Columbus Speedway Go-Kart Racing has released its 2020 race schedule. Races will be contested again at the Bartholomew County 4-H Fairgrounds with the new small track to be utilized this season.
The divisions that will be participating this year include Jr. 1, Jr. 2 and Jr. 3, Pred 212, Pure Stock Pred, Flat Head, Clone 340, Clone 380, Clone 400, Clone 425, RWYB and Jr. Champs.
The 2019 class champions were Colton Lucas, R.T. Lowe, Brandon Malone, Elijah Knoke, Johnny Smith, all from Columbus; Jentry Cash of Brownstown, Kevin Cunningham of Greensburg, Travis Wilburn of Milan and Devyn Marcum.
Co-Promoter Tim Reed has said construction of the new one-fifth-mile track is complete and will sit inside of the one-fourth-mile oval. Reed and Tim Smith are the promoters of the track.
The 2020 Columbus Speedway Go-Kart Racing Schedule:
- April 25: points small track
- May 9: points small track
- May 22: small track
- May 23: Small track
- Jun
- e 13: points small track
- June 27: 1/4-mile track
- July 4: 1/4-mile track
- July 8: Greensburg fair race
- July 13: Columbus fair race
- July 25: points small track
- Aug. 1: Small track
- Aug. 15: points small track
- Aug. 28: 1/4-mile big track
- Aug. 29: 1/4-mile big track
- Sept. 12: points small track
- Sept. 26: points small track
- Oct. 10: points small track
Howe Motorsports preps for season
After a successful 2019 season where rookie driver Cayden Handley of Columbus finished fourth in Whiteland Raceway Park and Southern Indiana Racing Association (SIRA) point standings, Jim Howe Motorsports LLC prepares for the 2020 season with two new drivers.
Gentry Salmon, 13, and Titus Roberts, 7, join the Elizabethtown/Columbus-based kart racing team for the 2020 season. Both will drive specially-prepared BirelART go-karts, manufactured in Italy and capable of speeds ranging from 30-to-70 MPH.
Salmon is the son of Joe and Sunny Salmon of Brownsburg, while Roberts is the son of Greg and Alisha Roberts of Elizabethtown. Both are rookies in kart racing in addition to this being their first year with the JHM team. Salmon will compete in the Yamaha Junior class (ages 12-15), piloting a Yamaha-powered kart affectionately known as “Hawk.” Roberts will drive a Honda-powered “Rocket Kitty” kart in the Kid Kart class (ages 4-8).
Activities are already underway in the JHM shop preparing the karts for the 2020 season, scheduled to get under way in mid-March with test sessions at CERAland Park’s Whittington Family Raceway and Whiteland’s half-mile road course in its second year under Indy Car driver Sarah Fisher and her husband Andy O’Gara. Both boys will run the full SIRA schedule and most of the Whiteland events.
The season opens April 4 at Whiteland, while SIRA opens its street-racing series April 25-26 with the “Anderson Sertoma Mayor’s Cup Grand Prix” in downtown Anderson. Among SIRA’s eight events in 2020 is the Sept. 19-20 “CERAland Grand,” run on the park streets north of the boathouse.
McIntosh now
full-time with Kunz
Cannon McIntosh will compete full-time on the USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget trail in 2020 as the newest driver to join the lineup for the Columbus-based Keith Kunz/Curb-Agajanian Motorsports, where he’ll pilot the No. 71K for the 10-time series championship winning team.
The 17-year-old McIntosh burst onto the midget racing scene in 2019 with his first career USAC victory in the Shamrock Classic at the Southern Illinois Center in Du Quoin driving for his father’s Dave Mac Motorsports team.
The Bixby, Oklahoma, driver also collected a pair of second-place finishes with USAC in 2019 at Gas City during Indiana Midget Week and a stellar performance in the season-ending Turkey Night Grand Prix at Ventura Raceway in California, where he led a race-high 67 laps.
In January, McIntosh turned more heads after winning a prelim feature at the Chili Bowl in his first appearance for the Kunz/Curb-Agajanian team, then followed it up by finishing third on the final night to become the youngest podium finisher in Chili Bowl history.
It was a thrilling debut for McIntosh with the team, which leaves team owner Keith Kunz with high hopes heading into 2020.
“Cannon blew us away with his performance at Chili Bowl, so bringing him on full-time was a no-brainer for us,” Kunz said. “This kid has all the intangibles inside the cockpit and, most importantly, he’s got the mental aspect of the sport down. I’m excited to take him to a lot of new tracks this year and see what he can show us. He’s got the potential. It’s just about executing night-in-and-night-out.”
“This opportunity means the world to me and my family,” McIntosh said. “Chasing a title with a team like KKM and Toyota is a dream come true for a kid like me. I can’t thank my dad and Cody Cordell enough for everything they have done for me. It’s bittersweet leaving my dad’s team (Dave Mac Motorsports), but this was our goal all along and to reach it with the help of Toyota is huge for us. I can’t wait to get started in Florida; this is going to be a fun year.”
McIntosh joins Buddy Kofoid and Daison Pursley as fellow full-timers on the KKM team for the 2020 USAC NOS Energy Drink National Midget season, which begins this weekend at Bubba Raceway Park in Ocala, Florida, with two full nights of racing.
Leary Non-Wing
Driver of the Year
C.J. Leary, who captured his initial USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car championship during the 2019 season, has been named North American Non-Winged Sprint Car Poll Driver of the Year.
Leary, from Greenfield, who earned a series-leading 32 top-10s in 34 starts and 11 fast-qualifying times along with a victory in February at Ocala, Florida,. during Winter Dirt Games and a November score in the Oval Nationals at Perris Auto Speedway in California, earned seven of the 13 first-place ballots for the award, followed by Tyler Courtney’s five and Kyle Cummins’ one.
Meanwhile, the Reinbold/Underwood Motorsports team for which Leary competed, earned its first Team of the Year honor in the North American Non-Winged Sprint Car Poll, while Dustin Clark (Washington, Indiana) earned Non-Wing Sprint Car Rookie of the Year honors to go along with his USAC AMSOIL National Sprint Car Rookie of the Year award for 2019 that he picked up in December.
Lincoln Park Speedway promoter Joe Spiker, whose 5/16-mile dirt oval in Putnamville will host three USAC events in 2020, was selected as Promoter of the Year. USAC announcer and Sprint Car and Midget Magazine author Pat Sullivan and USAC PR man Richie Murray were tabbed as Media Members of the Year in the poll.
John Godfrey, whose Spike Chassis are prevalent in both USAC’s AMSOIL National Sprint Car and NOS Energy Drink National Midget divisions, was the recipient of the Builder/Manufacturer of the Year award in the poll.
