The All Stars Sprint Car Series will be invading Lernerville Speedway Friday evening.

They have announced that 20 drivers plan to follow the entire tour in 2018. After a successful first season with the Chiappelli Motorsports #98 Sprint, Freeport graduate Carl Bowser has joined the All Stars. He was the Lernerville Champion in 2011 and 2014. His team’s schedule has more than 70 dates which includes 50 races on the All Star schedule plus local shows.

Carl has already checkered a heat race with the All Stars and will be vying for the 2018 “Rookie of the Year Honors.”

Local Sprint driver’s John Garvin and Brandon Spithaler will continue to run the All Star circuit for their second season.

Brandon Matus and his father Brent will return to local racing for business reasons, but still run occasional All Star Sprint events. Grandfather Jerry Matus is very happy to have them back helping at the store.

Jerry said, “It was hard holding down the fort by myself while the boys were gone!”

Blaney an All StarFormer World of Outlaws Sprint car Champion and previous Lernerville regular Dave Blaney plans to follow the All Stars full time in 2018.Although Blaney lives in North Carolina, he is involved in the family operation at Sharon Speedway each week and his owner Pete Grove’s team in based in Ohio. The All Stars do not travel the distance that the World of Outlaws do. Former WoO regulars Jac Haudenschild, Paul McMahon and Joey Saldana are also following the All Stars.

Miley with NASCARMeghan Miley, daughter of Late Model chauffeur and PA Motor Speedway co-owner, Ben Miley has been employed as a Senior Operations Director for 16 years with NASCAR, based in Florida.She recently was about to write a resignation letter due to the fact that she was marrying Ryan Wilson, who operates a family business with his father in Pittsburgh.The powers to be at NASCAR did not want to lose this wonderful employee and after discussions, an agreement was made where she works primarily on her computer in Pittsburgh and will travel at times to NASCAR races on the weekends.Many of the employees flew up to Pittsburgh to attend Megan’s wedding. After the ceremony, when the couple walked down the aisle to the back of the church, her NASCAR buddies surprised her and about 12 checkered flags were waving as she and Ryan passed by!Meghan’s dad said, “You know when she was a young girl, Travis Geisler (Penske Director or Racing) and her were friends at the races. Now 20 years later, they are still talking about racing at NASCAR tracks; the only difference is I spent a lot of money on racing and those two figured out how to make money from racing!”

Proud parentsLate Model driver Alex Ferree and his wife Brenda are the proud parents of a baby boy named Hayden. That makes nine grandchildren for Ed and Gayle Ferree. Ed will run a few Late Models races at Lernerville this year and Alex will pick and choose the “big Buck” races.

Hall of FamersAt the recent Lernerville racing banquet, four most worthy people were inducted into the track’s Hall of Fame.The late Bud Daum was involved in driving a race-car in the 1950’s, worked as a Lernerville Speedway announcer, and was also a WISR radio sports personality.Martha Dionese and her late husband Robert bought a Sprint car from Jerry Matus and kept him as the driver. This champion combination won dozens of races and four Sprint car titles, three at Lernerville and one at Tri City. Even after her husband died, Martha continued as the sole female owner for a grand total of 45 years.Moodified driver Brian Swartzlander has been racing for 35 years with 93 Lernerville feature wins and seven Lernerville track titles. He also has four titles at Tri City Speedway, four #1 Cochran Cavalcade of Auto Racing point championships, three BRP Modified Tour titles, tallying 165 total victories.Butler’s Walt Wimer started writing a racing column in 1968, the same year Lernerville opened. This year he celebrates 50 years as a columnist and currently pens for Area Auto Racing. Walt is the respected Western PA’s historian who has compiled data and stats for area drivers, including the Çavalcade of Championship Award. He has been behind the microphone at Mercer Raceway, PA Motor Speedway, Sharon, Tri City, and Lernerville Speedway.The Pittsburgh Circle Track inducted the following outstanding people into their Racing Hall of Fame: Late Model driver John Flinner, Modified chauffeur Rex King Sr, the late Dink Colaruso (Street Stock), Rod George (Sprint Car) and Modified driver Mark Flick.

Carol Gamble is a racing columnist for the Butler Eagle