series title.

The March 12 ASCS Gulf South opener marks the first of three ASCS outings at Champion Park Speedway this season. On May 7, the National Tour joins forces with the Gulf South Region for a combined shootout, with the Gulf South Region making a final appearance on July 30.

After next Saturday's ASCS Gulf South Region opener, Gary Wright begins his ASCS National Tour title defense the following weekend at the famed Devil's Bowl Speedway. Wright will have his hands full with full-time contenders Travis Rilat, Darren Stewart, Toby Brown, A.G. Rains, Jan Howard, Sam Hafertepe, Jr., Jimmy Taylor, Natalie Sather and Brodix Rookie of the Year contenders Tony Bruce, Jr., Eric Jobe and Lee Sowell.

The American Bank of Oklahoma ASCS Sooner Region, which boiled down to a tie for the championship between Kevin Ramey and Andy Shouse in 2004, kicks off the '05 campaign on April 2 at Tulsa Speedway, while the new ASCS Midwest Region fires to life on April 15 at Nebraska Raceway Park. The Heintz Performance ASCS Southern Tour is tentatively scheduled to kick off April 16 at Laurens County Speedway in South Carolina.

Once the snow finishes melting off the Rockies, the ASCS Rocky Mountain Region will get a full slate under way on May 14 at Sweetwater Speedway in Rock Springs, WY. Keith Rauch nipped fellow Thornton, CO, driver Eric Miller by a mere four points for the 2004 Rocky Mountain Region crown.

A total of 437 different drivers competed in at least one ASCS-sanctioned event in 2004, with 81 events contested at 43 different tracks in fifteen different states. Each of these numbers will increase in 2005 with the addition of the Midwest Region and Southern Tour, as well as an expanded number of races on both the National Tour and Gulf South Region.