They say that a champion
is defined by their competition. In both Major League Baseball and the NBA you
have to overcome 29 other teams, the NFL has 32 other entities that you must
beat and in the NHL you must be better than 30 other groups of players. In the
RaceSaver sprint cars for 2018, you had to beat out a total of 700 drivers who
competed in 344 races at 61 different tracks and ran in 9 different Racesaver
series in 17 states!!
Now; although sprint car
racers are a part of a team, the final and deciding factor in winning in the
sport is the driver. When you strap into the cockpit there aren’t 4, 5, or 10
others to pick up your slack. There are no backups sitting on the bench ready
to take over for you if need be. There is just one driver in that cockpit, and
at the end of the season only one of those drivers can claim the title of
champion. The Racesaver IMCA Sprint Car champion for 2018 was Kevin Ramey from
Kennedale, Texas.
The first driver to win
both the National points and RaceSaver Nationals titles, Ramey scored 18
feature wins this year. He also topped the point standings at Devil’s Bowl
Speedway and RPM Speedway and snagged his first Texas State championship.
Ramey is a bit of a throw-back to the
way sprint car racers used to be. He runs hard, parties hard, races clean and
wins wherever he races. A better champion and representative of the Racesaver
IMCA Sprint Cars could not be found!!!
Ramey, 49, originally started out in
an economy late model class in 1985 before switching to a sprint car in 1993.
He won the NCRA championship in 1994; just his second year in a sprinter. He
switched to the Racesaver class in 2013 and has been running the class ever
since. “We didn’t really want to travel a long way or spend a lot of time on
the road looking for places to race the 360. I’d had a lot of fun, but it was
time to scale back. I promoted a little bit at Kennedale Speedway Park. I’d
like to get into the promoting side again because I really enjoy that.
Eventually I think that’s where I want to end up when I’m done racing, to see
if I can give back to the sport that way. I ended up selling all of my 360
equipment and we run the Racesaver stuff exclusively”.
Ramey’s season was a busy one, running
at numerous tracks. “We raced at RPM Speedway, at Devils Bowl and Mesquite
weekly. We went up to Meeker and over to Ardmore a couple of times. We ran the
race at Belleville, went to Thayer County right before Belleville and of course
we were at the Racesaver Nationals at Eagle Raceway”.
I asked if they had intended to run
for the championship and he said “No, not really. When we started out the
season we were just going to do some hit and miss stuff. I had built a stock
car for my son and another guy and I was just going to see how it worked out.
If we were high enough in the points at that point we would do the points, but
we ended up getting rained out so much early in the season that we didn’t
really get to race a whole lot. Once we finally got started we were having a
lot of success, so it just took off from there”. To say that they had success
is an understatement as his 18 wins came in just 31 starts!
I then inquired about his plans for
the future. “Just to get to this banquet (The IMCA Championship banquet on
November 23rd) first and get that done. We’ve got a couple of cars
that we’re dragging to the Chili Bowl and putting a couple of good little
drivers in those. We haven’t even discussed next year yet to be honest, but as
soon as we get this year over with, we’ll go from there. I’m sure we’ll still
race. I don’t know if we’ll chase the points or not. I will need to talk with
both car owners and see what they want to do. We’ve got some stuff going on at
the local tracks down there in Texas; there’s talk about them selling RPM
Speedway, so I don’t know where our sprint car division stands there. But, as
of right now, we’ll be back running the Racesavers”.
Your 2018 Racesaver IMCA Sprint Car
Rookie of the Year was 17-year old Casey Burkham from Crandall, Texas. “I like
running the Racesaver series a lot! I started out in a mini-sprint and ran
those for a little bit and then we ran a 360 sprint for a guy in a couple of
races. Then I jumped into the Racesaver”. He got his first taste of the
Racesaver sprints in 6 races last year and liked it so much that he went
full-time in 2018.
He competed at several tracks this
past season including RPM Speedway, Devils Bowl, Greenville and of course the
Racesaver IMCA Sprint Nationals. “It’s been a lot of fun. We had a few ups and
downs, but it’s been a good year, with 1 victory. The Racesaver Nationals was
definitely the favorite race I’ve ever been in by far though”.
Next year’s plans include running a
Racesaver Sprint car with the Sprint Bandit series. “We’ll run with them a
little bit to see how that goes”.
The State and Series Champions for the
2018 Racesaver season were as follows:
Brandon Allen Minnesota State and Arlington Raceway Champion
Elliot Amdahl South Dakota State Champion
Ethan Barrow Indiana Racesaver Sprint Series and Indiana State Champion
Zach Blurton United Rebel Sprint Series Champion
Tyler Drueke Eagle Raceway and Nebraska State Champion
Grant Duinkerken Western Racesaver Sprint Series and California
State Champion
Jeff Emerson Texas Sprint Series Champion
Anthony Harris Virginia Sprint Series and Virginia State Champion
Mike Houseman Iowa State Champion
Tommy Johnson Sabine Motor Speedway and Louisiana State Champion
Jake Martens Kansas State Champion
Zach Newlin Pennsylvania Sprint Series and Pennsylvania State
Champion
Coby Pearce Colorado State
Champion
Craig Pellegrini Jr. North Carolina State Champion
Matt Richards US 36 Raceway and Missouri State Champion
Trey Schmidt Southern United Sprint Champion
Steven Shebester Lawton Speedway and Oklahoma State Champion
Andy Shouse Sprint Series of Oklahoma
Stephen Surniak Carolina Sprint Tour and South Carolina State Champion
Tim S. Tanner Jr. Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series and New Jersey
State Champion
