Traxxas TORC Series Holds Midwest Sportsman and Grassroots Banquet

| December 14, 2009 | 0 Comments

Traxxas TORC Series Holds Midwest Sportsman and Grassroots Banquet in Milwaukee, Steele and Keehner Receive Driver of the Year Honors, Johnson Named Rookie of the Year

Corona, CA (December 14, 2009)-The Traxxas TORC Series presented by AMSOIL celebrated its “Night of Champions” 2009 Sportsman and Grassroots banquet hosted by the beautiful Potawatomi Casino in Milwaukee, WI, on Saturday evening, December 5, 2009. Midwest sportsman and grassroots division off-road teams joined together with TORC series, United States Auto Club (USAC), sponsors, and fans for an evening designed to honor the accomplishments of the 2009 TORC season champions.

TORC CFO, Mitch Covington, kicked off the evening with a welcome: “Like my mother used to tell me, ‘it’s a sad rooster that won’t crow’,” said Mitch as he turned the mic over to the champions to thank all those that contributed to their successful year.

USAC’s Jason Smith and TORC owner Ricky Johnson emceed the evening. Class champions along with the 2nd and 3rd place winners were recognized. Each champion was presented a custom made Oakley watch, 1/16 scale RC off-road truck replica by Traxxas, and a handsome plaque by TORC with a photo of their race car.

(See a complete breakdown of the champions and runners up on TORCseries.com.)

Champions of the Crandon race were given their World Championship of Off-Road Racing rings presented by Crandon International Raceway officials, Cliff Flannery, Jake Flannery, and Tom May. The wins came at the 40th Anniversary races at Crandon on Labor Day Weekend.

Ricky expressed his appreciation to the many volunteers and support personnel who make the racing events successful. He also talked about plans for next season. Some of the proposed changes and were discussed earlier in the day in a meeting with a newly organized group called Midwest Off Road Racing (MORR). Some of the topics covered were reducing entrance fees, ways to increase the purse for sportsman winners, and adding more Sportsman/Grassroots races to the 2010 schedule. Crandon committed $5,000 to add to the yearend championship purse.
President of the new group, Dan Vanden Heuvel, came forward and addressed the audience. He expressed his appreciation on behalf of MORR for the support of TORC and the spirit of cooperation between the two groups.

The 2009 Drivers of the Year were also named at the end of the Awards Ceremony. Luke Johnson was named Rookie of the Year. Luke managed an impressive 2nd place finish in the Limited 2WD Truck class with 5 podiums in his first year behind the wheel. Sportsman Driver of the Year honors went to Keith Steele. Keith dominated the Limited 2WD class winning all but 2 of the races. He finished 2nd in the last 2 races. The Grassroots Driver of the Year award went to Justin Keehner. He drove his “big orange” Classix car to 7 podiums that included 6 wins, squeezing out Robert Weiland by only 1 point. Luke, Keith and Justin received a nice plaque and a case of AMSOIL Racing Oil.
Bark River International Off-road Raceway was named Track of the Year. Richard Ault and Tom Lanaville were on hand to receive the award. They thanked all the track personnel and the community for their support. Tom also mentioned the large amount of money that they were able to give back to the community due to the outstanding turnout.

Crandon International Off-road Raceway was also recognized for the 40th Anniversary Celebration that featured a live broadcast on ABC television network.