CARS Tour West News

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It was announced yesterday, the SRL series will no longer be known as the Spears SRL series. Spears has been the title sponsor for the SRL Southwest Tour since 2009. Spears has been involved in the West coast racing seen since 1987. First as a team owner (both Winston West & the NASCAR Southwest Tour), then sponsorship of race teams, and finally as a series title sponsor. Here's just a couple of drivers that they either owned cars for, or sponsored in the past, Ron Hornaday Jr & Kevin Harvick. I started seeing Spears' cars in 1992, when they rolled into Tucson Raceway Park for West or SW Tour races. They were a mainstay there during the Winter Heat Series races, throughout the duration of Winter Heat seasons.

The only SRL races I've seen this season, were those from Berlin Raceway, that were shown on FloRacing. But I had noticed a drop in car counts, & the fields were missing some of the big name drivers. As I've said on here a few times, I was hopeful that the CARS Tour & the SRL could somehow get asphalt racing stronger, and maybe be conjoined at some point. That's not going to happen now. But there is still hope.

Spears is moving their sponsorship over to the CARS Tour West Series. In their release "Thirty years after they sponsored Harvick, they are joining together with him again, with the CARS Tour West Series". So the East coast CARS Tour has ZMax, and the West has Spears, and Harvick connected to it all. Harvick has made it clear over the last decade, he wants to help asphalt racing in America. It looks like he means business, and in a grand fashion! I'm betting/hoping that this will get the West races on FloRacing. With Flo carrying the last West race from Vegas this year, that's a good possibility. I've sent in that question to Flo here in Austin, with no answer yet. After the press release yesterday, I would not be shocked if at some point the CARS Tour brings back their shuttered Super Latemodel series. If that were to happen, they would  have the Supers & Pro LMs to co-promote. Wouldn't that be something? Spears has carried west coast racing over the last 30 years, so their financial commitment is there. If ZMax's commitment is there, that would be a great way for asphalt racing to grow. 

The ZMax CARS Tour also announced that they have expanded their footprint along the eastern seaboard. They will be racing at Cordele Motor Speedway, in Cordele, GA. This will be their first race ever in GA. This will give those Super/Pro LM teams/drivers that run FL, MS, & AL, a chance to get their feet wet with the CARS Tour, with a shorter tow. That is good news for all of them in the southeast. I'm hoping that the West Series, will venture away from their base (CA etc), like the SRL Series did. If that happens, there are a lot of good tracks in the western part of the country, TX included. 

As Chris Davidson has raced the SRL series for a while now, maybe he might know more info, or has contacts with some of the west coast teams to ask. Most of the people that I knew from there have left racing or died unfortunately, so I don't have any contacts anymore.