The Food City 500 at Bristol Motor Speedway marks the one year anniversary of Lucky Dog/Red Zone Racing. There has been quite a bit of changes over the past year, making the league bigger and better. Let’s take a look back at the first race that we ran though.
One thing that changed right after this race was the penalty points. Originally you would be docked 10 points for being in the bottom 30 and an additional 10 for being out of the race. Losing a total of 20 points for a driver put a lot of teams into the negative numbers that week. The race was used as a test run pre-season race, so the points wouldn’t actually count. After the completion of the race, the point system was tinkered with and would be used the rest of the year.
The real race was won by Kurt Busch who later went on to win the Championship. The league race was won by Ryno Racing. He didn’t last too long in the league though, only 8 races before he disappeared.
The first race consisted of 21 teams. We have twice that amount in the league today. Out of those 21 original teams, only 8 remain with us today. Here’s a look at them, and what became of them:
Intimidator Racing: Finished 2nd. The President’s team and founding member. The official sign up was Feb. 17th 2004, which is also the league’s creation date. Intimidator Racing remained in the top 10 all season and ended up second in points. He won 2 races and finished with the most top 10’s in the 2004 season. He also led the league with picking the most polesitters, and tied for first with having the most lap leaders.
Where is he now: After a 2nd place run in Atlanta, Intimidator Racing is 3rd in the standings.
Green Flag Racing: Finished 5th. Green Flag Racing joined the league on March 9th, 2004. Lead driver Carol Siddens remained in the top 10 in the standings all year long. Her highest position was 2nd place where she was passed by Intimidator Racing in the final week. She finished 3rd for the year. She didn’t get to win a race but finished with the best overall picks average.
Where is she now: Hasn’t been in the top 10 yet this year, got as high as 11th. After a 12th place finish in Atlanta, Green Flag Racing is 14th in the standings.
Bump And Go Racing: Finished 8th. Bump And Go Racing joined a couple days after Green Flag Racing, on March 12th, 2004. James Sisson was all over the standings during 2004, from 19th and finished 7th, his highest spot. He won one race in 2004.
Where is he now: Bump And Go Racing started the season in 33rd place but has gained each week for a total of 21 spots. He now sits just outside the top 10 in 12th place.
Jerry Jones Racing: Finished 11th. Jerry Jones Racing was the first “outside” team to join the league. Shawn Jackson formed JJR on February 28th, 2004. He would go on to big things during the year, most notably winning the championship. However he also led the league in several different stats including best average driver points, bonus points (no longer in use), total race points ( driver & bonus points combined), driver wins, drivers leading a lap per race (tied), and was one of only 2 teams to have a 100% average of having at least one driver lead a lap per race. He won three race and had the most top 5 finishes in the league. In 2005 he was appointed the League’s Vice President.
Where is he now: Surprise Surprise, JJR is once again on top of the standings.
Ron Racing: Finished 14th. Ron Racing joined the same day as Jerry Jones Racing. Ron Cyphers was in the top 10 most of 2004. He got as high as 3rd place but ended up finishing in 4th. He won two races and finished in the top 5 of best average finish and best picks average.
Where is he now: Ron Racing has struggled a bit in the past 4 races. He hasn’t finished higher than 18th and is buried down in 28th place in the standings.
Armchair Racing, Inc: Finished 17th. Armchair Racing, Inc. came to us all the way from Canada on March 16, 2004. Steven Cotter remained in the top 10 for the first third of the season, but dropped out in July and never got back in. He did win one race of the season and finished in 13th place where he remained during the final 8 weeks.
Where is he now: Stuggled badly in the first 3 races but scored an 11th place finish in Atlanta. He moved up 7 places after Atlanta and is now in 35th place.
Trapt Racing: Finished 20th. Chris Robidoux and Trapt Racing joined the league on March 19, 2004. He goes down in history as the first team to win a points race after winning the following week after Bristol. He led the league for two weeks, then started a decline down to 13th place. It was a yo-yo season for him. After hitting 13th, he started a steady climb all the way to 5th place. However after reaching 5th, fell back to 6th for a number of weeks then eventually to 9th where he finished the season.
Where is he now: The start of maybe another yo-yo season? Finished close to the bottom of the first three races and was stuck down in 41st place. In Atlanta he came back with a surprising 4th place run in an attempt to climb the standings again. He’s now in 33rd place.
Oceanside Racing: Finished 21st: Gwen Demian and Oceanside Racing is the league’s un-official co-founder and 2nd team to join the league. Her start date is February 24, 2004. She was only briefly in the top 10 for a few weeks, mostly hung around just outside it. She won one race in 2004 and finished in 12th place.
Where is she now: Had a big week in Atlanta scoring 190 race points and winning the race. She moved up 11 spots to 21st in the standings.
What about those teams that are no longer with us? Well most just kind of disappeared, some left because they had other things going on in their lives. Here’s just a list of the other teams who took place in the first race.
Ryno Racing (1st), Klowns Racing (3rd), Muffet’s Spiders, Inc. (4th), Snoop Dogg Racing (6th), Corrs Drinkers Racing (7th), Shuten7 Racing (9th), NOS Racing (10th), Simple Man Plan Racing (12th), Jolly Rogers Racing (13th), 11G’s Racing (15th), Team Echo Racing (16th), SR3 Racing (18th), Wilson MotorSports (19th).
So here we are, one year later. So many changes have happened in the league in the first year. Where will we be in 2006? Hopefully everyone here will remain with us to find out. I just want to thank with all the teams who were with us from day 1, those who joined later in the year and to all the new teams that have joined us in 2005! I’m sure it will be a season to remember!
