[h=2]IHRA triple race weekend set for Darlington after PBIR postponement[/h] Friday, 24 February 2017


Steven Cole Smith (words and image)

The postponed February 12 IHRA Summit Sportsman National Championship race at Palm Beach International Raceway – which was called off because the starting line "Christmas tree" light suffered a major failure and couldn't be repaired – will be made up the weekend of March 24-26 at Darlington Dragway in South Carolina.
The season-long championship is based on a 15-weekend, 30-race schedule, and by only running the Saturday race at PBIR, the schedule would be a race short. IHRA officials worked hard with the PBIR staff to try and find a date that would work for a make-up race, but the only viable date that could work at the busy track was on Easter weekend, which was deemed less than suitable by both competitors and ESPN3, which streams the Summit Sportsman National Championship elimination live.
So the better option was to add a race to the Darlington weekend. On Friday, March 24, two rounds of qualifying will begin at 9 a.m., followed by eliminations. The Saturday and Sunday schedule remains the same – two rounds of qualifying, then eliminations on Saturday, and one round of qualifying, then eliminations on Sunday.
"We'd like to thank Darren Thompson and his PBIR team for their efforts to give us an option to return to Palm Beach International Raceway, and we'd like to thank Russell Miller and the team at Darlington Raceway for providing this option for a triple-race weekend," said IHRA Division Director Josh Peake.
Darlington's triple-race format "makes the Darlington weekend huge for racers in that region who are chasing points towards maximizing their points claims," Peake said.
For more information, log onto DarlingtonDragway.com.