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Local racing: Charlotte Speedway has racing tonight, Saturday
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There will be fireworks galore at the Charlotte County Speedway in Punta Gorda, where stock car racing tonight and Saturday night will be fit for the Fourth of July holiday.
There will even be some interesting sideshows to go along with the fender-banging.
On the card tonight at the Checkered Flag Sprint Cars, Road Warriors (50 laps), a Figure 8 race, Tag Karts (20 laps), a fan participation race and the “DARA” antique cars.
Saturday’s special happenings include live music by Marc Anthony Roman, and the Venice Corvette Club will be on hand with 33 sparking representatives of America’s favorite sports car.
On the racing side, the Open-Wheel Modifieds will run a 50-lapper, as will the FastTruck and Fastkids.
The Outlaw Street Stock “Switch-off Race” will be back by popular demand. Other divisions will include the Thunder Trucks, Pro 4, Fab 4, DARA Cars and a figure-8 boat race.
The pits on will open at 9 a.m. Saturday, and the front gates will open at 4 p.m. Racing will begin at 6. The track is located just south of the Charlotte County Airport. Take I-75, Exit 161.
Last week, the late models headlined the racing, as Mike Franklin Jr. won the 100-lap feature event. A recap of top finishers from this past Saturday night follows:
* T.Q. Midgets — 1. Jack Duffy; 2. Ernie Teed Jr.; 3. Michael Elder.
* Mini Stocks — 1. Ricky Bullrd Jr.; 2. Joe Rice; 3. Robert Carter.
* Legends — 1. Codey Benoit; 2. Mike Verhaagh; 3. Josh Williams.
* Late Models — 1. Mike Franklin Jr.; 2. Bobby Shelton; 3. Kevin Macy.
* Outlaw Street Stocks — 1. Shane Leonard; 2. Richie Shepard; 3. Rocky Reinhold.
* Thunder Trucks — 1. James Wright; 2. Randy Kyle; 3. Lance Sober.
* * *
After racing for seven straight weeks, the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series teams are idle now until July 19, when they will run the Ford Built Tough 225 at Kentucky Speedway.
Last week at the Memphis Motorsports Park, Todd Bodine, who drives for the locally owned Germain Racing team, qualified 20th for the O’Reilly 200. Despite a night of uncertainty, the driver of the No. 30 Lumber Liquidators Toyota Tundra finished 14th and was one of 22 trucks on the lead lap at the end.
“My crew chief corrected me after the race. I guess we got spun out three times tonight,” Bodine said. “I thought it was two times. The last time we got spun out was what cost us a top-10 finish. The Lumber Liquidators Tundra was probably a seventh- or eighth-place truck tonight. Considering what we went through, we’ll take the 14th-place finish and get ready for Kentucky.”
Germain teammate Justin Marks drove his No. 9 Construct Corps Tundra to a 24th-place finish after starting 22nd.
Bodine is now third in points behind Ron Hornaday Jr. and second-place Matt Crafton. Bodine is just 54 points out of first place, however, through 12 events in 2008.
While Germain Racing’s truck team is idle for a while, Mike Wallace will run his No. 7 Geico Camry at Daytona tonight in the Nationwide Series event.
Tom Rife’s local auto racing column appears every Friday.
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