“The Red River Shootout” is more typically associated with the fierce football rivalry between Oklahoma and Texas, but it’s a fitting moniker as well for this weekend’s pair of O’Reilly American Sprint Cars on Tour National events in Oklahoma and Texas.
The series kicks off the weekend on Friday night in the Sooner State with a stop of Oklahoma City’s State Fair Speedway. Then on Saturday night, the series travels south of the Red River to tackle the famed clay oval of Devil’s Bowl Speedway near Dallas.
And leading the way into the weekend is Hooks, TX, ace Gary Wright, who has finished among the top five in all ten feature events this year to amass an early-season advantage of 81 points in the $50,000 championship points race. Shooting for a fourth consecutive ASCS National title, Wright is closing in on his series record of 15 consecutive top-five feature finishes.
Wright has enjoyed his share of success at the State Fair Speedway and Devil’s Bowl Speedway ovals, with 23 of his 110 career ASCS National Tour wins coming at this weekend’s venues.
While Wright has been virtually flawless early in the season, a ferocious four-way battle for second is under way with just 49 markers separating Oklahoma City’s Wayne Johnson, Eunice, LA, shoe Jason Johnson, Bixby, Oklahoma’s Darren Stewart and Forney, TX, racer Travis Rilat.
Wayne Johnson has scored two wins this year, including a preliminary triumph during the Devil’s Bowl Speedway Spring Nationals and then a victory a week later in State Fair Speedway’s Spring Nationals. Both of those events occurred in March.
After racking up a series-best nine National wins last year, Jason Johnson finally broke into victory lane with a weekend sweep of Arkansas events during the series most recent action on April 28-29.
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