KERCHNER: Friday Morning Heat Race

After a work-induced lull that was indeed too long, the Friday Morning Heat Race is back. From hot laps to the main event, here’s what’s on our mind this week.Hot Laps: Weather Reports?
Is it me or are more races canceled today because of “unfavorable” weather forecasts than ever before?
Qualifying: Dodging The Drops
With many race tracks having reached double-digits in rainouts already this season, New Jersey’s Bridgeport Motorsports Park has completed 15 of its first 17 events, including Wednesday’s Eastern Storm event for the USAC sprint cars. Tip of the cap to promoter Doug Rose.
First Heat: Sharing The Wealth?
What’s going on in Formula 1? Through 10 of the 24 races, three different teams (McLaren, Red Bull and Mercedes) have won races.
Second Heat: Looking Good Jack
We were tickled to see photos of Jack Hewitt in attendance for the Jack Hewitt Challenge Tuesday night at Eldora Speedway with winged and non-winged sprint cars on the card. He looks like he could still wrestle a non-winged machine around the legendary half-mile. Don’t get any ideas Jack.
Third Heat: Sunday Text
Every Sunday I get a text from my 81-year-old mother that says basically the same thing — “How do your dad and I watch the NASCAR race today?” It’s a good exercise — because if I didn’t have to look it up for them, I wouldn’t know either.
Fourth Heat: Book Club
Who wants to create a book club to discuss Dave Argabright’s new book? “Kinser. A Racing Career Like No Other” is expected to be released on July 15. Order yours now at DaveArgabright.com.
Fifth Heat: Wally’s Last Hurrah
Wally Dallenbach Jr. plans to run his final Trans Am Series race Saturday at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. I was a teenager when I first saw him race at Mid-Ohio and I was at many of his NASCAR Cup Series races as a young reporter. Where did the time go?
Watch it Live on SPEED SPORT 1.
Denny Hamlin (Sean Gardner/Getty Images)
Dash: Black Hat
Denny Hamlin is starting to grow on me. With every victory (57 now), Hamlin’s place in NASCAR history is being written in ink, not chalk. But just impressive as his ability to win consistently 20 years into a career in the NASCAR Cup Series, his ability — and willingness — to embrace the role of villain has cemented the 44-year-old driver’s place on the NASCAR scene.
He’s become the driver everyone loves to hate. NASCAR hasn’t had a dependable villain in several decades. Hamlin is that. Let’s stop trying to make Ross Chastain and Carson Hocevar something they are not, hand the black hat over to Hamlin and let it ride.
C Main: What To Do With $5
Announced a year in advance, Pennsylvania’s BAPS Motor Speedway is holding The Eagle Air Aviation $5 Keystone Nationals with winged 410 sprint cars headlining the event on June 7 of next year. Admission will be $5 and tickets are on sale.
“This sport needs to bring in new fans, and we thought a good way to do that was to give people an opportunity to try dirt-track racing out at a low cost,” said promoter Kolten Gouse. “It also a way to say, ‘Thank you’ to our current fanbase for their support over the years.”
B Main: Oh, Canada
I don’t understand why so many folks are outraged because the Canadian Grand Prix will be on the same day as the Indianapolis 500 next year.
Some are angry because the (why would you expect anything else) gall of the Formula 1 organizers to go head-to-head with Indy in North America, others have their gander up because Monaco no longer begins a whole day of race watching as it has for several decades, and then there are those who wake up every day looking for a new reason to be angry.
It is difficult for me to get worked up about this. There will still be a Formula 1 race on the same day as the Indianapolis 500. It will be on a different Continent at a different time of day. There still won’t be any passing in said Formula 1 race and the Indianapolis 500 will remain The Greatest Spectacle in Racing.
This is not a cosmic shift in the racing universe. It’s a blip.
Feature: Wings Of Cash
It’s a pretty great weekend to be a winged sprint car racer. Big-money purses are up for grabs throughout the country, providing traveling national teams, regional touring pros and local racers a shot to score a little extra loot.
It all started Wednesday at South Dakota’s Huset’s Speedway, with Kyle Larson earning a $20,000 preliminary night victory. Last night, a big check was handed out at the Brandon, S.D., track as Buddy Kofoid took home $100,000 for winning the Huset’s Hustle as 55 cars signed in for the event. Most of them will stick around, too. After another $20,000-to-win feature on Friday, Saturday night’s High Bank Nationals will pay $250,000 to the winner, the highest purse of the season. More than $800,000 is scheduled to be paid over four nights.
Meanwhile, in the Pacific Northwest, the Jim Raper Dirt Cup will be run for the 53rd time at Washington’s Skagit Speedway. Saturday’s main event will pay a record $100,026.26 to the winner. Forty-seven cars were on hand for Thursday’s preliminary event won by Levi Klatt in his 16th winged 410 start.
Back in Ohio, the 43rd annual Ohio Sprint Speedweek wraps up at Atomic Speedway on Saturday night with $26,554 earmarked for the winner of the Dean Knittel Memorial
In Pennsylvania, Lincoln Speedway pays $10,119 to win its Steve Smith Tribute Race.