Buckeye 50 At Wayne County Postponed

By Kevin Kovac, WoO LMS P.R. Director

ORRVILLE, OH – April 11, 2013 – Heavy mid-week rain has saturated the grounds of NAPA Auto Parts Wayne County Speedway, forcing the postponement of the World of Outlaws Late Model Series ‘Buckeye 50’ scheduled for Saturday night (April 13).

Track and series officials made the announcement on Thursday morning, two days after jointly deciding to condense this weekend’s scheduled multi-day Buckeye 100 into a single evening of competition on Saturday due to forecasts of unfavorable weather conditions.

The Buckeye 50 has been rescheduled for Fri., May 24, preserving the only scheduled WoO LMS event in the state of Ohio in 2013.

WCS’s hopes of running a $10,000-to-win WoO LMS event on Saturday night were effectively doomed after severe storms rolled over the three-eighths-mile track on Wednesday, dumping two inches of rain on grounds that still hadn’t completely dried out following a long winter and wet early spring. With more thunderstorms on Thursday expected to add an inch or more of rain and cool, damp weather forecast for Friday, WCS co-promoters Jason and Kristin Flory determined that the facility simply wouldn’t be ready to host a racing program on Saturday night.

“We were hoping to salvage a single night of World of Outlaws Late Model Series racing this weekend,” said Jason Flory, who is starting his second full season of promoting the venerable track with his wife. “But we knew that if we had at least an inch of rain this week we’d be in trouble – and we got more than an inch on Wednesday and have even more coming today.

“We think the track and pit area would probably be O.K. on Saturday, but the rest of the grounds are just too wet and soft from all the rain. There’s just no way the parking areas will dry sufficiently by Saturday to allow us to get all the fans and race teams in-and-out in a reasonable manner, so we decided that we had no choice but to postpone Saturday’s Buckeye 50.”

Flory was able to arrange a new date for the Buckeye 50, however, inking a WoO LMS program for Fri., May 24. The 50-lap, $10,000-to-win show will combine with the wingless Buckeye Outlaw Sprint Series event previously scheduled for that date at WCS to create a blockbuster holiday-weekend doubleheader.

The May 24 event will mark the second straight season that the WoO LMS kicks off the Memorial Day weekend at WCS. The tour will move on to Tyler County Speedway in Middlebourne, W.Va., on May 25-26 for the Bullring Bonanza doubleheader.

Track and series officials also said that plans are in the works to run a Buckeye 100 weekend in 2014. Dates for the inaugural event will be released later this year.

Fans who bought two-day passes for the Buckeye 100 weekend in advance will be refunded the difference between their purchase price and the cost of a General Admission ticket on May 24. For additional information visit www.waynecountyspeedway.com; call Jason or Kristin Flory at 330-465-2365; or email kristinu2@yahoo.com.

The next action for the WoO LMS will be a doubleheader weekend in North Carolina, on April 19 at Fayetteville Motor Speedway and April 20 at 311 Motor Speedway in Pine Hall.