Iowa Speedway roars to life one week from now. It’s Wide Opening Weekend for the 11th season of racing at the Newton racing facility. The NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and the NASCAR Xfinity Series races rev up the 2017 season.
I’m working on preview stories for each race and a story on the new NASCAR racing format, which is for all three of the national touring series. Iowa Speedway President Jimmy Small explains the new format and how it works for Xfinity and the Truck Series drivers and teams.
All that goes in the Newton Daily News’ 2017 Iowa Speedway special section. The special section hits the streets on Thursday.
Also on Thursday in the Newton Daily News’ sports pages, look for driver and race previews for Friday’s NCWTS M&M’s 200 and the Xfinity Series American Ethanol e15 250. Interviews are being lined up for early next week for drivers’ prospective of racing at Iowa Speedway.
I did my first driver pre-race interview for the 2017 season on Tuesday. IndyCar driver and owner Ed Carpenter and I chatted over the telephone about July’s Verizon IndyCar Series race at Iowa Speedway.
The Ed Carpenter Racing team went first and 18th in the 2016 Iowa Corn 300 at Iowa Speedway. A new driver will be in the ECR No. 20, which was driven to victory by Josef Newgarden, for 2017. JR Hildebrand is in the No. 20 car full time for ECR this season with Carpenter driving the No. 21 ECR car in all the oval races. Spencer Pigot drives the No. 21 in the IndyCar Series road and street races.
“We really love coming to Iowa Speedway. It is the shortest of the short oval tracks IndyCar races on and is one of the most challenging tracks. But all the drivers enjoy coming to Iowa with the tradition the series has at the track and the fan base for IndyCar there,” Carpenter said.
More on Carpenter and his unique situation as an active driver and team owner plus his ECR team overall will be in a Newton Daily News article prior to the 2017 Iowa Corn 300, which is July 9.
“I just want to encourage racing fans to go to iowaspeedway.com and purchase tickets for the Iowa Corn 300. It’s always a great race,” Carpenter said on Tuesday.
Talking about revving up, high school baseball and softball are in full swing right now. Three of the five area softball teams are currently ranked — in Class 1A, Colfax-Mingo is at No. 11 and Lynnville-Sully is No. 12., Collins-Maxwell/Baxter moved up to No. 5 in Class 2A. Prairie City-Monroe dropped out of the 3A top 15 this week.
Postseason is right around the corner for the high school softball teams. Regional pairings are expected out on Monday for 1A, 2A and 3A softball teams. The regional pairings for 4A and 5A are expected on Thursday. Regional play begins the week of July 3. The softball state tournaments are July 17-21 in Fort Dodge.
For high school baseball, district assignments for 1A and 2A were released this week, but pairings won’t be out until June 26. Newton, which is in 4A, will learn its 4A substate assignment Monday with pairings out on July 3. The baseball state tournaments are July 21-22, 24-29 at Principal Park in Des Moines.
Colfax-Mingo and Lynnville-Sully are in 1A baseball’s District 11 along with Melcher-Dallas, Montezuma, Moravia, Moulton-Udell, North Mahaska and Twin Cedars. In 2A District 14 are CMB and PCM along with Ogden, Roland-Story, Van Meter and Woodward Academy.
As the temperatures rise for Iowa summer days, the action heats up on the high school diamonds and the asphalt track at Iowa Speedway.
Contact Jocelyn Sheets
at jsheets@newtondailynews.com