Eight of the sport’s top reinsmen will make one last dash for 2011 'bragging rights' among the drivers' colony, as they will face the gate eight times in the $50,000 Harrah’s Chester Driving Challenge this Sunday afternoon
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The winner of the driving contest will receive $15,000, but another big winner will be Operation Warm, a southeastern Pennsylvania philanthropic organization which gives disadvantaged children coats to keep the winter chill away, as all of the competing octet has pledged 10 per cent of the afternoon’s take to the charity.
Points will be awarded based on official order of finish on a 50-25-12-8-5-4-3-2 basis, with 10 points being credited in event of a scratch. The competition races will be Race 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12.
Almost every racing fan, and certainly everybody familiar with the Chester scene, will recognize the eight drivers in the competition: Corey Callahan, Daniel Dube, Yannick Gingras, Andy Miller, David Miller, George Napolitano, Jr., Ron Pierce, and Tim Tetrick. A few numbers which reflect the class of this 'field:' collectively they have won 50,221 races lifetime (averaging over 6,000 a man), with the horses they guided having earned $743,000,000 (about $93M per driver), with $78.7M combined (nearly $10M a driver) coming this year.
According to the morning line, David Miller (who by the way leads this crew with 10,056 driving triumphs) is the most likely to come out on top, with Daniel Dube next in line. But the challenge figures to be a fairly wide-open affair, as six different drivers are slated behind a morning line favourite (David Miller and Dube are the two who have two early picks).
On the racing side, Rockincam looks for his third straight win in Chester’s top $60,000 Open class in Race 10 (a non-championship race). Last week, despite 39-degree temperatures, Rockincam set a personal best for the mile with a 1:49.1 triumph.
First-race post time for the 14-race card at Chester is 12:40 p.m.
(Chester)