Home >  Sports >  Notebooks

Sunday, April 27, 2003

By Chris Dolack, Special to the Post-Gazette

Western Pennsylvanians might take it for granted, but some of the best short-track racing in the country takes place at their dirt and asphalt speedways every week.

Now they can add a state-of-the-art road course to the list. Although two of its planned three circuits were completed last summer, the BeaveRun MotorSports ComPlex in Big Beaver faces its first major challenge on Friday through Sunday. The SCCA Sports Racing Pro Series, the Mazdaspeed Miata Cup, the Pro Spec Racer series and the Formula SCCA North American Atlantic Tour will compete on the site's 1.6-mile road course. The Champ Cars Stars of Tomorrow karting eastern region final will race on BeaveRun's 4/5-mile Wilson Circuit.

While the top divisions of the SCCA events, which feature various styles of open-wheel cars and sports cars, will be the main draw, pay attention to the drivers in the Stars of Tomorrow event. Owned by former Indianapolis 500 winner Bobby Rahal, the series is the first rung in the Championship Auto Racing Teams' driver development system and a prime recruiting ground for future CART, Indy Racing League and NASCAR drivers.

Organizers are expecting about 300 racers -- 150 from the SCCA and another 150 in the karting divisions -- to compete at BeaveRun, which is built on 400 acres about 2 miles north of the Pennsylvania Turnpike on Route 18. With another 2.2-mile road course in the works, the facility eventually could surpass antiquated Watkins Glen International course in New York and compare favorably to fan-friendly Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course in Lexington, Ohio.

Admission to the event is $10 for a one-day pass, $15 for a two-day pass and $20 for a weekend pass. For information, go to www.beaverun.com.

Mitchell's return set

He doesn't plan on racing a weekly schedule, but Richard Mitchell announced Tuesday that he will be back behind the wheel at Motordrome and Jennerstown speedways this season for the first time since 2001. Mitchell, a two-time NASCAR Weekly Racing Series Northeast Region champion from Bruceton Mills, W.Va., is scheduled to compete in 11 extended-length events at the two tracks. He will race a Harold Eatman-powered, Hamke-built 2002 Chevrolet Monte Carlo that was purchased from Neil Brown, the 2002 Jennerstown champion.

Mitchell, 36, who won three late model titles between the two tracks, competed in the NASCAR Busch Series and the ARCA Re/MAX Series in 2002 with Waynesburg-based Mac Hill Motorsports. He was scheduled to compete in the Busch Series this season but the sponsorship deal fell apart in January. Now, Mitchell and his team, which features his brother, Chris, as crew chief, is geared toward having the late model prepared for a 75-lap race Friday at Motordrome.

"There's a lot of work to be done on the car," he said. "Part of our team isn't around anymore. Everyone got busy with their own lives. It's a little bit more tedious for us to do this now. My brother felt that if I was going to have a chance at doing something next year I needed to stay in a car doing something. He likes doing it and he wanted to keep doing it. We were going to try to test before the race next week but the way things are I don't know if that's going to be possible with as much work as we have to do on the car. For sure, I'm not going to be able to go to Jennerstown and test."

He isn't worried about being rusty, though. With five top-10 finishes last year in ARCA and an astonishing 52-percent winning average on the local tracks, Mitchell doesn't plan on being embarrassed.

"I definitely want to come and try to do as well as we did before," he said. "This car is the same style of car that we ran two years ago but, of course, it's a different car. It might handle worse, it might handle better. I know we could go up there and get whipped. I'm going to try to not let that happen."

Start your engines

Although it already has been host to a USAR Hooters ProCup race and a non-points late model race, Jennerstown Speedway finally drops the green flag on its regular season Saturday when points in the newly named NASCAR Dodge Weekly Series really matter. Jennerstown remains in the NASCAR Northeast Division with newcomer Lake Erie Speedway while Motordrome Speedway was shifted into the NASCAR Atlantic Division. Racing at Jennerstown begins at 6 p.m. with main gates opening at 3 p.m.

Chris Dolack is the senior writer for Auto Racing Digest magazine. He can be reached at cdolack@chrisdolack.com.