SES: St.Augustine Preview

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. - After a successful and exciting season-opener at USA International Speedway in Lakeland, Fla. Slim Jim All Pro Series, NASCAR Touring, teams head north to St. Augustine Speedway in St. Augustine, Fla. for the Winn-Dixie 200 presented by FastWax this Saturday night. This race will be the third series event in as many years at the half-mile NASCAR Winston Racing Series track. Drivers will be looking for consistency heading into the second of five races in a row. In fact, the only consistent element when the Slim Jim All Pro Series races at St. Augustine is the race sponsor. Winn-Dixie stores has been the sponsor for all three events. In the two races previously run at the track no driver has been able to secure more than one top five finish, nor has there been a repeat Bud Pole Award winner. When you throw in the fact that only four out of the top 10 finishers at Lakeland last week have a top five at St. Augustine, there is the possibility that five new faces could fill the top five finishing positions at St. Augustine once again. Naples, Fla.'s Billy Bigley, Jr. owns the track qualifying record of 16.863 seconds equaling an average speed of 106.743 mph, a mark he set last year, and he went on to win last year's race and establish a new race record time of 1 hour, 19 minutes and 11 seconds. His records at St. Augustine are even more impressive when one considers that he had never even been to St. Augustine Speedway until the day of the race. The 36-year-old Bigley has to be considered the favorite, coming off of a fourth place finish at Lakeland. Zephyrhills, Fla.'s David Reutimann, the 1997 rookie-of-the-year, has perhaps the most experience at St. Augustine as he used to run on the facility's dirt surface prior to the track being paved during the 1996/97 off-season. He was leading late in the race in 1997 until a tire problem forced him to pit with just a few laps left to race. Reutimann drove his Jiffy Lube Chevrolet to a third place finish at Lakeland in his best finish since a pair of runner-up finishes in 1997 and is hungry to capture his first Slim Jim All Pro Series win. Others to watch include Cincinnati, Oh.'s Jeff Fultz who won the race in 1997, along with two-time Slim Jim All Pro Series champions Mike Cope and Hal Goodson. On Saturday, Registration and Inspection begins at 9:00 a.m. with Practice being held from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Bud Pole qualifying gets underway at 6:00 p.m. with the green flag waving on the Winn Dixie 200 at approximately 8:00 p.m. The starting field will consist of 27 starters, with up to four additional starting positions available to any of the top 30 eligible drivers in the final 1998 NASCAR Slim Jim All Pro Series Championship point standings, who have entered the event, but have not qualified for one of the original 27 starting positions. The final starting position is open to any former Slim Jim All Pro Series Champion, who competed in a series event in 1998, but did not qualify for one of the original 27 starting positions.