Barrett Polhemus

[ron.brown11]

I see that Barrett is entered for the Chilly Willie races this weekend at Tucson Speedway. Good Luck Barrett! That's the track were I raced for several years. Sure do miss that place!

[ron.brown11]

#79 Barrett Polhemus finished his Sat qualifying race in 9th, 1 lap down. The number 00 Bumbera finished 12th, 2 laps down. These cars will start on the inside rows for Sunday's 150 lap feature. The outside rows will be set in the second qualifier race. The two fastest qualified cars will take the front row, and don't have to run the Sat qualifiers if they don't want to. Just like the Daytona 500 for the 2 fastest qualifiers. So that should put Polhemus starting 19th. I am not sure how many cars they will start in the main, so if Bumbera #00 does get in, he should start 25th. 

[ron.brown11]

By listening to the announcers (they were bad and I don't know how much I trust them), Bumbera should be able to start the 150 lap main event tomorrow. But both drivers have a lot of work to do, as neither car looked that good in their 50 lap qualifying race. No battle damage happened for either, just a much better setup is needed. 

As I said above, the 2 top qualifiers on time didn't have to run their 50 lap qualifiers if they didn't want to. Preston Peltier was fastest, and he didn't run race #1. A 15 year old driver named Higanori timed in second, but chose to run the second qualifier. He won it. His crew chief/car owner/driving coach is Derek Thorn. Thorn just won the Snowball Derby at Five Flags a couple of months ago. The team he drove for decided to retire from racing after the Derby. Derek has the most SRL Super Latemodel Championships (5) than any other driver. My friend Jim Pettit II has 3 SRL titles. But Jim also has back to back NASCAR Southwest Tour Championships to go along with those SRL titles. Only 2 drivers ever had had back to back Southwest Tour Championships, Ron Hornaday Jr & Jim Pettit II. Jim has shown to be quite the wheelman throughout his racing career. NASCAR voted him one of the top 25 Weekly Racing Series Drivers of all time. He's had many championships over the years, in different types of cars, and on dirt & asphalt. 

They also ran a 75 lap modified feature. It was won by the reining 2022 SRL Modified Champion, a guy named Gianini. He also won this race last year. He never put his car in danger, and took really good care of his tires. Made it look easy. A guy named Farrington finished third. I raced against him my last season in Tucson, and it was his first season racing a modified.  He was the biggest mover in the race, starting in 12th. Late in the going, he passed both of the Bonnett brothers, Neil Bonnett's grandsons. 

Tucson has never been repaved since it opened in 1993. The sun there really cooks the asphalt, so the 150 lap main will require a lot of tire management. It's very abrasive. The track is a 3/8 mile progressive banked track. There has been a lot of tar sealer placed throughout the track surface. That has really shifted the fast groove from where it was when I raced there.  I hope that they can repave it soon, as hitting some of those tar seal jobs really seem to upset the cars if hit at the wrong angle.

[ron.brown11]

Preston Peltier, from Colorado won the 2023 Chilly Willy 150. It was a very close clean race at the end with Cole Raz, who finished 2nd. Sean Hingarani from Ca finished 3rd. Barrett Polhemus ran a good race, getting as high as 6th, but finished 10th at the end. He had a couple of close calls, but a good run. Kenny Bumbera had a rough day. He finished 25th, had some damage, and he did not finish the race. But thanks to our TX racers making the trip to Tucson!

One of the things that I miss the most, besides not racing at Tucson, is that you can run 3 wide cleanly. Which they did numerous times throughout the race. After some restarts there were even 4 wide a few times, and nobody wrecked. I really love and miss racing there. I do hope that the repaved it soon though. Too much tar sealant in too many locations. That track is why I have advocated for a progressive 3/8 mile asphalt track to be built at COTA.

Looking forward to this coming Friday, and the 8 nights that follow. New Smyrna Speedway will be holding 9 straight nights of racing in the World Series of Asphalt. Super & Pro late models run nearly every one of those nights. The Whelen Modified Series will have 3 shows, with Sat the 11th being the season opener for the Northeast Modified Touring season. There will also be 2 other modified series running as well. I also believe that they are going to have a truck series too. If you subscribe to FloRacing, next week should be a lot of fun. Plus, FloRacing will also cover the Volusia Co Speedway, and their weeklong dirt races. There's a whole lotta racing over the next 12 days in the Daytona Beach area.If you can't be there, watch it on FloRacing!  

Edited February 6, 2023 by ron.brown11

[NickHolt]

Thanks for sharing this good info, Ron.

[ron.brown11]

Thanks Nick. I didn't find out until driver intros Sunday, that Barrett is from Wimberley. I did get the starting spots way wrong for Barrett & Kenny. I don't know if I misunderstood what they said was the guidelines, or my math skills are slipping. Probably both lol.

The FloRacing announcers for the Chilly Willie race weekend were hard to listen to at times. They acted like it was their personal play time, which is ok if it's during a caution or between races. Just in the Sunday race coverage, I think they commented 7-8 times at just how much they made Tucson look like Irwindale Speedway. TRP was built nearly a decade before Irwindale. Bob Molder, when still alive, owned Wide World of Maps. His company did a lot of topographical mapping in the western US. The group that built Irwindale hired them to map TRP. Everything at Irwindale is an exact copy of TRP except they stretched it from 3/8 to a 1/2 mile, and the track exit happens in turn 1 instead of turn 2. All the banking etc is the same. When John Baker, a Tucson super latemodel racer was killed at Irwindale, Bob bought most of John's Southwest Tour race cars & equipment. I sat in between Bob & Tom Baker (John's brother), at John's funeral. 

Nick, I'm trying my best to help promote asphalt TX racers, when I run across info on them. I know that it isn't much, but I'm trying. I don't follow dirt racing as much, so I'm sure that there is someone out there that can do that much better than I can. I know that this is the "off season", but there is still racing happening out there. I'm sure that TX racers would appreciate that. 

[ron.brown11]

Not that anybody cares, I misspelled the modified driver's name that I raced against there. It's Harrington. Farrington is the defending supers track champion at Tucson. Harrington nearly bought my mod before I left Tucson.