Nashville Speedway PR

by Nashville Speedway Media Relations

NASHVILLE, TN. - (April 2, 1997) - Notes for April 5 Renegades Racing/Discount Tobacco Outlet race night:

* Renegades Racing/Discount Tobacco Outlets presents the first Saturday night (April 5 at 7:00 PM) race event of the 1997 race season at Nashville Speedway USA. The NASCAR Winston Racing Series program will feature a 50-lap event for the NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Stock Cars and a 50-lap main event for the Ryder Integrated Logistics SuperTrucks as headline events. The Phillips 66 Pro Modifieds will run a 25-lap feature and the Street modifieds will contest a 20½-lap featurea all on the high-banked 5/8th mile oval. Featured on the tight quarter-mile track will be 2 25-lap features for the ADT Automotive Legends Cars and a 20-lap feature for the wild and wooly Pure Stocks.

* Practice for each division will take place Saturday afternoon at 1:00 PM, with spectator gates opening at 5:00 PM. Qualifying for the Late Model Stock Cars, SuperTrucks, and Street Modifieds begins at 5:15 PM, pit gates open at 11:00 AM. Adult admission is $10.00 with children 11 & under admitted free.

* Ricky Bolden's career first Late Model Stock Car win Sunday, March 23, came in his third full season in the division. Bolden's racing career started in go-karts in 1976 where he won several local and Tennessee State Karting championships. Bolden moved into stock cars in 1988 competing in the high-powered Pro Modified (formerly Mini Modified) division on the quarter-mile track. Ricky won the Mini Modified championship in 1989 and again in 1992. Ricky spent the 1993 and '94 seasons in the old Limited Sportsman division, winning 9 features total. Bolden moved into the late Model Stock Cars in 1995 and was runner-up to Billy James in the Rookie of the Year title.

* Bolden also holds the one-lap qualifying record for the Late Models. He set the mark August 15, 1996 qualifying in at 19.600 seconds @ 109.469 mph.

* Bolden became the 105th different driver to win a points feature in the premier division since 1958. Bolden's win ties him with 32 otehr drivers for 72nd on the all-time win list. Bolden is amongst some pretty elite company as a one-time winner. Some of the drivers sharing one feature win with Bolden is opening day winner Craig Wilson, Dale Earnhardt, Rusty Wallace, Jeremy Mayfield, and Marty Robbins.

* During the 1996 race season the big story surrounding the March 23rd SuperTruck feature winner, Roy Binkley (aside from winning 10 races and the championship in the Limited Sportsman division), was the fact that the car he did all the winning in was a car that nobody wanted. Binkley crashed the car during the October 200-lap race in 1995 and was all set to put it out to pasture. Roy tried to sell the car for $1,500 but had no takers. The '96 race season was fast approaching and Binkley had no car so his team went to work and rebuilt the unwanted car. And the rest, as they say, is history.

* Tracking down the history of that car, it was originally built for Mike Alexander in 1984. Bobby Hamilton purchased the car from Alexander and won a couple of championships in it. The car was then sold to Andy Kirby as a backup car. Kirby sold the car to Jeremy Mayfield, who then sold it to Chuck Moores. Binkley bought the car from Moores and ran in it a few years in the Late Models at Nashville and Highland Rim before the big crash in 1995.

* And where is the car today? It's a SuperTruck. Dale Buskill, #36 from Whitesville, Kentucky, purchased the car from Binkley during the off season and converted it into a truck. Buskill finished in the runner-up spot opening day and finished seventh in the second race.

* Speaking of Dale Buskill and Jeremy Mayfield, they have one common denominator in the pit area: crew chief Kim Burcham. Burcham, a fellow Kentuckian, was Mayfield's crew chief at Sadler Racing when Mayfield, while running in the ARCA Series, won one race, finished third in points, and won Rookie of the Year honors in 1993. That year and the next the team competed in several Winston Cup races with Burcham at the helm.

* Looking back in the history books (with the help of Nashville racing historian Russ Thompson): Aside from Late Model winners Craig Wilson (opening day) and Ricky Bolden (week two) and SuperTruck winners Jimmy Valentine (race one) and Roy Binkley (race two), we find that on only one other occasion has there been two first-time winners in the first two races of the season. Walter Wallace and Charlie Binkley won their first ever division features in 1964 in the Late Model Modified division. Taking it one step further 1984 found three first-time winners in the first three weeks, all in the new Late Model Stock Car division. James Williams won the April 14th season opener, Gary Wade Finley won the second race on April 28, and Harold Ferguson won the May 11 race.

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RIS/TN-Glen Harness 73277,137