Lakeland,FL (August 5, 2005) –
Officials from the Midwest-based Champion Racing Association (CRA)
Super Series, the Southern-based FASCAR/Sunbelt Super Series and USA
International Speedway in Lakeland, Florida have combined to announce
the dates for the "2006 SpeedFest" at the beautiful central Florida
facility. Super Late Model teams and fans will gather at the event,
January 26-28, 2006.
In January of 2005 60 teams took part in the
first "SpeedFest" that brought all the different teams and sanctioning
bodies together. The first 100-lap event was one by Florida’s Mike
Fritts, while Wisconsin’s Charlie Menard won the Mark III Conversions
200-lap finale.
"The 2005 SpeedFest was a great event for our
facility and fans as well as the Late Model teams," noted USA
International Speedway promoter Bill Martino. "It was a true battle of
North vs. South, like we had envisioned, and I believe everyone went
away thinking it was truly a great event. We knew right then that we
would come back and do it again… and even better."
The event will be under the direction of CRA’s
Glenn Luckett and R. J. Scott and FASCAR’s Don Nerone. The series’
will also be co-promoting the event with the speedway. While the
on-track activities will be directed by these sanctioning bodies,
officials want to be very clear that this is an "open" event.
"We welcome teams from all over the country
and different organizations to be part of this weekend in 2006,"
commented CRA managing partner R. J. Scott. "While the January 2005
race was open to any driver, the 2006 version will have an even more
"open" format. We are still working on all the details, but feel like
everyone will be pleased when we announce them."
The weekend will culminate with a
$10,000-to-win, 200-lap event on Saturday night featuring ALL the
stars and cars attempting to make the star-studded starting field.
FASCAR President Don Nerone was pleased with
the parity that the 2005 rules package brought to the cars from the
North and the South. "Everyone was curious about how things would turn
out with the rules in the last event, but we felt we would be pretty
close, and the results proved that we were. I can only foresee minor
adjustments in the rules to improve the parity even more."
Martino went on to add, "even though we are
still a half a year away, we wanted to give everyone as much advance
notice as possible. There is a lot of planning that goes into it for
the teams and fans, as well as us as promoters." Information on rules,
entry forms and schedules, will be released through these and other
channels when they become available in the near future.
For more information on the race track or
series involved and the rest of their schedules, interested parties
can visit: www.craracing.net,
www.fascar.org, or
www.usaspeedway.com.