Left Turn
By: Ron Burt
Area football fans, this is just a reminder. Every Friday at 9:30 PM I have an early scoreboard show and at 10:10PM the complete football scoreboard featuring 23 conferences, the Ohio Top 10 teams and the National Top 10 team scores. It’s the biggest scoreboard in N.W. Ohio designed for real high school football fans. The first scoreboard of 2025 kicks off this Thursday, August 21st with 10 games of interest to our area. On Friday the majority of the schools start their football season. If you’re online, go to www.facebook.com/ohiosportsblitz/ and bookmark this link. The scoreboards will be Facebook live, and you’ll be able to go back and replay them during the week at any time. Soon I’ll also be on youtube.
Sprint car fans were focused on the 64th Annual Knoxville Nationals, in Iowa. 18-year-old Ryan Timms won the Knoxville Nationals and took home $190,000.00 just for that win. That doesn’t count what he won Thursday in his qualifying race and picking up that win. Timms has won 7 times in 2025 at the Knoxville track. Most 18 year olds are thinking about their final year of high school or first year of college. But Ryan Timms’ future is very clear. It’s behind the wheel of a Sprint Car. This teen cemented himself in racing history on Saturday night. Timms delivered one of the most dominant victories in the history of the Knoxville Nationals. He simply drove perfectly. Fifty laps of mistake-free racing. He started on the pole and led every lap and dominated the World of Outlaw veteran drivers.
Runner-up went to Rico Abreu as he moved from seventh to record his best finish in the sport’s most prestigious race. The California native banked $85,000 for his efforts. He came out on top of a wild battle with several different cars to claim the second spot. David Gravel was the 3rd driver on the podium. The 2019 champion started 21st and moved up to third after winning Friday’s Hard Knox Race.
After a 5 year absence the USAC Silver Crown Cars took on the high banks of Salem Speedway in southern Indiana. Kody Swanson didn’t miss a single beat on Saturday night. The California driver picked up right where he left off by leading all 100 laps from the pole position to capture his sixth consecutive USAC Silver Crown victory at the paved oval following previous scores in 2016-2017-2018-2019-2020. This tied the record for the most consecutive USAC Silver Crown victories by a single driver at one particular track, equaling Swanson’s very own streak of six straight triumphs at Toledo Speedway between 2018-2024, a run which ended back in April of this season. Kody also set a new track record at 126.384 mph. Justin Grant racing with a broken foot placed 2nd and Dakoda Armstrong was 3rd. Ohio’s Matt Westfall finished 11th, and announced his pavement car is for sale. He wants to race on dirt where he has lots of success.
At Oakshade Raceway in Wauseon some car counts are down but the racing is very competitive. Rusty Smith won his 2nd Dirt Car Late Model Feature of the season. Ryan Davis took the checkered flag in the Sportsman Feature. This was Ryans’ 3rd feature win of the season and his 3rd in a row. Adam Lantz was in victory lane, winning the Dominator Super Stock Feature. This was Adams’ 3rd feature win of the season. Holgate’s Ryan Okuley took the win in the Sport Compact Feature. This was Ryans’ 6th feature win of the season and 4th feature win in a row.
Last Saturday, the Great Lakes Sprints were at Hartford Speedway in Michigan. Congrats to Chase Dunham of Dog House Racing won his first feature win in GLSS. On Saturday night the series was at Silver Bullet Speedway in Owendale Michigan and Max Stambaugh won his 9th feature of the year. He is just 2 wins off the GLSS record set in 2017 by Jared Horstman.
Congratulations to USAC D2 Thunder Midget Driver, Zach Wigal for his win at Millstream Speedway last Friday. Rusty Schlenk won the American Iron Man Late Model Series race at Millstream on Friday and on Saturday made it a clean sweep by winning at Wayne County Speedway. On Wednesday, August 13th several Cup drivers showed up at Berlin Raceway competing for $40,000.00 to win the TEXTON 250 Battle of Berlin. With 8 laps remaining, Austin Hull made a pass and held on for the win.
Until next week, keep your wheels down. Ron Out!
