The Rapid Tire USAC East Coast Sprint Cars presented by Capital Custom Trailers will put a cap on another successful season this Friday, November 5th at the Bridgeport Speedway. The 'High Banks Classic' season finale A-main winner will take home a cool $3000, the biggest first-place check in the history of the young series.                                 Curt Michael continues to hit the target year-in, year-out with the USAC ECS. Already announced for the '22 season, all A-mains will be a minimum of $2000 to win. He also threw out the idea to the teams about possibly handicapping the feature lineup next year instead of using the redraw as well as implementing a spec medium compound RR tire which will be tried Friday. Curt works all year scheduling and guessing it won't be long after seasons' end that we will be seeing '22 dates.                           The ECS received some well deserved national exposure in 2021 during it's events along side USAC's National series' visits to the northeast, thanks to some FloRacing airtime. The announcing team of Dr. Pat Sullivan and Tony LaPorta were continually impressed each time they called the ECS. The 'Mad Man' Robert Ballou had some great things to say about the series and the drivers after competing with them as well.                         The year long 2021 battle between Alex Bright and Briggs Danner was entertaining to say the least but the race of the year was not won by either. The June 4th Williams Grove feature captured by Steven Drevicki was unreal. Honorable mention to the first ever visit to Kutztown. I will go out on a limb and say we will see more of the same action from the USAC ECS in 2022.

USAC ECS news for 2022, just in. Bill Gallagher Memorial '5g', $5000 to win . Track, date and details to follow.

The series put on a good show to finish out the season. Its a work in progress I know, but it's already time to look forward to 2022 and talk about the necessary changes to make the series even better. I'm aware that handicapping has been discussed and hopefully it's a reality. Based on the way this season went the blind draw/ feature redraw system needs to go. The disparity in talent/equipment of the series leaves no choice. Using the 5g and the 20 as an example based on this season, at no time after week one should the opportunity arise that a team of their dominance start on the front row of a heat or a feature. The rules of this year proved that the racing was academic when either or both started up front. I'm not picking on those teams I'm just using them to make an example. It's clear the others need to step up their game. Its a good thing the purse has increased as that is a sign tracks and fans are interested in the series. The schedule is still peculiar with some decisions made. I still cannot understand why when having these teams take time from work to tow on a Friday to Georgetown they aren't rewarded with a Saturday at Delmar or even Bridgeport. I know DIS is now for sale so this may be a moot point. All of those long tows to Winchester with nothing else before or after along with the fact that the surface is awful for those cars. Id like to know if the series director has any input to these tracks about the surface. Of course he is the crew chief to one of the top cars in the series so that raises a ton of red flags. As a fan of non wing sprint cars who travels around the country to see it, I'm happy that there is a series close to home. This is now going into year 5 and it's time to clean it up and make the series a happening every week wherever they show up. 

I hope to see handicapping next year as well to give the best show possible. I dont think it would have mattered Friday however, as it was a pure horsepower surface staying damp and fast all night and the 5g and 20 would have most likely still been up front.      Looking back to last year, Steven Drevicki was on that other level by himself enroute to his third straight title. The Gallagher 5g was a revolving door of drivers with some success. Briggs Danner deserves credit for making that team better.  The Hummer 20 and Alex Bright didnt make their debut until August 2020, and you could see that team gelling at the end of last year. It was a changing of the guard type year with Drevicki being a part-timer with the series and we had two teams fill the gap instead of one.         Both Bright and Danner stated they may be looking for bigger opportunities next season. Alex wants to run more midwest 410 shows if they can get some help and has dabbled in the wings. With the passing of car owner Bill Gallagher and sale of the team to Mike Heffner, I think we could see more wing races for Briggs in the future. Both could possibly be part-time with the ECS in '22.       I think that is how the series will be, successful teams and drivers reach the top and then use it as a stepping stone of sorts. That opens the door for the next top-tier teams to emerge.

Agreed on the point that Friday's surface lended itself to the two highest dollar/powered engines. It still would have been more interesting to see them come from say 11th and 12th. As for them both probably moving on to other endeavors, and using this series as a stepping stone that is fine. Opening the door to others to try and flourish is a good thing. Although if we have learned anything from this year, it is that those that are real good will make it to the front most every time. So the need for handicapping is a necessity not just an idea to talk about. Hopefully it works out and the series continues to grow.