MOYER AND OWENS WIN 2000 ELECTION
By Jack Taylor
(11/20/00
Election Central). Billy Moyer of Batesville, Arkansas and Jimmy Owens of
Newport, Tennessee finished in the top spots as the MDTF fans voted throughout
the year for their favorites in the Midwest. Moyer, in a last month surge,
wrestled the lead from Steve Francis for the Late Model crown and Owens
maintained a strong lead all season long to become the fans choice for Modified
driver of the year.
First, we would
like to thank all of the fans that submitted votes during the season. As the
headquarters for the final tally of the fans votes (Secretary of State), we used
our own judgment to total the votes and publish your decisions. There were no
hanging chads involved, but there were some votes thrown out. Our voting rules
stipulated that fans could vote as often as they wished (Chicago style), but not
continually. Our On-line voting machine recorded the date and time, so if
someone attempted to vote for the same driver by continually pushing the button,
it was rejected.
We also rejected
any votes that were for drivers not residing in the Midwest area we try to
report on. Drivers such as Rick Aukland and Randy Zimmerman were not accepted.
Sorry about that. We did receive
votes from three overseas military people and after checking for a postmark,
they were declared eligible. We would have allowed them anyway. Pregnant
indentations on the ballots were not allowed, since we could not determine the
original intent of the voters.
We updated the
Late Model tally six times during the season and the Modified five times. There
were 1,118 votes cast for Late Model drivers and 497 cast for Modified drivers.
The On-line voting allowed for as many as three names on a line, so many fans
voted for more than one driver each time they voted. Over 350 different Late
Model drivers received at least one vote. More than 250 Modified drivers
received at least one vote.
In order to keep
the voting as fair as possible, Carolyn and I would tabulate the results and our
dependable yellow lab, Heidi, was available for any tie-breaking
decisions. No lawyers were camped at our front door, so the vote stands
as final and we will do it again next season starting on February 1st,
2001. We had fun. Hope you all enjoyed it. We have no argument with your top
choices.
BILLY
MOYER recorded 20 major Late Model wins during the 2000 season,
including his fifth World 100 victory in September. There were also 3 HAT wins,
3 MARS wins, 10 UMP sanctioned wins, and the Starr Wars at his home track in
Arkansas.
Steve
Francis, who began the season on top, held the lead until the final
tally was counted, losing out by five votes at the end. HAT champion, Scott
Bloomquist, finished third followed by everyone’s favorite, Bob
Pierce, and Wendell Wallace.
Newport,
Tennessee’s Jimmy Owens rewrote most
of the record books as he dominated the Open-wheeled Modified class in 2000. 48
feature wins, 59 top tens, and 58 top fives, out of 65 starts. Major wins from
Texas to Illinois, the young driver captured another UMP National Modified
crown, the Tennessee UMP Title and the UMP Fall Nationals in Kentucky to go
along with his early season win at the Longhorn Nationals in Texas. His UMP wins
in 2000 set a record for most wins in a season.
Veteran driver, Jeff
Leka of Buffalo, Illinois finished second to Owens, followed by, Wayne
Brooks Mark Noble, and Ray Walsh.
Click on Fans Top 25 on the home page to view the complete list of drivers in the fan voting for 2000.
2000
FANS FINAL TOP 25
(11/1/00) Here are the final totals for
the Fan voting in the 2000 season. We were able to tabulate votes
six different times during the season on the Top 25 Late Model
drivers in the eleven states we report on. And there were enough
fan votes to tabulate five times on the Fans Top 25 in Open Wheel
Modified.
We do admit the fan votes are mainly
from Illinois and Indiana, but our website is growing each day.
And as visitors looked in from the surrounding states, the
names of drivers from those areas continued to grow.
Check out the choice of the fans and then
click over to our Top 25. On the Late Model drivers we all pretty
well agree. Modified drivers are very different in your choices
and ours, but that’s what makes it interesting.
(Over
1000 fans sent in votes during the 2000 season)
(The
plus sign designates new votes since the previous three totals)
187-BILLY
MOYER, ARKANSAS +8+2+31
135-SCOTT
BLOOMQUIST, TENNESSEE +2+1+4
108-WENDELL
WALLACE, ARKANSAS 0+0+1
80-GARY
WEBB, IOWA 0+2+2
62-DONNIE
MORAN, OHIO 0+0+0
53-DAN
SCHLIEPER, WISCONSIN 0+0+0
41-BILL
FRYE, ARKANSAS 0+0+0
33-TERRY PHILLIPS, MISSOURI 0+0+3