8 years in the making, usac silver crown is back at phoenix raceway this fri.-sat.

[MaverickSprints]

Tucson's Jerry Coons, Jr. is the lone representative of Arizona entered for this Saturday's
"Phoenix Copper Cup" at Phoenix Raceway.
Rich Forman Photo

http://www.usacracing.com/news/silve...y-this-fri-sat

By: Richie Murray – USAC Media

The journey to Phoenix Raceway is a trail that has been journeyed numerous times throughout USAC’s illustrious history. A.J. Foyt christened the new mile track back in 1964 and, from there on, visits by USAC’s premier series to Phoenix became an annual can’t-miss-event in which fans and teams from all over annually migrated to the southwest for a weekend of speed.

From 1987 through 2009, the USAC Silver Crown series put on race after memorable race, many of which are still remembered fondly to this day, in the traditional “Copper World Classic” which provided an open-wheel heaven for race fans and drivers alike to kick off the season.

In recent years, that trail to Phoenix has fallen silent. But, this coming Friday and Saturday, April 28th and 29th, the tumbleweeds have vanished into the desert horizon and the trail gets dusted off once again as the stars of USAC Silver Crown racing make their triumphant return to the Valley of the Sun.

The “Phoenix Copper Cup” begins a revitalization of the Silver Crown division’s pavement side of the schedule. New teams have emerged, bringing an air of excitement that is more than a welcome sight.

Starting off the list is defending series champ Chris Windom. In April alone, the Canton, Illinois driver has already taken a pair of USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car victories and kicked off the month by winning the Silver Crown season-opening “Sumar Classic” at the Terre Haute Action Track. Prior to this season, Windom had never won a USAC National race this early in the season, but could head into May with four under his belt if he can stake his claim in Phoenix.

Lately, when you see a pavement Silver Crown race on the schedule, you can almost pencil in one of the Brothers Swanson as the winner. They’ve been that dominant! So dominant in fact, it’s been since June of 2015 that either Kody or Tanner Swanson didn’t return home from a pavement Silver Crown event without a trophy.

Tanner and Kody split won a pair on the asphalt a year ago with Tanner taking the first two at IRP and Gateway Motorsports Park while Kody went two-for-two as the DePalma Motorsports went back-in-black with the 63’s new paint scheme to grab the last two rounds at IRP and Salem Speedway.

The lone representative of the state of Arizona entered for the event is Tucson’s Jerry Coons, Jr. One of six USAC Triple Crown champions, Coons has not yet reached the pinnacle at Phoenix, finishing in the runner-up position of the 2007 edition. This Saturday, Coons plans to add one of the very few items he’s missing from his Hall of Fame resume.

USAC AMSOIL Sprint Car National Championship point leader Justin Grant will make his first Phoenix appearance as he eyes his first Silver Crown victory. The winner of National Sprints’ most recent race a week ago in Plymouth, Indiana will take the wheel for the Hemelgarn/Carli Motorsports team. If you recall, Ron Hemelgarn and crew chief Dennis LaCava have already been to Phoenix Raceway victory lane once before in an Indy Car when their driver, Buddy Lazier, raced from 26th to 1st in the year 2000.

Eleven-time Indianapolis 500 starter Davey Hamilton and his son, Davey Hamilton, Jr. are aiming to become the first father and son to compete in the same Silver Crown race since Wayne Reutimann, Sr. and Jr. at Phoenix 10 years ago in 2007. Davey Hamilton himself is a five-time winner of the Supermodified portion of the “Copper World” and is one of nine drivers entered who have previous Phoenix Raceway experience.

USAC/CRA AMSOIL Sprint Car division’s winningest driver, Damion Gardner, is a master on the dirt with 72 series victories to his credit, but this weekend, he makes his pavement Silver Crown debut. He will face a number of pavement standouts and series race winners who have previous experience at Phoenix including Bobby Santos, Aaron Pierce and David Byrne.

Friday’s schedule includes a pair of practice sessions for the “Phoenix Copper Cup” from 12:30 to 1:30pm and 1:45 to 2:15pm. ProSource Qualifying is slated to begin at 2:40pm.

Saturday’s schedule for the Silver Crown cars starts at 2pm when cars and drivers make their way to pit road. The green flag for the 100-lap, 100-mile race is set for 3pm.

Get your discount tickets now at http://bit.ly/2p5WGI5 to witness both days of racing action: the “Phoenix Copper Cup” featuring the USAC Silver Crown Champ Car Series, the Vintage Desert Classic and the Desert Diamond West Valley Phoenix Grand Prix featuring the Verizon IndyCar Series.

Can’t make it to Phoenix in-person? Watch flag-to-flag coverage of the event a day after, on-demand at Loudpedal.TV!

[CIRF]

Really hope they get a good car count. Wish there was some way of watching this event live.

[MaverickSprints]

I know, guess we'll have to wait 1 day and watch it on https://loudpedal.tv/

[CIRF]

Everything I see on some other message boards and on Facebook is that the car count should be around 20 for Phoenix. I hope that holds true. 20 would be a decent, solid car count given that Phoenix is a 1700+ mile pull for a lot of the Silver Crown teams. I really hope Levi and the USAC guys can keep the momentum that Andy had going. I was at the Brownsburg IRP Silver Crown race last July and I think they had 18 cars on hand, which was a vast improvement from the Friday night IRP Crown race prior to the 2016 Indy 500. IIRC there were only 14 or 15 cars for that one.

I will also be very interested in the car count at the fast approaching Hoosier Hundred on the Thursday before the Indy 500. I can think of 4, possibly 5 cars that weren't at the season opener at Terre Haute earlier this month that are a safe bet to be planning on being at The Indy Mile for the Hoosier. I believe there were 32 cars at Terre Haute so if they can add to that total by at least 3 or 4 the car count will be at or above 35 cars. In this day and age we can't ask for a better turnout than that!

I know for sure that the #21 car will be at The Hoosier Hundred. No cars were destroyed at Terre Haute so it's probably a good bet that all of those guys will be at The Hoosier.

[MaverickSprints]

Waiting on pins and needles!

[CIRF]

One guy that will warrant watching is a highly successful California driver, "The Demon" Damion Gardner. I listened to a Jackslash podcast interview yesterday featuring Gardner and he said the Phoenix Silver Crown race will be his very first time ever on pavement. Gardner is a prolific winner on dirt in wingless open wheel cars and I'll be very interested in seeing how he adapts to the asphalt in a "Big Car".

[MaverickSprints]

Oh yeah, I listened to that interview too. My bet is he'll be fine. Probably my favorite open-wheel driver, with Justin Grant a close second followed by Robert Ballou and T-Mez.

[CIRF]

That wingless sprinter Gardner piloted to 211 MPH on The Salt Flats is pure bad ass!! LOL!

Getting back to Silver Crown racing, I talked to Damion at length about his previous tenure driving Crown cars during the autograph session on Thanksgiving afternoon out at The Turkey Night Grand Prix the first year it was held at Perris. 2012, I believe. Anyway, he sounded somewhat disenchanted with the whole Silver Crown deal at that time. He changed his tune quite a bit on the recent Jackslash podcast. It sounded on the podcast as if he'd kind of come to the realization that if he was going to make his living driving racecar's he'd need to participate and experience some success in the "Big Cars". At the time I spoke with him at Perris was around the time that the Silver Crown division was just a few years past the Gold Crown debacle and just before the ethanol fuel mandate fiasco. That may have been the reason for the lack of enthusiasm at that time. Most everyone was fearing the end of the Silver Crown division as we know it during that dark period.

As aggressive as Gardner is and the way he loves to stand on the gas it will be fun watching him on the dirt mile's this summer. Especially Du Quoin!

[MaverickSprints]

That wingless sprinter Gardner piloted to 211 MPH on The Salt Flats is pure bad ass!! LOL!

Getting back to Silver Crown racing, I talked to Damion at length about his previous tenure driving Crown cars during the autograph session on Thanksgiving afternoon out at The Turkey Night Grand Prix the first year it was held at Perris. 2012, I believe. Anyway, he sounded somewhat disenchanted with the whole Silver Crown deal at that time. He changed his tune quite a bit on the recent Jackslash podcast. It sounded on the podcast as if he'd kind of come to the realization that if he was going to make his living driving racecar's he'd need to participate and experience some success in the "Big Cars". At the time I spoke with him at Perris was around the time that the Silver Crown division was just a few years past the Gold Crown debacle and just before the ethanol fuel mandate fiasco. That may have been the reason for the lack of enthusiasm at that time. Most everyone was fearing the end of the Silver Crown division as we know it during that dark period.

As aggressive as Gardner is and the way he loves to stand on the gas it will be fun watching him on the dirt mile's this summer. Especially Du Quoin!

I may be remembering wrong but it seemed like he mentioned in the interview that one of his last times in a silver crown car was bad, a poorly prepared car w/sticking throttle and big oil leak. He ended up quitting just before the feature I believe. Maybe that experience played a role too.

http://www.jackslash.com/podcast/