|
Milum wins Florida Winged Sprints Championship and East Bay Sprints Championship
in 2009
Tom Sherrill
Florida Short Track Report.com
1-31-10
With the first year of racing completed for the Florida Winged Sprints, a true
champion has emerged. Veteran sprint car racer Paulie Milum captured the title in
this series that was dirt sprint cars racing on the asphalt. Milum, who has raced
the dirt tracks of Florida for the past seventeen years,had spent many of those years
being the bridesmaid and had him wondering if a championship season of
sprint car racing would ever come his way. But near the end of the 2008 season a
friend told Milum that 2009 was going to be his year to not only win a
championship - but to win two championship in the same year. Milum was set to
race the dirt, but was also set to race the year with the Florida Winged
Sprints.
With the feeling that his friend had good intentions, Milum found the prediction
to something he could never imagine happening. The season started out strong for
the team with wins coming on the dirt. The asphalt was a step back as it had been
many years since Milum last raced regulalry on the pavement.
The first race for the new club of The Florida Winged Sprints went well for the
team with a second place to start the season. The second race on
the asphalt was not quite the same as Milum could not finish on this night only
but was sitting second in the points. With the third race of
the asphalt series, Milum found victory lane as he ran off on this night to
capture his very first win on asphalt. Now the entire team was fired up and
ready for the championship chase. A third place finish was the result from the
fourth race and was enough to the hunt for the championship alive.
Milum struck gold again for his second feature win of the season and pushed him
into the points lead of the club. He was now on top and not looking back.
With the final race Milum had his work cut out for him and had no room for
error. A third place on the last night was just enough to take the first Florida
Winged Sprint Championship by only three points. This was Milum's first sprint car
championship, But the team still had unfinished business on the dirt. With the
point lead at East Bay Raceway Milum knew he needed to finish well in the last
few dirt races and he did just that. He finished the season at East Bay with the
best victory doughnuts anyone could ever do to bring the crowd to their feet to
end the 2009 season.
For any driver in any class of racing to win a championship is a great
accomplishment and to win two in one year is even better. To win two
championships in the same year and on two different racing surfaces as dirt and
asphalt is a very rare and almost unbelievable year and it all came true for
Paulie Milum as he won two feature on the asphalt and six features on the dirt.
He is the 2009 Florida Winged Sprints and the East Bay Raceway Sprints Champion
and history has been made.
|
|
|
|
