VISITS GRANDVIEW, LINCOLN, NEW EGYPT, BIG DIAMOND


This year’s USAC “Eastern Storm” AMSOIL National Sprint Car tour kicks off Tuesday night at Grandview Speedway in Bechtelsville, Pa. and encompasses four races in four nights.


 


Wednesday night’s venue is the Lincoln Speedway in New Oxford, Pa. and Thursday night’s race is at the New Egypt (N.J.) Speedway. The finale is Friday night at Big Diamond Raceway in Minersville, Pa.


 


Damion Gardner of Concord, Calif. enters Tuesday night’s race as the 2010 USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car point leader. He is 24 points ahead of Jerry Coons Jr. in the new standings. Gardner won four of the first five races of this season.


 


Coons, who pilots the Dynamics Inc. car for the Hoffman Auto Racing Team of Milford, Ohio, scored a spectacular victory last Thursday night in the 40th First Financial Bank “Tony Hulman Classic” at Terre Haute, Ind., an all-time record 76th win for the Hoffman team.


 


Defending USAC National Sprint Car Champion Levi Jones of Olney, Ill. is third in the standings, only 27 out of the lead and hopes to have the success he enjoyed in the 2007 Eastern Storm tour when he won two of the three races scheduled.


 


The New Egypt race marks USAC’s first-ever trip to that 3/8-mile dirt track and the first USAC Sprint race in New Jersey since Tom Bigelow’s 1978 victory at the Flemington Fairgrounds.


 


New Jersey drivers Mark Bitner, Jonathan Swanson and Jeff Geiges are among Eastern drivers expected to compete against the USAC regulars in the four-race “Eastern storm” tour.