GLENDORA, Calif. – The NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series returns to action next year to compete at premier racing facilities across the country.

The action-packed series kicks off at Orlando Speed World Dragway, in Orlando, Fla. on Jan. 31-Feb. 2.

New this season, National Trail Raceway will feature double the sportsman racing action as it hosts a Division 3 points meet July 16-17 directly followed by the iconic JEGS NHRA SPORTSnationals, July 18-19.

The season will conclude for the Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series in Las Vegas, November 5-8.

The upcoming schedule includes 44 divisional events with a minimum of six in each of the seven divisions. Additionally, there will also be 26 regional events featuring the 260-mph Top Alcohol Dragster and Top Alcohol Funny Car classes during the 2020 campaign.

2020 NHRA Lucas Oil Drag Racing Series Schedule

Division 1

Atco Raceway (Regional) May 1-3
Maple Grove Raceway (Regional) May 22-24
Numida Dragway June 5-7
New England Dragway (Regional) June 19-20
Lebanon Valley Dragway (Regional) July 3-5
Cecil County Dragway Aug. 14-16
Virginia Motorsports Park (Regional) Oct. 9-11

Division 2

Orlando Speed World Dragway Jan. 31-Feb. 2
South Georgia Motorsports Park Feb. 21-23
Gainesville Raceway (Regional) March 5-8
Atlanta Dragway May 1-3
GALOT Motorsports Park Sept. 18-20
Rockingham Dragway Oct. 2-4

Division 3

Summit Motorsports Park (Regional) May 15-17
Route 66 Raceway (Regional) May 29-31
National Trail Raceway (Regional) July 16-17
Lucas Oil Raceway at Indianapolis (Regional) Aug. 7-9
Beech Bend Raceway Park (Regional) Aug. 28-30
World Wide Technology Raceway (Regional) Oct. 9-11

Division 4

No Problem Raceway (Regional) Feb. 28-March 1
Houston Raceway Park March 20-22
Texas Motorplex (Regional TAD/TAFC ONLY) March 27-28
Texas Motorplex April 2-3
Texas Motorplex April 4-5
Alamo City Motorplex May 15-17
Tulsa Raceway Park June 5-6
Thunder Valley Raceway Park Oct. 9-11

Division 5

Bandimere Speedway (Regional) June 19-20
Heartland Motorsports Park July 23-24
Heartland Motorsports Park (Regional) July 25-26
Brainerd International Raceway Aug. 8-9
Tri-State Raceway (Regional) Sept. 11-13
SRCA Dragstrip (Regional) Sept. 25-27

Division 6

Firebird Raceway May 1-3
Mission Raceway May 28-29
Mission Raceway (Regional) May 30-31
Woodburn Dragstrip (Regional) June 26-28
Pacific Raceways (Regional TAD/TAFC ONLY) Aug. 7-8
Pacific Raceways Aug. 14-16
Yellowstone Dragstrip (Regional) Aug. 29-30

Division 7

Tucson Dragway February 28-March 1
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Regional) April 9-11
Auto Club Dragway May 16-17
Sonoma Raceway (Double Regional) July 16-19
Wild Horse Pass Motorsports Park Oct. 9-11
The Strip at Las Vegas Motor Speedway (Regional) Nov. 5-8

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The NASCAR Foundation announced the four finalists for the Ninth Annual Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award on Friday, initiating a month-long online fan vote to determine the award winner.

The finalists were introduced during a news conference at ISM Raceway in Avondale, Ariz., prior to Sunday’s Bluegreen Vacations 500.

The award, named in honor of the foundation’s late founder and chairwoman, is presented to a NASCAR fan who has done exceptional volunteer work on behalf of children in their community. Results of the fan vote – which begins today and runs through Dec. 3 at 5 p.m. (ET), conducted at NASCARfoundation.org/Award – will be announced on Dec. 5 during the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series Awards at Music City Center in Nashville. The NASCAR Foundation will donate $100,000 to the charity represented by the award winner and $25,000 to each of the other three finalists’ charities.

Those finalists:

Bob Behounek of Berwyn, Ill., a NASCAR fan for 56 years representing Ronald McDonald House Charities of Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana. Behounek, an artist, has volunteered for 13 years, raising funds to help families of hospitalized children with housing needs during extended hospital stays.

Angela Hamby of Locust, N.C., a 40-year NASCAR fan representing the Down Syndrome Association of Greater Charlotte. She has volunteered for 12 years as head nurse for Camp Horizon, which serves children with Down syndrome.

Todd Smith of Perris, Calif., a NASCAR fan since 2007 (when he attended his first race at Auto Club Speedway) who represents Fuel for Success, a national organization founded by Smith. He has volunteered for 12 years, introducing at-risk students to NASCAR while fostering better relationships between students and police officers.

Joe Vaughn of Woodruff, S.C., a NASCAR fan of 45 years representing Project HOPE Foundation of Greenville, South Carolina. Vaughn is the chairman of Project HOPE, which serves children with autism.

“Avid NASCAR fans; that’s the best way to begin when describing this year’s Betty Jane France Humanitarian Award finalists,” said The NASCAR Foundation Chairman Mike Helton. “Each one represents what Betty Jane France stood for and what she wanted this award to be: a recognition of people who love our sport but also love the charities they are passionate about.

“These finalists are folks who root for their favorite drivers on race day but every day – 365 days a year – they’re out there rooting for the children in their community, working hard to better children’s lives. This year’s group of finalists is exceptional. Picking one to vote for will be tough for our fans.”

Since the award’s inception, The NASCAR Foundation has impacted the lives of more than 300,000 children by providing nearly $1.5 million in contributions to charities represented by finalists for the award.

SPEED SPORT’s Jacob Seelman caught up with Big Game Motorsports driver Kerry Madsen during the Can-Am World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, who recaps his 2019 season and looks ahead to 2020.

ANTALYA, Turkey – Matthias Schwab started with an eagle and finished with a birdie to lead by one shot after the second round of the Turkish Airlines Open on Friday.

The 24-year-old shot 5-under 67 to move to 12 under overall, leading a four-man group that includes Danny Willett (66) and Alex Noren (67).

Schwab, who has a tour-best nine top-10 finishes this season, begins the weekend with five more players within two shots. The 10-under group includes two-time defending champion Justin Rose (67).

Fired up by his selection by Tiger Woods for the United States' 12-man Presidents Cup team, Patrick Reed shot 7-under 65 to trail Schwab by four shots.

"It means so much to me," Reed said of playing the Dec. 12-15 event in Melbourne, Australia. "Representing our country and wearing red, white and blue is something I absolutely love and am so proud of. "

Nike is investigating allegations by former middle-distance runner Mary Cain that she suffered physical and mental abuse as a member of the Nike Oregon Project.

Cain joined the now-shuttered Oregon Project, which was run by coach Alberto Salazar, in 2013 after becoming the youngest American to qualify for the track and field world championships, where she competed in the 1,500-meter final as a 17-year-old.

Cain, now 23, told The New York Times that she was pressured to become "thinner and thinner and thinner" when she was with the Oregon Project. She said she was publicly shamed in front of her teammates if she did not hit weight targets.

"I joined Nike because I wanted to be the best female athlete ever," Cain said in a video published Thursday. "Instead, I was emotionally and physically abused by a system designed by Alberto and endorsed by Nike."

Cain said she stopped menstruating and broke five bones while being pressured to drop weight. She said she had suicidal thoughts and also began cutting herself. She ultimately left the Oregon Project in 2015.

"We take the allegations extremely seriously and will launch an immediate investigation to hear from former Oregon Project athletes," Nike said in a statement Thursday. "At Nike we seek to always put the athlete at the center of everything we do, and these allegations are completely inconsistent with our values."

The New York Times said Salazar denied Cain's allegations in an email.

Salazar received a four-year ban in September for, among other violations, possessing and trafficking testosterone. Nike shut down the Oregon Project last month.

Cain said not enough has been done to hold Nike accountable for "a systemic crisis" in which "young girls' bodies are being ruined by an emotionally and physically abusive system."

"That's what needs to change," she said.

Nike also has come under pressure this year for its treatment of pregnant athletes. A number of female athletes, including six-time Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix, said Nike reduced or would not guarantee contracts if an athlete became pregnant.

In August, Nike announced that it would no longer apply performance-related reductions to pregnant athletes for a period of 18 months.

CONCORD, N.C. — This weekend’s Can-Am World Finals at The Dirt Track at Charlotte will mark the end of an era, not only in the Super DIRTcar Series, but in all of Northeastern big-block modified racing.

Brett Hearn, the only eight-time Super DIRTcar national champion and the series’ all-time winningest driver with 140 victories, plans to quit racing full time and become the promoter for the five-eighths-mile Orange County Fair Speedway dirt track in Middletown, N.Y.

It’s a fitting move for the proverbial “King of Orange County,” as Hearn is the track’s all-time winningest driver with 302 victories, including 174 in a dirt modified.

He also boasts 16 modified track championships there, including this year’s title.

Hearn’s decision, first revealed by Area Auto Racing News on Monday, was not a choice that came due to any sort of diminished passion for driving by the 61-year-old. That fire still burns as strong as ever.

“I’ve said from about from the time I was 45 or so that I’m never going to get tired of driving. I’m going to get tired of getting these cars ready to drive. You know what I mean? And that’s exactly how I felt,” Hearn told SPEED SPORT. “I was just getting to where I didn’t like the pressure and the grind to hurry up and get ready for the next race, with deadlines and lot of pressure, you know? It’s not a lot of young volunteer help that I’ve got … it just seemed right. It just seemed like the right time to do it.

“The opportunity (to go to Orange County) has been there for a couple of years and I didn’t want the opportunity to slip away,” he added. “I wanted that opportunity, you know? That was important also.”

Hearn will oversee all the motorsports activities that take place at the fairgrounds, working under Halmar International’s Chris Larsen, the current lease holder at the century-old race track.

The change was originally going to be announced during the recent Eastern States 200 weekend, but the timing wasn’t quite right, according to Hearn.

Thus, the news came at a BH Racing Reunion party in Middletown last weekend.

“We’d been talking about it for three years actually and I really thought that it was going to happen this year and then the conversation was on the amount of money that they were paying out this year and the Centennial race — which they paid $100,000 to win — and the longer we thought about it, the more we thought it might be better for me to race one more year and better for the track if I raced one more year.

“We weren’t on the cusp of making a decision that day, but I think the timing now … it’s all worked out.”

Hearn begins his new position Dec. 1, but was quick to note that in all of his discussions with Larsen about stepping into Orange County’s management, a full retirement from driving was never an option.

“He (Larsen) told me I’m too good to do that (step away completely),” Hearn grinned. “At least, that’s what I’ve been told. So we’re going to do a limited schedule and just pick and choose what we’d like to do. It is way too early to know what that schedule is going to look like. But we’ll scale the shop back from six or seven cars to one or two and make it manageable.”

Hearn said that while there is a staff already in place at OCFS, he’s not against shaking things up.

“I want to look at everything,” noted Hearn. “I want to look at everybody and everything and just, you know, change the culture a little bit if I can.

“So that’s ultimately what I want to do, but I want to get partners and sponsors and friends and volunteers involved … and whatever else I can put together, you know?” he added. “I want to build this place up just like we did with the race team.”

After 45 years on the road racing full time, Hearn said emphatically that he won’t miss the grind of a year-long points chase. He’s been there and done that far too many times.

“I never realized how much of what I did was traveling … with Syracuse, Buffalo, Albany and further up into Canada, and how much of a disadvantage I was at by traveling from New Jersey all the time,” Hearn explained. “I won’t say it was wasted time, but you know, hours and hours of driving isn’t productive, you know? I won’t miss it. I’m not going to miss that part at all.”

Going forward, he’ll pick and choose his handful of races next year in a fashion that ensures the Sussex, N.J., native will be enjoying everything he’s doing — management and driving alike.

“I’ll make a lot of those (racing) choices by the amount of fun I think I’ll have,” Hearn said. “I’ve got a lot of relationships with different track operators and owners, and they’re already like, ‘Oh, you can come to my big race next year,’ and I’ll see how the schedule works … but that (racing) won’t be my priority.

“I don’t really want to get wrapped up in race prep, because I know once I do that, it will suck up all my time and I really want to concentrate on the track and on the speedway in 2020. That’s my main focus.”

But first comes two more outings as a full-time driver and a chance to secure a fifth win at The Dirt Track at Charlotte, as well as a much-needed victory to end the season on the Super DIRTcar Series tour.

“We haven’t won on the series all year,” Hearn pointed out. “It sure would be neat to cap off the full-time chapter with one more here in Charlotte. That would be pretty special, in my mind.”

PATASKALA, Ohio – Meyer Shank Racing will embark on its first full season of NTT IndyCar Series competition next year after forming a technical partnership with Andretti Technologies.

AutoNation and SiriusXM have both extended their sponsorship agreements with the team, which will see Jack Harvey continue as driver of the No. 60 Honda Indy car next season.

Meyer Shank Racing has run partial NTT IndyCar Series schedules the last two seasons as the organization built towards a full schedule in 2020.

“These last two years we have been taking the season in stride and really learning how to build our program to the point where we can run all 17 races,” said team co-owner Michael SHank Shank. “This year has been great and Jack (Harvey) has produced some spectacular results for us and we, as a team, are proud to have him back next year. And of course, all of this would not be possible without AutoNation and SiriusXM who have worked side by side with us from the very beginning and they are a big factor in getting our program to where it is right now.

“Of course sticking by Honda was a very important decision to me,” continued Shank. “We have stood by HPD and Honda for many years in both the sports car and IndyCar paddocks and to be able to continue to work with them in 2020 is something I am really grateful for.”

“It’s great that we are able to officially announce our full season effort for the 2020 IndyCar season,” said Meyer Shank Racing co-owner, Jim Meyer. “This team and Mike (Shank) have worked very hard over the last two IndyCar seasons to put us in a position where we can come back full time. It’s also exciting to have both SiriusXM and AutoNation return on board the No. 60; both have been outstanding parties to work with.”

Shank said a key reason the team will be able to go full-time next season is the new partnership with Andretti Technologies.

“We feel very strong about our partnership with Andretti Technologies and feel that will be a mutually beneficial program,” said Shank.  “Announcing our full season effort is a combination of a ton of work behind the scenes from our sponsors to our individual crew members, and it’s great to finally announce our full season schedule for next year in IndyCar.”

Harvey has played a critical role in bringing the team’s sponsors together and is excited to continue to build the already strong relationships that he has with the Meyer Shank Racing crew, AutoNation and SiriusXM.

“This is the moment that we all work so extremely hard for,” said Harvey. “I am beyond grateful for this opportunity to go racing with Meyer Shank Racing, AutoNation and SiriusXM full time. We have shown we can be competitive, and I can’t wait to build on that and get started on another multi-year program with this group. This is the first time in four years I’ll be competing full time, I owe that to Michael (Shank), Jim (Meyer), Marc (Cannon), my manager Bob (Perona) and my family for the support and belief. I’ve never been so excited to go racing.”

It seemed like a typical night at Ocean Speedway.

The black sprint car with the white No. 69 across the tail tank was in the pits like it had been most of the summer. As the 30-lapper wound down to the checkered flag, that black car was running solidly in a podium spot and on pace with the race winner, something most fans expected.

All in all, it seemed like a routine night on the quarter-mile dirt oval in Watsonville, not far from California’s Monterey Bay. Routine, that is, until the top three drivers crawled out of their cars for interviews in front of the grandstands and fans realized that the driver of the black car was a generation older than they expected.

Being in the winner’s circle or close to it was familiar territory for Brent Kaeding, a spot he has claimed hundreds of times at race tracks across northern California during the last 40 years. And the black No. 69 sprint car is an icon, instantly recognizable as a Kaeding car just like a certain black No. 3 stock car is identified with Dale Earnhardt in NASCAR circles.

But on this night, the elder Kaeding was not on hand to add to his Hall of Fame legacy as one of the most winning drivers to strap on a sprint car. On this night, he was in an unfamiliar situation. He was a former headliner coming in from the wings as a stand-in, a substitute, an emergency backup, a pinch-hitter.  His name wasn’t even painted on the car.

On this retro night, the not-quite-retired Kaeding showed he could still hit the high notes as he whipped the black machine to a podium finish, working to preserve the chances of adding another championship to the family’s trove.

That black sprint car had raced at Watsonville all year, with Brent’s son, Bud — a multi-time champion in his own right — behind the wheel.

“We were just going to race now and then to get the car out of the shop,” Brent Kaeding said. But as Bud won — and won again — and backed it up with other podium finishes, they realized they were in contention for the track championship.

But on this night, Bud Kaeding had a scheduling conflict with his ride in the King of the West by NARC Fujitsu Sprint Car Series.

“The only way for us to honor our commitments to the people who support the car was for me to jump in and get it in the show,” said Kaeding, while Bud left the track in a helicopter headed for The Stockton Dirt Track.

“I didn’t even tell my wife I was going to drive the car until the night before,” the elder Kaeding confessed.

It had been more than two years since the 60-year-old Kaeding had raced a sprint car and about five years since he had raced regularly.

“I was in better condition then,” he admitted, “so I was a little sore the next day, but it wasn’t too bad.”

The Dynasty

There are some families that could be considered “dynasties” with racing success spanning generations.   Think Andretti, Unser, Petty and Earnhardt. In sprint car racing, the Kaedings have certainly earned that status with multiple championships and victories stretching across three generations.

Brent’s sons, Tim and Bud Kaeding, have racked up their fair share of track and series championships and are still winning races in California and with the World of Outlaws.

Brent’s father, the very youthful 80-plus-year-old Howard Kaeding (who pedals his way around the pit area on a mountain bike), was a three-time California state champion, racing rocket-fast supermodifieds on the high banks of San Jose Speedway in the 1960s and ’70s.

Howard Kaeding became such a legend that his shadow loomed over Brent Kaeding’s introduction to racing.

“Kaeding’s Son To Make Racing Debut,” heralded the headlines in the San Jose Mercury News.

Brent Kaeding’s first race car was one he built with his dad. A partner in the car backed out of the deal, creating the opportunity for Brent Kaeding to drive it.

At 20 years old, Brent Kaeding was somewhat late to the game. Ironically, watching his dad win every week didn’t motivate him to race any sooner.

“Growing up, I had no aspirations to be a race car driver,” Kaeding recalled. “I had no desire to race up to the age of 18 and by 20 I was racing.”

Hundreds of wins, dozens of championships and decades later, “Kaeding’s Son” has more than etched his name in the sport’s history books. When Brent Kaeding was inducted into the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame in 2008, years before he cut back on his schedule, he was credited with at least 375 race wins.

The tally incudes victories in some of the sport’s biggest events, including Skagit Speedway’s Dirt Cup (three times), the Trophy Cup (four times) and the Gold Cup Race of Champions at Silver Dollar Speedway (four times). He has even won one of midget racing’s premier events, the Turkey Night Grand Prix.

Kaeding’s championship trophies stack up like cordwood for an Alaskan winter. They include an amazing 13 in the Northern Auto Racing Club/King of the West series and another 13 in the Golden State Challenge, in addition to dozens of individual track titles, some of which he has won multiple times.

Kaeding doesn’t keep a tally of his victories, deferring to historians and stats guys while he focuses on the day in front of him.

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