Motorsports: Howard: master of the Coalcracker

By Shawn Wood
For The Daily Item

August 22, 2008 08:22 am

— MINERSVILLE -- Just like a baseball player, race drivers get into slumps.
And there's nothing like a Texas League single or, in Duane Howard's case, the Coalcracker 100, to help turn things around.
For Howard, the only four-time winner of the event and long-time crew chief Alan Finch, the extra-distance races have been a cure for their slump in seasons past.
"For some unknown reason, every team I've ever been with, if it is because of my driving or what the circumstance is, I am always in a mid-to-end-of-season slump," Howard said. "We start out strong every year and then we have a real big lull, and then come back strong at the end of the year."
He has a feeling that the current slump he is in is turning around as he seeks an unprecedented fifth title on Aug. 31 in the 28th running of the event for the 358 modifieds.
The Coalcracker weekend kicks off on Friday, Aug. 29, featuring the Coalcracker 50 for the sportsman modifieds, the 358 modifieds non-winners' race and the ARDC Midgets. The roadrunners join the racing card Sunday.
Bob Emerich won the first Coalcracker in 1979 when it was a 50-lap affair. Since then, 15 different drivers have gone to victory lane in the 27 races run. The Coalcracker did not run in 1983 and 2005. The 100-lapper pays $10,000 to win.
Howard won back-to-back races in the early part of the season at Grandview, won the big block modified special at Big Diamond in April, and was poised to have a great season.
Up until three weeks ago, he was leading the points at Big Diamond and was in position for his seventh track title, but a DQ followed by a wreck the next week will have him finishing second to Jeff Strunk in the final point standings.
"It's not the year we were hoping for," Howard added. "Now we're on the upswing again and I feel we're going to hit (our) stride and I really feel the team is coming around."
Last Saturday night, while leading the feature at Bridgeport Speedway, Howard got a flat tire.
"That's the way the season's been going," he said.
Big Diamond ends its points and regular season tonight with a regular three-division show of 358 modifieds, sportsman modifieds and roadrunners.
Howard has five wins at Big Diamond in 2008. He's 18th in points at Bridgeport Speedway with one win and 15th in points at Grandview Speedway with three wins.
He started racing modifieds in 1989 after racing late models at Silver Spring Speedway and he's won extra-distance races at Penn National Speedway, Delaware International Speedway and Grandview Speedway. Howard's been close to wins in both the big block and 358 modifieds 100-lap features at Hagerstown's Octoberfest 350 and has yet to win at Syracuse.
He owns 60 career wins at the coal region oval.
According to Howard, he and the crew don't overanalyze these extra-distance events.
"I think we hit stride at the end of the season where some of the teams might be low on budget or running out of funds, where I think our race team is kind of gearing up and we become strong again," Howard said. "What is it that we get in the rut through the middle (of the season), I have no idea. But it seems to happen to me every single year. I think we don't overanalyze the race, I think we're just coming out of the rut at the right time."
Howard scored three of his four Coalcracker wins in 1989, 1999 and 2001. His fourth came in 2006.
"We're usually hanging in the top four or five and we're usually consistent enough that we don't overthink the race and we don't dial ourselves out of the event," he said of his success in the Coalcracker wins. "I think what stands out is we are always riding around lap 50 in the top five and we're prepared enough to make it to the end."
Craig VonDohren is the defending winner of the Coalcracker 100. The all-time winningest 358 modified driver at the track with 63 wins won his first Coalcracker in 1987.
He's been winning as of late with a victory in the 50-lap, $10,000 Forest Rogers Memorial at Grandview Speedway a few weeks ago and then winning back to back to start off the month at Big Diamond.
The Coalcracker 50 for the sportsman modifieds started in 2003 and has produced single wins by David Van Horn, Jason Hamilton, Willie Osmun and Jordan Umbenhauer.

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