Story By: STEVEN OVENS / CRSA – SODUS, NY – The A-Verdi Storage Containers CRSA Sprints powered by Super Gen Products has officially announced that their 2023 series is now complete.
Poor weather over the weekend forced the cancellation of the Short Track Supernationals at Afton Motorsports Park, the scheduled championship event for the touring 305 sprint car division.
Many conversations amongst track and series officials took place over the weekend with the decision ultimately being made that another CRSA Sprints event could not be scheduled to settle the series championship.
“This is a tough decision to make with many points implications on the line,” said CRSA Sprints tour director Mike Emhof.
“The reality is Fall schedules are very difficult to navigate and our race teams make plans around our announced schedule each year. We know Jordan, Dalton and Tomy wanted to settle this out on the track but we just couldn’t make it work for everyone involved this year. We look forward to celebrating a great season with them at our banquet in December.”
Mother Nature was a major storyline this season, impacting nine different races on the planned twenty-race schedule. The “Future Stars of Sprint Cars” made the very best of things as they completed fourteen of the twenty scheduled events.
The dominant driver of 2023 is the newly crowned champion from Hannibal, NY third year driver Jordan Hutton. Hutton won everything in 2023 when it came to CRSA-sanctioned competition, including the 2023 A-Verdi Storage Containers CRSA Sprints powered by Super Gen Products series title, Pit Stop Convenience Stores “I-90 Pit Stop Challenge” Series, DisBatch Brewing Company Land of Legends Raceway Series and the Land of Legends Raceway Mighty Boba 305 weekly points title.
Hutton raced his way to five wins on the tour as well as scoring five wins at Paul Cole’s Land of Legends Raceway. Hutton hadn’t won at Canandaigua prior to 2023 and changed that in a huge way. In fact, running weekly at LOLR was not in the plans for Hutton’s team but their early dominance shifted their focus to competing for his first weekly points title.
The CRSA Sprints’ twelfth different champion in eighteen seasons of competition, the eighth year under the direction of Emhof, picked up victories at Land of Legends (May 13), Utica-Rome (July 14), Land of Legends (July 22), Woodhull (August 19) and his final win of the season at a place he has started to dominate at Fonda Speedway (September 15).
Hutton’s series title was earned on not only wins but in consistency throughout the fourteen points-paying events. In those fourteen races the No. 66 finished in the Top 10 twelve times and only suffered one DNF all series long. That DNF was suffered at Genesee Speedway September 22 and was thought to have serious points implications with series runnerup Dalton Herrick winning that night to trim the point lead to nineteen markers. Mother Nature assured Hutton’s DNF was not going to factor in the title.
Herrick from McDonough, NY also poured on the consistency as he only finished outside the Top 10 once in 2023, the very same night Hutton did at Thunder Mountain in July. The difference of three wins to five and qualifying heat race points factored into Herrick’s second place finish, one year removed from winning his first title in 2022.
Arguably the most improved driver of the season was the final finisher on the points podium- Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada’s Tomy Moreau. The driver of the No. 22 makes the six to seven hour haul, sometimes weekly, from Quebec and locked down his first two wins in a 305 Sprint Car (Fonda June 3, Outlaw July 7). Moreau put on a clinic at Genesee Speedway to close out 2023 with a drive from shotgun on the field to battling Herrick for the final checkered flag.
In the Insinger Performance Rookie of the Year race, three different drivers in the Top 15 standings had a chance at claiming RoY honors. Deansboro, NY competitor Dustin Sehn is announced as the Rookie of the Year with 1416 points over Kirsten Dombroski (1352) and Dillon Paddock (901). The Rookie race is determined by dropping a driver’s best and worst finish of the season and totaling the points from the remaining events, with Sehn and Dombroski counting eleven races each and Paddock six. Oddly enough, Sehn and Dombroski both dropped their finishes at Weedsport Speedway in May and Genesee Speedway in September.
Attention will now turn to honoring drivers and teams at the annual awards banquet on Saturday December 2 at Vernon Downs Hotel & Casino. More information is forthcoming on event details including times and event accommodations. Those wishing to make reservations early be sure to mention CRSA or Mike Emhof Motorsports for special lodging pricing.