Battle of Berlin 250

[ron.brown11]

Evan Shotko has had a really good 4 days. After dominating at Jennerstown on Sat, and claiming the $30k, he goes back home to MI, and wins the 250 lap $30k at Berlin. He only led about 35 laps, but ran in the top 5 the entire race. Here's just a few of the other drivers in this race. William Byron, Eric Jones, Carson Hocevar & Bubba Pollard. It was a good race, with just one 3 car crash, and a couple of spins. Surprisingly, 1st, 2nd, 4th & 5th were locals. Only Eric Jones finishing in 3rd, of the NASCAR drivers. And in reality, he's a local too. He raced at Berlin before Kyle Busch gave him a shot, after getting beat by Jones at the Snowball Derby. A couple of months ago, William Byron absolutely spanked everyone the last time he came to Berlin in June. That was a 150 lapper. 

[RodneyRodriguez]

Great race! Go to about 42 mins in Evan joined me Thursday on Dirty Air:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ep17-dirty-air-with-rodney-rodriguez/id1622736988?i=1000575822327

[ron.brown11]

That was my bad, getting the purse money wrong on the Jennerstown race. Thanks for setting the record straight Rodney.  I started watching Evan race 2 years ago. I can't remember is he was still 16, or had already turned 17. But even then, I was impressed how maturely he raced. But I was truly surprised at how many super & limited late models that he does chassis set ups on. I think his future is pretty bright. 

That new Van Doran chassis got badly torn up at Money in the Bank race. The guy he was racing with, Brian Campbell. They had another crash about a month later. During the closing laps Wed night, it was easy to see that Evan was faster than Brian. I was certain that we were going to see round 3 from them. Brian tried to pinch him off going into 1, and they got together. Thankfully they both continued. I was glad to hear Brian say in the post race interview that Evan had the better car. In the 2 previous crash interviews, neither were quite as courteous. I thought Evan's dad was going to kill somebody at Money in the Bank, after that crash. I hope that's the end of it, as both are really good drivers, and as Evan said with you Rodney, racing ain't cheap. I'm pretty certain that it cost Evan more financially though.

He didn't lie either when he said that the racing is a lot rougher down south, then what they usually see in the upper midwest. I watch quite a bit from NC, SC and Fl. When I first started watching races from some of those tracks, I thought race cars there must really be cheap, or free. Many of those drivers didn't seem to mind destroying each other. And I'm not talking about that last lap, going for the win kind of crash. No, I'm talking about racing for 5th or 6th place on lap 2 of a 100 lapper. It's why I only watch the highlights from Bowman-Gray. Can't stand 2 laps of racing, the 10 minutes of track clean up, only to run 2 more laps and more clean up. 

Of all the tracks that I watch, with out a doubt Stafford Speedway puts on the best show week in and week out. All track promoters should be forced to watch at how well they run their show. They run on Friday nights, and their show is so "clean". Barring weather, their show starts promptly at 6pm local. They typically run 4-5 classes, and it's unusual to start less than 18 cars in any division. In the SK Mods, to SK Lite Mods, it's usually 28-30 cars. They always have at least 6 fully staffed wreckers, and know how to use them. It's quite normal with the Mods that 2 wreckers are needed to move a single car. They get the track cleared very quickly for most crashes. Their show is usually completed in less than 4 hours. It's a pleasure to watch a show from there. The Arute family really does a good job.