With NASCAR’s circus way out on the left coast with weather not cooperating, representation among dirt racing this week was a bit limited.
Christopher Bell
While the Cup Series regular kept his driving to the asphalt at Auto Club Speedway this past week, his newly-formed sprint car team took to Southern Raceway in the Florida Panhandle on Friday and Saturday night (Feb. 24-25) with the USCS sprint car tour. Driving for the team was 14-year-old Gavan Boschele.
Boschele went backwards in his heat race on Friday but managed to net a 10th-place finish in the A-main.
Saturday was a marked improved for the youngster, as he qualified for the pole dash and scored a top-five finish in the A-main.
Brett Moffitt
The Xfinity Series competitor made a one-off appearance on the opening night of North Carolina Speedweek at Fayetteville Motor Speedway Wednesday night, running in a legends car.
The run was unremarkable. Moffitt went backwards in his heat race, though he was arguably the show in his heat as he put his No. 64 car through every single groove on the racetrack at least once over the course of six laps.
Moffitt did qualify for Wednesday’s A-main and never got out of traffic in a race that was marred by two red-flag incidents, though he managed to crack the top 10 and finished ninth by feature’s end.
Austin Wayne Self
The former Truck Series regular raced at Fayetteville for all three nights of North Carolina Speedweek that weren’t rained out in the crate modified division. Self had a strong opening night, finishing second in his heat race and scoring a top-five finish in his heat race.
His performance completely threw off the PA crew at Fayetteville, which initially announced Self as the race winner, for race winner Buck Stevens was fielding an AM Racing scheme that looked just like Self’s old Truck Series ride.
It was more of the same Thursday night for Self, who again grabbed a top-five finish after narrowly averting getting caught up in a lap 8 crash that unfolded just in front of him.
Friday night proved the best of the bunch, with Self scoring the runner-up position in what would be the final modified race of the week (Saturday night at Fayetteville was rained out).