Nov
07

MID-ATLANTIC SPRINT SERIES GIVES HOPE TO 305 SPRINT CAR TEAMS IN TRI-STATE AREA

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By Erika Palmai Wagner
Allentown, NJ

Fourty-seven people hoping for answers and news on the future of the regional Racesaver 305 Sprint Car division gathered in Allentown, NJ on Sunday afternoon to learn that a new series was going to be put into place for 2017.

Eddie Wagner and Jeff Geiges, two racers of the former Tri-State Racesaver Sprint Series, announced that they were going to be the head of the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series after being approved by French Grimes, IMCA and Racesaver late last month after TSRS was shutdown on October 20th.

“When Joe Grandinetti sent that email stating he was closing down TSRS, Eddie and I scrambled to find a way to keep the Racesaver 305 division alive in our area,” Geiges stated. “We contacted IMCA, Racesaver, French Grimes, and also kept in touch with Joe to see what the next steps were going to be in order to see what needed to be done in order to keep Racesaver in our region. It was assumed by many that we were already the "series take over", so we took advantage of this and continued to do so”.

“Jeff and I did not want to see Racesaver disappear in our area, or fall into the hands of someone who may have ill intentions for the series, because we, like so many of you, love to race and would like to continue on doing so without going broke,” Wagner, the Regional Director of of MAS explained. “We are going to be doing things similar to how TSRS was run, but we also are hoping to adjust and add some things that we feel could make things better.

The Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series is now owned by Eddie Wagner and Jeff Geiges. Wagner is taking on the title as Regional Director, and Geiges will be the General Manager. With taking on these new positions however, the two longtime competitors will continue to compete weekly in the division, with Matthew Stellfox taking on the role as a Series Track Official to keep everything running smoothly on race day. Stellfox worked closely with TSRS officials previously, and has plenty of knowledge on what goes on at the track on race day and he has a strong view on how to keep things fair and unbiased. Robert Burd is the acting Treasurer for the series and will be in charge of building a simple accounting system for MAS, and will distribute monthly reports for members to see.

Erika Wagner and Lindsey Geiges will be actively campaigning for the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series, acting as head of the PR and Marketing department.

“This is a very important piece to our puzzle that we believe needs to be priority,” stated Geiges. “Along with Erika and Lindsey, there have been so many others that have been sharing their ideas on how to promote MAS using effective, affordable and simple outlets. Our goal is to heavily promote the series, sponsors, drivers and most importantly the tracks that we race at”.

The Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series is still actively seeking out a few more volunteers is fill track official positions and track volunteers to help with race day operations. If interested, please contact Jeff or Eddie.

On Sunday, topics such as policies, handicapping, purse structure and scheduling races were talked about, but not everything was determined that day.

“This first meeting was mainly purposed to see how much support and interest we had, to see if we should move forward with things,” explained Wagner. “Now that we have the support, we can go ahead and book races to get a solid schedule together for 2017. Our goal is to race 18-20 times a year, with one week off a month. We are hoping to have two big races this season, which is something that we haven’t had since New Egypt Speedway offered a few years ago”.

“We are working hard to get a purse that is going to attract cars, while also sticking to the Racesaver guidelines,” Geiges mentioned. “$300 to win and $150 to start is our goal, but we are also hoping to get a series sponsor to help add incentives for guys to come out and race. Contingency sponsors are also in the works, and an end of the year payout has also been discussed as well. We want to give back to our racers who support us every week, and we want to attract the guys coming from the outside so that our shows will be exciting and well worth the tow”.

A winter meeting will be announced at a later date, so that members can sign up, and a handicapping structure will be put into place. Eddie and Jeff will also finalize some other policies as well.

“We have thirty teams that have offered their support to us so far, and that is more than what we ever expected,” continued Geiges. “We are very excited for what this season has to bring, and with all the hard work we have been putting into this so far, I’m sure opening day will be amazing.”

“We just want to thank everyone for coming out and supporting this movement, we are hoping to create something that is going to appeal to everyone. We would like to thank Nandi from Palmco Motorsports for allowing us to use his shop for our first meeting as well.”

For more upcoming news and details on the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series, visit our Facebook page @MidAtlanticSprintSeries or email MidAtlanticSprintSeries@gmail.com with questions and concerns.

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