Shaw Motorsports: April Update

GUELPH, ON - On April 12th, the Shaw Motorsports crew had the car loaded in the trailer prepared to test a new setup at Delaware Speedway, however the weather did not co-operate and the day of testing was canceled due to rain. Since the Shaw Motorsports shop was empty, the crew went to work to help Ken Spira and Dave Hagedorn with their mini-stock project.

Ken has purchased a mini-stock with the long term goal of starting a driver development program after a few years of fun with the car. Ken and Dave plan to share the driving responsibilities for the 2008 season when they are at the track with the #82 and time permits. The car has been registered as the #88 with a paint scheme to match the #82 Shaw Motorsports car. Although Ken's short term goal is to have some fun driving the car as well as having other crew members, sponsors and family members experience the thrill of racing, the long term goal is to put a driver development program together known as Spira Racing.

The crew of Shaw Motorsports have been a big help in supporting Ken and Dave putting this program together and will be there to help out whenever their schedule permits. Ken, Dave and possibly other crew members from the Shaw team will be driving the #88 Spira Racing Mustang when the Shaw Motorsports #82 Late Model team is at Flamboro Speedway.

The Shaw Team were welcomed into the home of Paul Dudnick, owner of Roof Trusses and Components located on Highway #7 between Rockwood and Guelph. Paul & Nancy have a beautiful home in the country and the team enjoyed great food and socialization as they waited for the race season to begin. Paul and Nancy can be found at most race tracks that Shaw Motorsports attend and have become much more than just sponsors of the Shaw Motorsports Team. The team apologizes for the smell of chicken wings that probably still lingers in the garage from the batches of wings prepared by Randy Shaw and Ken Spira. Nancy Hoffman took care of preparing an excellent meal for the crew and their families and Shaw Motorsports is very appreciative for all the hard work. 
 
The team has received their first batch of hero cards from Georgetown Printing. The cards once again are top quality and the team would like to thank, Rick from Icon Photography, Steve Jensen and both John and Paul from Georgetown Printing.
 
After a disappointing opening night at Flamboro Speedway, the Shaw team are setting their sites on a busy and hopefully successful month of May with 5 races scheduled. The team is planning a test day at Sauble Speedway just prior to the Margarita Strawberry Ice 150 on May 31st. Despite the financial incentive that Flamboro Speedway have put in place to encourage the points runners to stay there, the Shaw Team is committed to travel throughout the province whenever possible to give their sponsors as much exposure as possible. The friendships made throughout the years while traveling in the Alstar Series are also an important piece of the Shaw Team and they will do what they can to see as many of them throughout the season as possible.
           
In sponsor news, Ken Wood from Castrol Heavy Duty Lubricants has announced their return as product sponsor to Shaw Motorsports. 2008 marks the 6th consecutive year that Castrol Heavy Duty Lubricants has been supplying the Shaw team with quality lubricants. A special thanks goes out to Plasti-Kote who are the teams official paint sponsor. Matt from Plasti-kote was nice enough to add some bottles of their Odds �n� Ends fast drying enamel that the team plans to use for detail and trim on the car.
 
From Ken Spira for Shaw Motorsports

Auto Clearing Motor Speedway Schedule Release

SASKATOON, SK - Auto Clearing Motor Speedway's 2008 race schedule kicks off on Mother's Day, May 11, 2008 at 2:00 PM. All mothers will be admitted free of charge that day and will have a chance to win some valuable prizes. Sponsors for our opening day include: Heinrichs Jewellery, Dutch Growers, Angles Salon Spa, Pelican Media, Saskatoon Media Group, Country Style BBQ and The Star Phoenix.

Auto Clearing Motor Speedway anticipates an increase in car counts in almost all of the six racing divisions.

Special events featured in the 2008 schedule are:

• Six (6) visits by the Siemens Western Elite StockCar Tour
• Two (2) visits by ARCA West (formerly NEWALTA SLM); their Series opener on May 31 and the ARCA West Series Points final on September 20.
• Two (2) visits by the Legends Cars, including the Mac's Froster 50 on June 14 and the Dent Clinic Feature on August 16
• Four (4) visits by the exciting Super Truck Racing Series, which will effectively be a series within a series. The points winner will receive an all expense paid trip to the NASCAR Kroger 200 in Martinsville, Virginia on October 18, 2008.
• A return visit by the IMCA Modifieds, the fast and loud open wheel stock cars will be at the Speedway on July 16 for the Summer Sizzler

Other events that will be creating lots of interest include the Lucas Oil/Rock 102, Cruise Weekend on August 22.

Canada's largest steel bodied race for Street Stock is now called the A&W Martensville 100. A full weekend of events is being planned around this race on June 21, 2008 including a pancake breakfast, a Show N Shine, and live entertainment. The winner of the race will receive an all expense paid trip to the NASCAR Sprint Cup race in Martinsville, Virginia in October 2008.

To close out the 2008 race season will be the fan favorite ENDURO that is scheduled for October 5, 2008.

Merrittville Kart Results: April 29, 2008

For Immediate Release - April 30, 2008 - From Jim Irvine - Merrittville Public Relations
 
Thorold, Ontario (April 30) - One year ago the Merrittville Speedway Kart Spring Series Opener was affected by rain with the Senior Feature delayed a week.
 
In 2008, it tried to rain on first time Race Director Paul Klager's first event all afternoon but to no avail.
 
The light rain and unseasonably cold temperatures however provided a great racing surface for first time 2008 winners and the other race teams that braved the cold.
 
"Overall it was a great night," relayed Klager, "the last two weeks have been so warm … we've got to thank everyone that came out … the weather can only get better!"
 
Steven Beckett, Dylan Davidson, Travis Majuery, Brett Senek, Connor Mooradian and Aaron Barker in the Drummond Home Hardware Garden City Auto Complex Novice 1, KC Auto Parts Novice 2, RCM Racing Equipment Cassell Manufacturing Junior 1, Ed MacPherson Construction Junior 2, Superior PetroFuels Junior Restricted Heavy and Philbrick Farm & Garden Senior Original Pizza Logs Divisions all won their opening night feature events.
 
Kart Racing continues Tuesday May 6. Gates open at 5:00 with racing beginning at 7:00. Grandstand admission is free.
 
Hoosier Tire Canada Heat Results

Drummond Home Hardware Garden City Auto Complex Original Pizza Logs Novice 1 Division – 6 laps –
Heat 1 – Steven Beckett, Taylor Gregoric, Joshua Hanson, Cierra Black.
Heat 2 – Joshua Hanson, Taylor Gregoric, Steven Beckett, Cierra Black.

KC Auto Parts Original Pizza Logs Novice 2 Division – 6 laps –
Heat 1 – Gregory Beckett, Dylan Davidson, Alex Riley, Gene Gregoric, Caleb Vandervalk, Joshua Mergel, Joshua Dmytrow.
Heat 2 – Dylan Davidson, Gregory Beckett, Gene Gregoric, Caleb Vandervalk, Joshua Dmytrow, Joseph Mergel. DNF – Alex Riley.

RCM Racing Equipment Cassell Manufacturing Original Pizza Logs Junior 1 Division – 8 laps –
Group 1 Heat 1 – Travis Majuery, Matthew Veihdeffer, Greg Kohut, Travis Miller, Dillan Sliter. 
Group 1 Heat 2 – Travis Majuery, Travis Miller, Matthew Veihdeffer, Greg Kohut, Dillan Sliter.
Group 2 Heat 1 – Jacob Lutz, Jesse Cassell, Dylan Culp. DNF - Jordan Cosco.
Group 2 Heat 2 – Jacob Lutz, Dylan Culp, Jesse Cassell, Jordan Cosco.

Ed MacPherson Construction Original Pizza Logs Junior 2 Division – 8 laps – 
Heat 1 and Heat 2- Jordan Barnes, Brett Senek, Braeden Bilinsky, Mitchell Tallman, James Gorchek.

Superior PetroFuels Original Pizza Logs Junior Restricted Heavy Division – 8 laps –
Group 1 Heat 1 – Kevin Daunce, Matthew Farnham, Connor Mooradian, Corey Bodman. DNS - Isaac Pelissero.
Group 1 Heat 2 – Kevin Daunce, Matthew Farnham, Connor Mooradian, Isaac Pelissero. DNF - Corey Bodman.
Group 2 Heat 1 – Matthew Barker, Ben Werth, Matthew Watson, John Matthews, Vincent Pagnotta. .
Group 2 Heat 2 – Ben Werth, Matthew Barker, Matthew Watson, John Matthews, Vincent Pagnotta.

Philbrick Farm & Garden Equipment Original Pizza Logs Senior Division – 10 laps – Heat 1 Aaron Barker, Frank Chadwick, Chris Watson, Braydon Robertson, Dillon MacPherson. DNF – Dale Cooley.
Heat 2 – Chris Watson, Aaron Barker, Dillon MacPherson, Dale Cooley, Frank Chadwick, Braydon Robertson.

Burris Tire Feature Results
Drummond Home Hardware Garden City Auto Complex Original Pizza Logs Novice 1 Division – 7 laps – Steven Beckett, Taylor Gregoric, Joshua Hanson, Cierra Black.
KC Auto Parts Original Pizza Logs Novice 2 Division – 7 laps -  Dylan Davidson, Gregory Beckett, Gene Gregoric, Joshua Dmytrow, Caleb Vandervalk, Joseph Mergel. DNS – Alex Riley.
 
RCM Racing Equipment Cassell Manufacturing Original Pizza Logs Junior 1 Division – 15 laps – Travis Majuery, Jacob Lutz, Matthew Veihdeffer, Travis Miller, Jesse Cassell, Dylan Culp, Greg Kohut, Dillan Sliter. DNS – Jordan Cosco.

Ed MacPherson Construction Original Pizza Logs Junior 2 Division – 15 laps –  Brett Senek, Braeden Bilinsky, Jordan Barnes, Mitchell Tallman, James Gorchek.

Superior PetroFuels Original Pizza Logs Junior Restricted Heavy Division  - 15 laps  – Connor Mooradian, Kevin Daunce, John Matthews, Matthew Farnham, Matthew Barker, Ben Werth, Corey Bodman, Matthew Watson, Vincent Pagnotta, Isaac Pelissero.

Philbrick Farm & Garden Equipment Original Pizza Logs Senior Division – 20 laps – Aaron Barker, Chris Watson, Dillon MacPherson, Frank Chadwick, Dale Cooley, Braydon Robertson.
 
Join us this season on a Tuesday Night for A KART WEEKLY RACING SERIES EVENT featuring FIVE Kart Weekly Racing Divisions and the stars of tomorrow today!
 
Many of Merrittville's Saturday night Stock Car Stars got their starts in Kart Racing including Lampman, Steele, Wood, Wutzke, Bicknell, D'Ilario, Chevalier, Williamson, Klager, Tallman, Mastroianni, Leslie, Pierce, Robbins and Small.

CSC Racing Products Inc. partners with the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship

"I am very pleased to welcome CSC as a Sponsor Partner," stated Touring Car President John Bondar. "CSC is recognized for their expertise in the area of driver and race car safety and our competitors will benefit from their knowledge."

In addition to the Sponsor partnership, CSC will be providing safety related merchandise for the winner of the Hard Charger Award at each race weekend.

"We are happy to be partnering with the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship," said Jennifer deWinter of CSC. "Our relationship with John Bondar has proven to be very rewarding in the past and we look forward to a long association with both him and the teams that comprise the Championship."

About CSC Racing Products Inc. - With over 30 years of experience, as manufacturers of roll cages and racing chassis� and retailers of quality products like BELL helmets and HANS safety devices CSC Racing has a clear mandate. They offer a quality product at a competitive price with a commitment to safety that is unequalled in the industry.

About the Canadian Touring Car Championship - Boasting Canada's best drivers in today's hottest touring cars the Canadian Touring Car Championship consists of two classes of competition, over eight weekends, with races held in Quebec and Ontario.

From John Bondar, CCTCC // For information on CSC Racing Products, contact Jennifer deWinter at: 866-410-HANS or visit http://www.cscracing.com/

WRAL Poll

If you'd told me two or three weeks ago that I would be more worried about picking the Republican candidate for Governor wrong than the Democratic candidate I don't think I would have believed it. But yesterday's WRAL polls are further confirmation that's where we are.

They show Fred Smith leading Pat McCrory 32-31. Survey USA and PPP still show McCrory leading by four and five points respectively but the WRAL data is fresher and the trend has been in Smith's direction so they may be right. We might have to consider even doing an extra Monday poll after our standard weekend poll if this races remains too close to call.

On the Democratic side WRAL pretty much confirms that Bev Perdue has somewhere around a low double digit lead. The three polls this week have shown it at 9, 11, and 14.

In the Presidential race they show Obama's lead in the state slipping to seven. I find that entirely plausible considering the kind of week Obama is having. It would not be surprising if we find similar slippage in our polling this weekend.

WRAL doesn't seem to have the full data from these polls anywhere on its website or if they do I'm missing it. I really appreciate the fact that WTVD partners with Survey USA and puts everything out there- if you're going to invest in polling you should make as much of the information available to your viewers as possible.

INSIDE TRACK NOTEBOOK: Thursday, May 1, 2008

MOPAR DAY AT KAWARTHA
For those of you with Facebook accounts, Jim Clarke of Kawartha Speedway has posted some shots from yesterday's MOPAR Day (NASCAR Canadian Tire Series) at the Peterborough (ON)-area speedway. The track will host the season-ending event, in September. Jim's gallery is located here...

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GRAND BEND MOTORPLEX: JUNIOR RACERS ADDED TO THE SHOW!
Grand Bend Motorplex and the IHRA are pleased to announce the inclusion of select Junior Dragster classes at the Mopar Canadian Nationals and the inaugural IHRA Summit Pro-Am event this summer at the Grand Bend Motorplex.

Grand Bend’s wildly popular 7.90 Heads-Up Junior class will be featured during the Mopar Canadian Nationals, July 18-20. Of particular note, is the unique Saturday “Night of Fire” elimination rounds for the super quick Junior racers. You know, they’ve got an incredible Junior program at GBM and we want to recognize that when we bring the Torco Nitro Jam to town.”

Said Skooter Peaco of IHRA. “Having these tiny terrors on the racetrack at the same time the Top Fuelers are in the burnout box will not only be an amazing visual, but also showcase the truth of our claim that IHRA drag racing is for everybody.”

Torco Race Fuels of Ontario came forward enthusiastically to offer their support for the Junior class. Each entrant will receive $20 towards purchases at the onsite ‘Torco’ trailer, with fuel awards going to the winner, runner-up and semi-finalists.

The Junior Dragsters will also have the opportunity to ‘strut their stuff’ at the Summit Pro-Am event at Grand Bend Motorplex on the Weekend of August 22-24. The classes in competition at the Pro-Am will include the 8-9 year old Beginners category as well as Advanced and Master level competition.

Paul Spriet of Grand Bend Motorplex; “We’ve been fortunate that the folks at IHRA have always listened to our ideas and even adopted several of them. That’s one of the things that make it such a great partnership. When we tried to sell them on the idea of adding Juniors to these big shows, they gave us an enthusiastic “YES” before we even got to our sales pitch.”

Aaron Polburn, President of IHRA also added; “We’ve already seen what happens when you ignore the future. These kids are the future of IHRA Drag Racing and they’re a lot of fun to watch. We’re giving them the ‘full meal deal’. Winners Circle, Ironman Trophies, Drag Review coverage. They’re gonna love it!”

-IHRA Mopar Canadian Nationals: July 18-20, 2008-IHRA Summit Pro-Am Event: August 22-24, 2008

Grand Bend Motorplex, located just outside of the resort town of Grand Bend, Ontario, is Canada’s largest Drag Racing facility and home of the Mopar Canadian Nationals. Their weekly Junior Dragster program is one of the largest in North America, with forty to fifty entrants in competition each week.

More details on the action at the ‘Plex’ can be found at www.grandbendmotorplex.com.

From Ron Biekx - General Manager // Grand Bend Motorplex

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THIS AND THAT
Some interesting tidbits from the TSN site... Danica Patrick is putting out feelers looking for a "serious" F1 test.... Ron Dennis has denied being the source that led the News of the World to look into Max Mosley's, er, politically incorrect sexual habits. Since the story broke, many have speculated that Dennis sought payback after McLaren was hit hard by the FIA in the wake of last year's F1 spy scandal.

Changing of the Change Agents: Exit Wyeth’s Ruffolo, Enter OrbiMed’s Dolsten

We just heard the news that Bob Ruffolo, Wyeth’s R&D boss, is retiring.

A few points to make: first, from our auslander’s point of view, Ruffolo took a Wyeth research group which had already been significantly improved in the almost reverse takeover by the former Genetics Institute crowd (including its head of R&D Pat Gage) and made it a lot more business-like.

Ruffolo is not an executive to suffer fools (or those he thought fools) gladly. He rubbed a lot of people the wrong way – including colleagues running competitive R&D organizations, who didn’t like his outspokenness. And he was a particularly harsh and public critic of the FDA (at least when he talked with us – as you can read in The RPM Report here)

But he ran an organization which got stuff done. In the otherwise horribly dry year of 2007, Wyeth managed to push through two drugs (Torisel and Lybrel) – punching far above its R&D weight (Wyeth is on the small side of Big Pharma’s R&D organizations).

Wyeth is already ahead of the game this year, with two approvals, both of which your blogger had – incorrectly – written off (and we weren’t alone): Relistor (methylnalrexone), which they’d licensed from Progenics, and Pristiq, which is an isomer of their near-patent-expired anti-depressant Effexor. Pristiq in particular ran into FDA trouble last year, with the agency dinging it twice – first for its major depression indication, then for its use for post-menopausal hot flashes. Still hasn’t been approved for the latter – but scooted in on the former.

And Ruffolo has been the outspoken exponent of the statistical strategy of R&D – that for all the theories on how to improve the odds of drug discovery and development, with new markers and “model” diseases (á la Novartis – see an IN VIVO discussion here), ultimately R&D is a numbers game. You’ve got to put a certain number of compounds in the front end to get out a set number at the back end.

Science isn’t making us any better at improving those odds, Ruffolo would almost take pride in pointing out. It was Ruffolo, speaking at Windhover’s Pharmaceutical Strategic Alliances meeting in 2005, who, at least to our knowledge first among major R&D chiefs publicly, noted that attrition rates in Phase II were going up. Before you knew it, everyone was talking about it. And Ruffolo kept insisting that the only real solution to the attrition problem was to add in more compounds.

So now enter Mikael Dolsten, the former head of Boehringer Ingelheim research, whom not so long ago the IN VIVO Blog had named as a potential candidate for the top R&D job at Pfizer. (OK – we spelled his name wrong there. We may be spelling it wrong now. But we’re not alone – either Wyeth spelled it wrong in their PR (they use an “h” in Dohlsten) or Boehringer spells it wrong in theirs (they leave out the “h”).

In the brief interregnum between leaving Boehringer and landing at Wyeth, Do(h)lsten parked himself as a private equity partner at the OrbiMed, the health-care focused investment firm. Which leads us to speculate: damned few Big Pharmas are going to be able to pay themselves for all their development programs, a fact that most of them are as yet unwilling to admit. Project financing is eventually going to play a role in this game.

When we first wrote about Dolsten, one recruiter told us he was a “change agent.” So was Ruffolo, of course. But Dolsten’s few months at OrbiMed could make him a change agent of a very different kind.