DAYTONA BEACH, FL :: While Anthony Anders is closing in on his first NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national championship, there remains plenty at stake as the 2014 season comes to a close.
Just two weekends remain to determine NASCAR Whelen All-American Series champions across the United States and Canada.
Champions will be crowned at each of the 58 NASCAR-sanctioned tracks across the United States and Canada, booking their tickets for Charlotte, North Carolina in December.
The champions, along with the top three in the national standings, state and province champions, top finishers in the Div. II-V and special award winners, will be honored at the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Awards in December at the NASCAR Hall of Fame / Charlotte Convention Center on Friday, Dec. 12.
Anthony Anders is also looking to put the finishing touches on his fourth straight South Carolina title. The crowning of state champions is a tradition that goes back to the earliest days of NASCAR.
Bill Widenhouse won the first NASCAR South Carolina title in 1953 in the Sportsman Division, and the list of champions of The Palmetto State through the years includes Ralph Earnhardt, Bobby Isaac, Cale Yarborough and David Pearson.
Anders will will compete in twin 40-lap Late Model features Saturday at Greenville Pickens Speedway, where he has already clinched his second straight track title. He has collected 22 of his 27 wins at the historic flat half-mile track.
Anders finished second last Saturday at South Carolina’s Anderson Motor Speedway, where he is fourth in the championship race, 39 behind David Roberts. The track hosts its championship night on Friday, Sept. 19 with two 40-lap features.
Overall, Anders has 27 wins, 41 top fives, 45 top 10s in 47 starts.
NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Division I drivers are ranked by their best 18 NASCAR points finishes in series-sanctioned events. Drivers receive two points for every car they finish ahead of – up to 18 cars – and three points for a win, with an additional two points available if the driver starts 10th or lower.
Anders’ nearest challenger in the national race, asphalt Late Model driver Lee Pulliam picked up a pair of wins at Virginia’s Motor Mile Speedway – one from the pole and one from sixth. He’ll be unable to increase his points total unless he collects a win from starting 10th or worse.
Pulliam, the two-time defending national champion, has 24 wins, 39 top fives and 40 top 10s in 44 starts.
Keith Rocco remains in third place in the national standings. The Connecticut asphalt SK Modified driver finished sixth last Friday at Stafford Motor Speedway, while his scheduled race at Waterford Speedbowl was rained out. He has 13 wins, 31 top fives and 35 top 10s in 41 starts.
North Carolina teenager Dillon Bassett, who has raced his asphalt Late Model at eight tracks in the southeast, and Connecticut’s Ryan Preece (Thompson Speedway, Stafford, Waterford and New York’s Riverhead Raceway) are fourth and fifth in the national standings.
Rocco is also close to securing his seventh straight Connecticut championship. Preece leads Ted Christopher by 18 points at Stafford heading into Friday night, while Rocco holds a commanding lead at Waterford. Preece leads Rocco by 10 points at Thompson.
Nine U.S. states and Canadian provinces points races feature a margin of less than nine points between first and second. Iowa is a tie between Chris Spieker and Jason O’Brien, both racing at Adams County Speedway in Corning.
Seventeen tracks have already crowned their champions, led by Jeff Strunk. The Oley, Pennsylvania, driver won his 10th track title in the 358 Modified Division at Pennsylvania’s Grandview Speedway in Bechtesville.
Strunk has 14 overall NASCAR Whelen All-American Series track titles, including his four at Big Diamond Speedway in Pottsville, Pennsyvlania, from 1994-97, when it was NASCAR-sanctioned. His career total is second only to Nebraska’s Joe Kosiski (17) for most all-time in series history.
It broke Strunk out of a tie he had with Iowa’s Jeff Aikey and NASCAR Hall of Fame Finalist Larry Phillips of Missouri.
Other NASCAR Division I track champions to have been determined include:
Nick Heywood (Airborne Park Speedway, Plattsburgh, N.Y.), Dave Farrington (Beech Ridge Motor Speedway, Scarborough, Maine), Danny Bohn (Bowman Gray Stadium, Winston-Salem, N.C.), Chad Mahder (Cedar Lake Speedway, New Richmond, Wisc.), Jimmy Zacharias (Chemung (N.Y.) Speedrome), Chad Pendleton (Columbus (Ohio) Motor Speedway), Tad Pospisil (I-80 Speedway, Omaha, Neb.), Cory Dumpert (Junction Motor Speedway, McCool Junction, Neb.), Mike Brooks (Kalamazoo (Mich.) Speedway), Randy Culver (Lake Erie Speedway, North East, Penn.), Jake Stergios (Lee (N.H.) USA Speedway), Todd Sherman (Limaland Motorsports Park, Lima, Ohio), Bobby Henry (Motordrome Speedway, Pittsburgh, Penn.), Jon Reynolds (Rockford (Ill.) Speedway), Rusty Smith (Spencer Speedway, Williamson, N.Y.), and Stewart Friesen (Utica-Rome Speedway, Vernon, N.Y.).
In addition to Division I honors, NASCAR will also award national championships for Divisions II through V.
The Div. II-V national champions will receive a trophy and a trip to the series national awards. In addition, the top-three dirt and top-three asphalt drivers in each division will be invited to Charlotte.
At season’s end, drivers in Divisions II-V will be ranked by their best 14 NASCAR points race results.
The top five in NASCAR Whelen All-American Series Championship Division II-V are:
• Division II: 1. Jared Umbenhauer, Grandview Speedway, Bechtelsville, Pa.; 2. Jesse Dennis, I-80 Speedway, Greenwood, Neb., Adams County Speedway, Corning, Iowa; 3. Brett Kressley, Grandview; 4. Terry Humphrey Columbus (Ohio) Motor Speedway; 5. Dylan Smith, I-80, Junction Motor Speedway, McCool Junction, Neb.
• Division III: 1. Jon Plowman, I-80, Adams County; 2. Josh Galvin, Waterford (Conn.) Speedbowl; 3. Randy Stoudt, Grandview; 4 Jerod Weston, I-80, Adams County; 5. John Ketron, Kingsport (Tenn.) Speedway, Lonesome Pine Raceway, Coeburn, Va.
• Division IV: 1. AJ Sanders Jr., Bowman Gray Stadium, Winston-Salem, N.C., and Caraway, Sophia, N.C.; 2. Corey Kyer, Columbus; 3. Jeremy Menninger, Columbus; 4. Jimmy McElfresh, Columbus; 5. Garrett Denton, Waterford, Thompson.
• Division V: 1. Donovan Beacham, Anderson (S.C.) Motor Speedway, Greenville (S.C.) Pickens Speedway, 2. Brian King, Anderson, Greenville; 3. Jerry Jansen Jr., Kalamazoo (Mich.); 4. Don Tavernia (Anderson, Greenville), 5. Brady Walsh, Salina (Kan.) Speedway.
Established in 1982, the NASCAR Whelen All-American Series is NASCAR’s national championship program for weekly short track auto racing. In all, 58 paved and dirt tracks throughout the United States and Canada participate.
Connecticut-based Whelen Engineering is the series’ title sponsor. Whelen Engineering is a leading manufacturer of automotive, aviation, industrial and emergency vehicle lighting. NASCAR tracks and pace cars across North America are among the many showcases for Whelen products.
