Schultz Would Like To End Season With Tour Victory

The goal of winning his first NASCAR Northwest Tour championship went out the window a couple of months ago for Spokane’s Rick Schultz.

Now Schultz will settle for simply winning a tour race to finish his season Sunday night when the late-model series concludes its 13 race season at Tri City Raceway. The 150-lap race begins at 7:30.

Seems like a pretty attainable mission for Schultz, who began his racing career at Spokane’s old Interstate Fairgrounds Speedway in 1975. But the Tri City Raceway tri-oval has a way of making easy chores quite difficult, even for a veteran like Schultz.

On July 6 Schultz had a checkered flag waiting for him at Tri City, only to get into an accident less than 100 yards from the finish.

“It was a heck of a mess,” Schultz said of the wreck that initially involved himself, Ron Eaton and Chris Cunningham, but eventually collected six other cars.

Saturday he hopes for a more happy ending.

“It would sure be nice to finish strong and say we won a main event,” said Schultz who last won a series race back when the Tour first started in 1985. He’s currently in sixth place in points.

To stack the deck a little more in favor of the River City Body Chevy, Schultz will run one of those Earl Wham “Kong” motors that’s spawned its share of recent successes.

“Earl’s motor has done really well for us on the short tracks,” Schultz said. “Last time here (in Tri Cities) we had fast time.”

Schultz’s misfortune of two months ago turned into the first win of the season for Marc Groskreutz of Spokane. Groskreutz is currently in fourth place in NWT points and is the series’ leading rookie.

Florian tries for repeat in drag truck

Steve Florian collected his first Street Eliminator win of the season last Saturday night at Spokane Raceway Park and he’ll go for two in a row this Saturday at SRP.

That in itself might not be considered newsworthy.

What is notable is that Florian’s win came at the wheel of a full-sized pick-up - a 1970 Ford nick-named “Taz.”

“Everyone thinks it runs in the 18’s,” said Florian’s wife, Tara. “We surprise people.” The 351 Cleveland-powered truck motors down the quarter-mile in 12 seconds.

“This was a work truck at one time,” Tara Florian said. “It used to haul boulders and logs.”

Florian will be challenged by the rest of the SRP bracket racers Saturday in a holiday weekend program that begins with time trials at 4:30.

On the stock car side, SRP hosts the 5th Annual Gold Cup Fall Classic.

C.R.O.W. Mods, Vintage Mods At Stateline

The season’s second appearance of the Columbia River Open Wheel (C.R.O.W.) modifieds, and the season’s first local showing of the Vintage Modifieds highlight the Labor Day Weekend schedule at Stateline Speedway.

Time trials begin at 6 p.m.

Stateline moves to one-day-a-week operation from here on out and in two weeks begins its series of season championship races.

Playfair bike encore event Sept. 14

While the horse-racing future of Playfair remains in limbo, there are plans to bring back an encore performance of flat-track motorcycle racing to the facility on Sept. 14.

“We’ve had so much positive response to our last race we decided to do it again,” said Playfair Race Group spokesman Bert Marsh of Spokane.

The first race drew over 100 riders and a crowd of over 3,000.

Pit stops

Spokane’s Dave Holmes collected his first Spokane Pro Gas Association victory at last Saturday’s Interstate Batteries-sponsored event at Spokane Raceway Park. Holmes’ win helped to keep James Arsenault’s bid for the association’s championship alive. Arsenault is chasing Todd Hoerner going into the Sept. 7 championship. Justin Jones won in Modified Gas… . Northport International Raceway will run its season-championship race Sunday. The Dealer’s Choice “Race of Champions,” begins at 1 p.m… . Go-karts from the Spokane Kart Racing Association will be running Saturday at Warden, Wash., in that town’s annual street race… . Jeff Zimmerman won last Saturday’s Northwest Modified Series race in Kalispell, Montana, further tightening the race for first place in series points. The modifieds run Sept. 7 and 21 at Stateline Speedway to conclude the season.

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