The Left Turn
By: Ron Burt
This week drivers, crews, sponsors and fans are headed to the Gateway Dirt Nationals inside the Dome (former home of the NFL Rams) in St. Louis. Fans that don’t plain in advance find it’s one of the hardest tickets to get in racing. The best drivers and cars make the trip to St. Louis from all over the country. The stars from the Lucas Oil Dirt Series and other National series go head to head with local track and regional series champions and anyone else that thinks he or she has a chance to win. UMP Dirt Modifieds have been a part of Gateway Nationals since the beginning.
The first Gateway Dirt Nationals was in 2016 and has run every year except for 2020 when the entire country was shut down. The late great Scott Bloomquist won the first Super Late Model feature. Other drivers to take the checkered flag include double winners Bobby Pierce, Tyler Carpenter, and last year’s winner Brandon Sheppard. Besides Bloomquist, Tyler Erb had one win. Notable UMP Modified winners of the event Trevor Neville, Drake Troutman and Ricky Thornton Jr. In 2019 they added Midgets as a 3rd class for two years and Kyle Larson had the first win and the last year for Midgets was 2021 and that feature was won by Jonathan Beason. Many people in the racing community take off work, take the kids out of school and make this weekend an annual vacation.
The Great Lakes Super Sprints had two big announcements this week. Owner of the series Barry Marlow presented the drivers with end of the season awards and bonus money for points earned. The top 3 divers for 2025 and money earned by each were announced series champion Jared Horstman $42K, Max Stambaugh $41K and Dustin Daggett $39K. It sounds like a lot until you figure how much money was put into the cars, fuel and travel expense. This is why having sponsors is so important at every level of racing to help with offset costs.
Officials with the Great Lakes Super Sprints announced the calendar that features 33 confirmed shows from April through Labor Day weekend, with special events sanctioned by GLSS after the Championship weekend. In addition to the standard, $2,500 to win and $400 to start, multiple $5,000 to win shows are on the horizon as well.
The GLSS 360 Sprints will visit 19 different tracks, 4 states, a trip to Canada, and multiple increased purse shows highlight the 2026 schedule! The series opens at 1-75 Raceway April 10th in Tennessee and ends September 25 at Eldora. A couple of new tracks for the series will be on May 16th at Shadyhill on the Indiana/Illinois state line and the newly redone half mile Mansfield Speedway. They will make 6 stops at Limaland, 4 up north at I-96 Speedway. Montpelier and Millstream will each get a race this year. For more information visit their Facebook page. Until next week, keep your wheels down. Ron out!
