USAC: 4-Crown pivitol for Silver Crown title hopefuls

Posted By Terry Callahan
Motorsports Editor, The Auto Channel

September 18, 2001

This weekend's 21st "4-Crown Nationals" at the Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio will be pivotal in the battle for the 2001 USAC Coors Light Silver Crown championship. The penultimate event of the 13-race series offers 66 points and leaders Paul White of Temple, Texas and Russ Gamester of Peru, Ind. are currently separated by only 27.

White, who finished 11th at Eldora last year, has earned the series lead with three victories, including recent dirt-track triumphs at Springfield and DuQuoin, Ill. He also won the season-opening "Copper World Classic" at Phoenix, Ariz. Gamester scored back-to-back victories on the pavement at Irwindale, Calif. and Nazareth, Pa. but recorded thirds in the two recent Illinois dirt-track races.

The Silver Crown cars share this weekend's billing with the USAC Stoops Freightliner Sprint Cars, USAC WorldCom National Midget Cars and UMP Modifieds on the 1/2-mile Eldora dirt. Friday night's practice gets under way at 6:30 pm. Friday's program includes qualifying and heat races for each series. Saturday night's actitivies, which start at 7:30 pm, include semis and feature events for each series. A 25-lap Midget race, 30-lap Sprint race and 20-lap Modified race precede the 50-lap Coors Light Silver Bullet Series feature.

J.J. Yeley of Phoenix, Ariz., currently fourth in the series standings, is the defending "4-Crown Nationals" champion, but Jimmy Sills holds the 1-lap track record of 109.904 mph, set in 1997.

Jack Hewitt of Troy, Ohio leads the all-time Eldora winners list with eight "4-Crown" Silver Crown triumphs (1986-88-89-91-94-95-96-98).

USAC COORS LIGHT SILVER BULLET SERIES STANDINGS

1. Paul White 499
2. Russ Gamester 472
3. Dave Steele 423
4. J.J. Yeley 370
5. Jerry Coons, Jr. 363
6. Tracy Hines 346
7. Jason McCord 342
8. Brian Tyler 340
9. Ed Carpenter 314
10. Dave Darland 310

Text provided by Dick Jordan

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