PHOENIX, Arizona -- October marks the changing of the seasons in most of the country, but this weekend and old fashion Wild West shootout in the hot desert sun is in store at Phoenix International Raceway when the NASCAR Elite Division, Featherlite Southwest Series takes to the track for round twelve of the 14 race championship series.
More than forty drivers from across the country who compete in NASCAR's Elite Division will attempt to qualify for one of 42 starting positions in Sunday's 100-lap race and vie for their share of $81,271 in posted awards.
2002 Featherlite Southwest Series champion, Eddy McKean, has three second place finishes in the last four events at PIR and looks to finally find victory lane at the Desert Jewell. McKean from Jerome, Idaho, is a former two-time NASCAR Dodge Weekly Racing Series regional champion that cut his teeth on a third-mile oval, but would like nothing more then to back up his win from Tucson two weeks ago on the series largest track.
With McKean looking to score back to back wins, series point leader Auggie Vidovich Jr. will attempt to keep his "A" train running full steam ahead. Through eleven races this season Vidovich has seven top five and ten top ten performances and has completed every lap run this season (1502).
That kind of consistency has the twenty-two year old Lakeside, California native thinking championship. The Phoenix mile has not been kind to Vidovich in the past, with only one top five finish in seven starts. This past February, Vidovich finished third to begin the season, and with only a partial schedule in mind, that finish has propelled his team into the point lead. A Lead he has maintained since the second race of the season.
Jim Pettit II from Prunedale, Calif. sees this weekend's race as a watershed moment in his bid for the series title. Through eleven races, Pettit has tallied one victory, five top five and seven top ten finishes. Pettit knows that anything can happen at Phoenix and wishes no bad luck, but a strong finish will go a long way as he enters the final two races. "I feel Phoenix owes us a little," Pettit said. My whole team has worked especially hard for this event and I know this is the place that I need to make up points if I am going to catch Auggie."
While most of the series regulars will be concentrating on a position in the NASCAR Top 10 and an ivitation to the NASCAR Toyota All-Star Showdown at Irwindale (CA) Speedway in November, several drivers from across the country will join the fray in this inaugural early October event. Travis Geisler from Pennsylvania, Robert Richardson from Texas, and Joey Miller from Minnesota will attempt to make their first series start, while Austin Cameron from El Cajon, Calif. will try for the daily double competing in both the Featherlite Southwest Series event and the NASCAR Winston West Series race. Cameron will pilot the #28 Napa Auto Parts Pontiac for Dan Whitt.
This NASCAR Doubleheader promises to showcase some of NASCAR's brightest
young talent and rising stars. The race this weekend may well serve as the
prelude to the series finale that will be contested here in just three short
weeks, but first Vidovich, McKean, and Pettit will lay down the gauntlet for
the action that is sure to come. The Phoenixraceway.Com "100" is set to take
the green flag at 12 noon PST Sunday, October 5.
