Hooker Looks To Celebrate In Style

Most teens want to celebrate their 15th birthday with buddies at backyard pool party or a night at the movies. Jake Hooker hopes to celebrate his 15th birthday on Saturday with about 2,000 friends at a dirt race track.

The Chatham driver will hoping to extend his feature win streak in the Tirecraft Sport Stocks in front of an expected big crowd on Fan Appreciation Night at South Buxton Raceway.

Hooker has won four straight and five feature races tas a 14-year-old sophomore driver. His hot streak has allowed the Grade 10 UCC student to close the gap to just six points behind Kingsville’s Rob Young atop the division standings.

Two other drivers will be looking to extend feature win streaks to three.

Blenheim’s Kyle Hope has won back-to-back in the Tirecraft Mini-Mods, the first feature wins of his eight-year career.
Hope takes a commanding 148-point lead over Kingsville’s Dylan Wolters into the night’s action.

Ridgetown’s Nick Glassford is also looking for a third straight feature win, as he has won back-to-back for the second time this season in the Autotech Bombers. Glassford, however, had three DNF’s between his feature wins and finds himself fifth in the division standings, 63 points behind Merlin’s Cale Johns. Glassford’s father Dale returned to Victory Lane last Saturday after his streak of eight straight feature wins in the Westside Performance Plus UMP Late Models ended. Glassford has a comfortable 120-point lead over Chatham’s Jim Jones, the driver who ended the division leader’s feature win streak on July 18.

Leamington’s Joel Dick saw his seven-feature win streak in the Schinkels Gourmet Meats UMP Modifieds end with a second-place finish to Shrewbury’s Jim Dale Jr. last week.

Dick, the defending series champion, holds a 154-point lead over Clayton Smith, of Taylor, Mich., and is 176 points ahead of Dale Jr., as both drivers gained one spot in the standings.

South Buxton is offering half-price admission on the grandstand ($6.50 adults 17-59; $5 teens ages 13-16 and seniors 60-over; and $2.50 kids ages 6-12. Kids 5-under are free. Hot dogs will be $1 hot dogs .

The grandstand opens at 4:30 p.m. with racing starting at 6:30 p.m. In case of a postponement, the program will be rescheduled for Sunday starting at 5 p.m., with gates open at 3 p.m.