Catchfence

With 53 starts this year at dirt track “bullrings” that range from one-fifth to a half-mile in length, El Paso’s Ryan Unzicker will move up to racing at a mile venue later this month when he teams up with Hendren Motorsports of Gridley to compete in the Aug. 21 Allen Crowe Memorial 100 at the Illinois State Fairgrounds in Springfield.

It will be the first of two ARCA-sanctioned events for Unzicker this summer. The team also will compete on the one-mile dirt track at the DuQuoin State Fairgrounds on Sept. 5.

“They called me about a month ago and asked me if I’d be interested in doing Springfield and DuQuoin,” Unzicker said. “I said, ‘Absolutely, I’d love to drive for you guys again.’ We’re pretty pumped up about these races.”

Unzicker, 28, first raced with Hendren in 2003-04, primarily on the American Speed Association asphalt circuit. They also ran three ARCA events at that time, with Unzicker finishing sixth in his ARCA debut at Springfield in 2003.

“I haven’t been in one of those cars for a long time and it’s a different ballgame,” Unzicker said. “The dirt late model stuff is nothing like the ARCA cars which are basically old Sprint Cup cars. We get an hour of practice, so I think I’ll adjust. But it’s going to take me a little bit to get my rhythm down and get a feel for a 3,400-pound race car.”

While Unzicker’s foray into the ARCA series adds a little variety to his season, his main focus remains on capturing the UMP late model weekly series national championship.

He entered this week’s events with a healthy 237-point advantage over Bloomington’s Jason Feger, the 2009 weekly series national champ.

- Bloomington Pantagraph