PASS schedule released for 2020
Affordable sprint series has April start with a 3 day weekend
The Pennsylvania Sprint Series (PASS) has released its 35-race 2020 schedule for affordable, IMCA/RaceSaver sprint car racing.
Seven tracks are set to run PASS races this year. Port Royal Speedway, which last season averaged nearly 40 entries per event, will run nine races, including the Keystone RaceSaver Challenge on October 17. BAPS Motor Speedway and Selinsgrove Speedway each will run seven events, with Path Valley Speedway Park running six.
While all of Port Royal’s events will be run on Saturday, BAPS and Selinsgrove will run one race each on Sunday, and BAPS and Path Valley each has a Friday night date as well.
Williams Grove Speedway has two races scheduled for 2020, while Trail-Way Speedway adds a second event. All four at those tracks are Friday races.
Lincoln Speedway rejoins the PASS schedule with two Saturday events as well.
Additions to the schedule are possible, including co-sanctioned events with other RaceSaver groups. Two of the BAPS races will be co-sanctions with the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series, which races in Eastern Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Delaware.
Drivers from any RaceSaver series may race with any other series, and PASS contacts both the Mid-Atlantic and Laurel Highlands (West-Central Pennsylvania) Sprint Series to coordinate scheduling and give drivers and teams as many opportunities as possible to compete.
Another large contingent of race teams is preparing to race with PASS in 2020, including 2019 Champion Ken Duke Jr. of Selinsgrove, who also won the IMCA National RaceSaver Championship last year, the first Pennsylvanian ever to accomplish that feat. Duke was Pennsylvania State Champion as well.
The RaceSaver Sprint program was founded in Virginia by racer and innovator French Grimes, who established the Virginia Sprint Series, as a way of running economical sprint cars on a “level playing field” that decreased the importance of how much money a given team could spend. PASS, one of the first groups to adopt the RaceSaver model, was founded in 1998 and began racing the following year.
Today, RaceSaver is a nationwide rules package, and more than 700 drivers compete in nearly 20 regional series.
RaceSaver events are now sanctioned by the International Motor Contest Association, IMCA, the oldest active auto racing sanctioning body in the U.S., having been founded in 1915. IMCA also sanctions various stock car and modified classes.
While many drivers have run with PASS for only a year or two, others have remained with the series for a decade or more. This year, Ryan Lynn will celebrate his 20th season and add to a record 350 PASS starts.
Drivers in the series last year ranged in age from 16 to 85.
Along with RaceSaver’s claim as “The World’s Most Affordable Sprint Car Series goes the slogan, “Big Wings, Big Excitement,” and PASS races have regularly lived up to that boast. In the 2019 Keystone RaceSaver Challenge, the wild battle for the lead led to the heart-stopping finish you can see here:
The 2020 season opens with a three-event weekend in early April. On Friday, April 3, PASS joins the 410 sprints and USAC East Coast Wingless Springs for the “Spring Sprint Special at Williams Grove. The series then visits Port Royal for Saturday racing before finishing the weekend at BAPS on Sunday.