{"id":11549,"date":"2013-01-31T12:10:11","date_gmt":"2013-01-31T17:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/?p=11549"},"modified":"2013-02-03T21:50:51","modified_gmt":"2013-02-04T02:50:51","slug":"bear-ridge-speedway-bear-ridge-speedway-drivers-climbing-ladder-system","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/2013\/01\/bear-ridge-speedway-bear-ridge-speedway-drivers-climbing-ladder-system\/","title":{"rendered":"BEAR RIDGE SPEEDWAY: Bear Ridge Speedway Drivers Climbing Ladder System"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"fornwalt_1200\"<\/a><\/p>\n

PHOTO: Teenager Jordan Fornwalt rides a dominant Limited Late Model championship season into his rookie Modified campaign at Bear Ridge Speedway in 2013. (Alan Ward photo)<\/em><\/p>\n

BRADFORD, VT \u2013 Bear Ridge Speedway\u2019s recent growth spurt has not slowed any during the winter off-season. New England\u2019s premier dirt stock car track \u2013 the only track in North America with weekly racing divisions sanctioned by both the prestigious DIRTcar and USAC organizations \u2013 has seen an unprecedented transformation with competitor counts tripling in the last five years. As new drivers and teams join Bear Ridge each year, others progress through the support division ladder system at the track.<\/p>\n

Hometown driver Jordan Fornwalt tops the list of young talent poised to advance in the 2013 season. At just 15 years old, Fornwalt dominated the mid-level A Notch Above Automotive Limited Late Model last summer, winning 13 of 19 feature races and storming to the championship. Fornwalt will call the headline Bond Auto Parts DIRTcar Sportsman Modified division home in 2013 as a Rookie of the Year candidate; he tested the waters of the open-wheel class twice last year and showed impressive speed.<\/p>\n

Danny Doyle of Waitsfield, VT will follow Fornwalt\u2019s lead and jump two levels in 2013. Doyle won six times in 2012 en route to his second Weglarz Property Service Fast Four division championship, and has taken delivery of a car that he\u2019ll chase Rookie of the Year honors with in the track\u2019s iconic Wells River Chevrolet Sportsman Coupe division. Doyle will have a proven path to follow, as Vershire, VT driver Tim Hodge made a similar jump in 2011 and was a two-time Coupe winner last summer. Hodge will climb the ladder in 2013 as he joins Fornwalt as a Modified rookie.<\/p>\n

Fornwalt\u2019s title-winning Limited Late Model car will return to Bear Ridge with another young spitfire at the controls, as 16 year-old Brandon Gray takes over. Gray, whose family has combined for countless wins and championships in the northeast for over 50 years, finished as the Rookie of the Year and championship runner-up in the entry-level KDD NAPA Auto Parts Hornet division in 2012 with a pair of wins. Other freshman drivers are also expected to invade all divisions of the 99ROCK Weekly Racing Series in 2013, including the USAC Dirt Midget Association and the Hornet Queen and Hornet Stinger youth divisions.<\/p>\n

Bear Ridge Speedway\u2019s 46th season of stock car racing begins on Saturday, May 4, 2013. \u201cThe Home of the Coupes,\u201d Bear Ridge Speedway is the Connecticut River Valley\u2019s most family-friendly entertainment spot, located on Kidder Road in Bradford, VT, just off Exit 16 on Interstate 91. For more information or to order Season Passes, visit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PHOTO: Teenager Jordan Fornwalt rides a dominant Limited Late Model championship season into his rookie Modified campaign at Bear Ridge Speedway in 2013. (Alan Ward photo) BRADFORD, VT \u2013 Bear Ridge Speedway\u2019s recent growth spurt has not slowed any during the winter off-season. New England\u2019s premier dirt stock car track \u2013 the only track in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4154,200],"tags":[15804],"class_list":["post-11549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bear-ridge","category-vermont","tag-bear-ridge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newenglandracingnews.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}