Midget cars will be running on Manzanita Speedway's half mile track Saturday night for the first time since November 21, 1998 Saturday night. With the USAC midgets off for an extended period, many of their top drivers have already headed West and will be on hand for the race. The last time the midgets were on the big track Jason Lefler, now a NASCAR star, drove to the win in the USAC sanctioned event.
The USAC midgets have already been idle for almost a month and do not have a race scheduled for another three weeks.
Heading the list of drivers who will be competing, many for the first time on the half mile oval, is the 2006 USAC National Midget Champion and current points leader, Jerry Coons, Jr. of Tucson. Also entered is Jon Stanbrough who has won 56 sprint car main events in the past two years. He was the 2006-2007 sprint week champion. Josh Wise, the 2005 and 2006 USAC sprint car and midget champion will be driving for the Cruz Pedregon Team Toyoto.
Danny Stratton will be driving for the Arizona team of Michael Burkhart. The current USAC West midget point leader, and winner of the Hut 100, Johnny Rodriguez and his teammate Matt Mitchell will also be in the strongest field in years. Chris Rahe, a three time winner this year at Manzanita and Garrett Hanson are also among the early entries.
Local drivers include the Arizona Midget Racing Association points leader Nathan High, Chad Boat and R.J. Johnson. Boat, the 15 year old son of former Indy Car driver Billy Boat, has won the last two outings for the AMRA.
Mini Sprints are also on the Saturday night card and, as usual, they will be running on the one third mile track in their annual Keizer Memorial. The mini sprints have had almost a month to get ready for this special race. Josh Castro won his second straight race at Canyon Raceway on September 22 and hopes to carry the momentum into this weekends races which is a non winged event.
Josh Shipley continues to lead the chase for the driving championship and has a commanding lead with only four races, all at Manzy, remaining on their 2007 schedule. Former champion Brandon George is 565 points behind Shipley. Paul Martin is ranked third but has a slim lead over another former champion, Dennis Parks.
Race time Saturday night is set for 7:30.
