Casey's Sportsman Series

Current Logo

The Casey's Cup Series is the sister series to the American Ethanol Truck Series and the series that features the faster cars. This series runs the same schedule as the AETS and is run on the day proceding the truck series race.

The field is set at 36 cars per race. All races are run on asphalt tracks within the Midwest and Central areas of the united states including a race at the Mexico City Oval track. It boasts a very diverse set of different venues around the Central U.S. including, Texas, Texas World, Michigan, Circuit of the Americas, and Iowa Speedway.

The series is currently within it's 10th year of operation.

## ***2007 season***

The 2007 season was the first year of MSCA operation, only the name wasn't officially the MSCA. The series was ran as the Iowa East/Central Stock Car series and used the rulebook from the IMCA Stock Cars however wasn't associated with the IMCA. The first season ran 15 races on dirt tracks around the southeast, East Central, and Central areas of the state of Iowa. There were also two asphalt tracks that were ran which were Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids Iowa and Iowa Speedway in Newton Iowa. The series champion was Nathan Wood driving the #52 car and won a total of 4 races those being Lee County Speedway, Davenport Speedway 1/2 Mile Configuration, West Liberty Raceway, and Southern Iowa Speedway. only 4 drivers ran the full series schedule who were Nathan Wood #52, Blaine Doppler #57, Brett Timmerman #44 who also won at Iowa Speedway, and Alex Buffington #30B.

The series was a success among those who participated but the asphalt tracks were a point of contention amongst drivers and fans. The issue being that the cars being used were built for dirt racing. Hawkeye Downs didn't show the same issues as Iowa Speedway did due to the cars not being as well equipped to handle the long 7/8 mile speedway in which most of the cars that were in the series mostly ran on 1/2 mile or less. They were allowed a few testing sessions to make sure the cars would actually run the track and after the race the drivers were given an approval sheet so the series could plan ahead. due to the short list of approvals, they also scheduled a Late Model event since those cars were more well equipped to the track.

**Schedule**

1. Lee County Speedway
2. 34 Raceway
3. CJ Speedway
4. Davenport Speedway 1/4 Mile
5. Davenport Speedway 1/2 Mile
6. Quad City Speedway
7. Farley Speedway
8. West Liberty Raceway
9. Hawkeye Downs
10. Marshalltown Speedway
11. Iowa Speedway
12. Southern Iowa Speedway
13. Knoxville Raceway
14. Iowa State Fair Speedway
15. Boone Raceway (IMCA Supernationals)

## ***2008 Season***

2008 saw the addition of Quincy Raceway onto the schedule as well as the additional Late Model event at Hawkeye Downs. Due to the series first season and knowledge from other drivers who had raced in the series, it garnered a lot more attention throughout it's 2nd season. More cars entered and the Knoxville race had capped out on the car count requiring two mains to be run to fill the whole of the Feature event.

* Series Champion: #15 Aaron Reese
* Iowa Speedway Late Model Winner: #35 Jack Tracy
* Hawkeye Downs Late Model Winner: #4D Austin Jakes

## ***2009 Season***

2009 saw a lot of change within the series itself, It had expanded it's late model schedule to multiple tracks around Iowa as well as some underused club circuits. These tracks include Gateway, Raceway Park of the Midlands, I-44 Lebanon, Grundy County Speedway, Rockford Raceway, and the Iowa Speedway Road Course which was also added to the Stock Car, now called sportsman class, for only that year. The Late Model class was also renamed to the Iowa/Illinois Late Model Tour. this was also the first year the series ran at separate venues to the Stock Car class. As the series grew so did the participation. many drivers from Australia and Canada had migrated to run in the series and in the first year that there was international participation, a total of 7 drivers from outside the US had ran at least one event. the Season champion for the late models would end up being an Australian native as well with #7 Arlington Park winning the championship in the late models.

* LM Series Champion #7 Arlington Park

* SC Series Champion: #02 Donny Johnson

## ***2010 Season***

2010 would be the last season the two divisions would run as the same sanctioning body as the Sportsman class was beginning to split off from the Late Model class. The series also achieved it's first sponsorship with Kinze Tractors and was rebranded as the Kinze Midwest Late Model Tour. More tracks were introduced into the race schedule including Motorsports Park Hastings, Hiway 92 Raceway Park, Brainerd International Raceway, Elko Speedway, Milwaukee, Golden Sands, Road America, and IRP Lucas Oil Raceway. The Sportsman class dropped all asphalt based tracks and added dirt track races in their place such as Adams County Speedway, Dubuque Raceway, and DuQuoin State Fair Speedway. This is also the one of the first few seasons where larger teams start to form on the late model side of things giving Austin Jakes his first championship.

* LM Series Champion: #42 Austin Jakes
* SC Series Champion: #57 Blaine Doppler

## ***2011-2012 Seasons***

Being the first seasons after the split between the Late Models and Stock Cars, The series started looking for more large venues to hold races at. Tracks like the Iowa Roadcourse and some of the smaller tracks such as Rockford and Grundy county were replaced by tracks such as chicagoland, Kentucky, and Kansas. The series also began to be less stringent on bodies for the cars and began to allow the Gen 4 Bodies from NASCAR due to the similar shape of the cars to the late model bodies. This made teams question which body style would be better and a few teams changed over to the Gen 4 cars to test the waters. one of these drivers and eventual season champion would win 3 races with a Gen 4 car that being #29 James Austin.

* 2011 Champion: #29 James Austin
* 2012 Champion: #15 Aaron Reese

## ***2013-2015 Seasons***

2013 was the first year the series ran under the name Midwest Stock Car Association. This was brought in due to the sponsorship change from Kinze to Casey's General Store. There were also 2 track changes with Midlands Raceway Park moving to Mid Ohio and Hiway 92 being replaced by the Iowa Night race.

2014 had no changes with the schedule which is the first year the schedule did not change for the series. Due to the rising car counts the MSCA adopted a 36 car cap for all tracks except Elko, Golden Sands, I-44 Lebanon and Hawkeye Downs. All of these tracks still had their heat and feature style format and ran a maximum of 25 cars in the main event.

2015 saw the series move more south as they began to run at Texas World which replaced I-44 Lebanon and Michigan which replaced Golden Sands. The series wanted to go to tracks that could allow for the full 36 car field and was phasing out tracks that wouldn't allow for this race format.

* 2013 Champion: #56 Matthew Axe
* 2014 Champion: #42 Austin Jakes
* 2015 Champion: #01 Rickey Dixon

## ***2016 Season***

2016 was the last year for the short tracks less than half mile and is widely considered the best overall season in the Casey's Cup Series. The final event at Elko came down to a 1 point difference between the top 3 as James Austin had wrecked early in the race and Aaron Reese didn't make the feature. Martin Grayson had to finish in 3rd to win the championship but blew his engine on the last lap and finished in 6th place. The driver who won the race was rookie driver #31 Sam Verbeek and it was the only win he achieved that season and the only win for the team. This was also James Austin's 2nd championship since 2011

* 2016 Champion: #29 James Austin

## 2***017 Season***

2017 was the last year that the series ran at Elko and Hawkeye Downs was moved to an exhibition role after race 6 at Iowa. The schedule added Mexico City's oval track and Circuit of the Americas which would be the first year every race had the full 36 car field. Mexico City in it's first season had two green, white, checkered finishes where Rookie Hirouma Kikana #3 was crowned the winner. The rookie class in this season was large and extremely competitive with German driver Anelie Wittmer #112 also garnering a victory at Iowa Speedway and holding the points lead for a few races. The series also saw one of the strangest champions in history with Unsponsored Italian driver Norm Mantiel #44 winning the championship. other teams such as the team of the #33 Michael Griffin who finished dead last in points due to multiple mechanical problems and being involved in multiple wrecks which gave him a series high of 6 total DNF's. This was also the season where the ASCA bought the sanctioning body and is now a part of the ASCA League however it still runs with the MSCA Name.

* 2017 Champion: #44 Norm Mantiel

## ***2018 Season***

This is the Current season of the Casey's Cup series. Last Year's Rookie and 5th place points finisher #112 Anelie Wittmer is the current points leader with 372 points over Dave Witt #63 and Rickey Dixon #01. Each of the top 3 drivers has achieved 2 wins in the first 6 races and other drivers are merely attempting to chase them down. #44 Norm Mantiel also gained sponsorship by GameStop and A&W.

* Current Points Leader: #112 Anelie Wittmer

## ***2019 Season***

Minor Details are Surfacing about the current schedule of the 2019 season and rumors are stating that Mexico City will possibly be dropped for a track close to 1 mile long in Rochester Minnesota.