It’s been a busy week for me, so I’m mostly going to cop out on my predictions for this weekend’s round of races.
I finished up and turned in a feature story on Robby Vaughn, the Snohomish sprint car driver who beat Kasey Kahne and Tony Stewart at last year’s Kahne Foundation Sprint Car Challenge at Skagit Speedway.
This was also the week my June column for Sports Northwest Magazine was due. The May issue is on newsstands now (and anyone who finds one, let me know where you got it because Mom and Dad want one).
The June magazine column is on the 37th annual Jim Raper Memorial Dirt Cup, which will be June 19-21 at Skagit Speedway. Between the Vaughn story and the magazine column I had a whole lot of sprint car going on this week.
Anyway, on to the cop-out, er, the predications.
To make it simple on myself I’m going with an all-defending champions line-up, with one exception.
Evergreen Speedway
Last weekend a couple drivers told me they were glad I didn’t pick them to win. Said something about a “Herald Curse” similar to the SI cover jinx. Hmmmm, we’ll have to watch that.
Anyway, let’s go with John Zaretzke to win the super stock feature, Lane Sundholm in the bomber feature, Chuck Richard to win the mini-stock main and Mike Middleton will climb victory stage for the stinger eight main.
(Ed: as you can see from today’s photo, courtesy of Tanya Parker, your fearless blogger was working harder than ever last weekend at Evergreen Speedway, in this case getting a quote from Big Wayne in Naima Lang’s trailer.)
NASCAR
Jimmie Johnson has rebounded from an awful start and I think he’ll take the checkered at Darlington in the Sprint Cup Dodge Challenger 500. Keeping with the cop-out, er, theme, Carl Edwards will win the Nationwide Diamond Hills Plywood 200.
Formula One
Ah, time for the odd-man-out in my picks. Last season’s runner-up Lewis Hamilton needs a win in the Turkish Grand Prix to keep pace with Kimi Raikkonen.
Eye candy
I told you I had a whole lot of sprint car going on this week, right?
This video, taken at a track in Oregon, was provided by Joe and Georgia Vaughn, parents of Robby Vaughn.
The yellow car on the outside of the first row is Robby Vaughn’s. He gets knocked into the wall and starts flipping, causing a chain reaction.
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