Sprint Cars Of New England Ready For Fresh Start In 2019

Story By: STEPHEN DURHAM / SCONE – PLAINFIELD, VT – Outside the meeting room, temperatures are in the 50’s, foggy, and still nearly a foot of snow on the ground in the area of Plymouth, NH, but less than 15 miles west down route 25, the Green Mountain Gear Head’s Sprint Cars of New England will get their first green flag of the season in 28 days.

Back in the room though, discussion of the upcoming season with changes for the new year were discussed, led by president of SCoNE, William Hull, also the 2018 SCoNE champion. The energy in the room felt optimistic for the 2019 season with nearly two dozen drivers and car owners coming together to discuss plans for the year. Hull’s main goals for the 2019 season is improving the car counts for the series and becoming a must watch show in New England.

First to be discussed is some of the new sponsors coming onboard with the series for the 2019 campaign. The main title sponsor being Green Mountain Gear Heads located out of Williston, Vermont, known for dyno tuning, performance parts, and fabrication work. New to the 2019 season for the series is heat race sponsorships by O’Reilly Auto Parts and FK Rods Ends out of Southington, Connecticut adding a little extra to the heat race winner’s pocket to take home that night. One more additional sponsor to the series is NGK Spark Plugs, who will be giving the feature winners of each race 2 sets of NGK Spark Plugs.

Next to be discussed by everybody was to make racing more affordable. Tires can be expensive for any racing series on dirt or asphalt. For the 2019 season, drivers must have a race saver RIGHT REAR on for the May 26th race at Devil’s Bowl Speedway. Before May 26th, drivers can use any tire as a grace period to get drivers and car owners time. After that period, tires will be checked and monitored by a SCoNE official.

Up next on the agenda was discussion about how lineups would be determined after confusion in the 2018 season. Drivers will draw for their heat positions at the beginning of the night. Feature lineup with have an invert pill drawn for at least the top 3 rows, and no more than the top 5 rows. Meaning if there are 2 heat races, if the 3 pill is drawn, the third-place finishers of the heat races would start shotgun on the field, 2nd place finishers in row two, and heat winners in row three.

Another added line-up rule is that the previous winner from the most recent race CAN NOT start any better than 11th place in the next feature race scheduled. An example would be if a feature winner wins June 22nd at Bear Ridge, they can not start better than 11th at Devils Bowl on July 3rd.

For the 2019 season the series is looking for some help on the series with some jobs. They are looking for a race director to help direct the action on the track in organizing drivers in their proper spots. They are also looking for a pit steward in helping assist the series in the pits with lineups, pill draws, and helping to keep the series on the move.

Of drivers to be there at the meeting was former SCoNE champion Chris Donnelly as he gets set to pull the belts tight and compete again on the series. Other drivers in attendance were Ron Giroux, Clay Dow, Mike Kondrat, and Troy Comeau were in attendance. Lacey Hanson’s car owner and father Dean Hanson was there to get notes on the upcoming season after she had a strong finish to the 2018 season. Matt Hoyt who finished 2nd in the standings was absent but is set to make an appearance in the series after a great season last year.