Okay, last race of the year - 2003 points championships will be decided and awarded this weekend.

Note - comments posted last night assumed that cars & trucks throw out one race. However, after reviewing the rules again, I realized they do NOT. Motorcycles count their best 6 out of 7 races, quads their best 5 out of 6. But cars & trucks take a total of all 5 events available to them. We've gone back through the points standings to see where that really does leave the championship races...

Class by Class, the battles to watch:

Car/Truck Pros
Class 1000
Eli Yee of San Ysidro CA sits solidly in first place - the only driver in the class to enter and finish 4 events so far, the championship is his even if he doesn't sign in. Well-earned, since he won this class each of those four races.

Class 1100
Jeff Moore of Blythe CA sits in first, though only having run two races this season, the Parker 425 and the only class entrant & finisher in the Vegas to Reno. Even if he doesn't run this weekend, because of the almost double points that were available at the Vegas to Reno, second place Mark Brownell can't close that gap.

Class 1200
There will be a race here - looking at total points as of now, Rick Johnson from Oak Hills CA has a narrow 3 point lead over John Becker from Newhall. However, Alan Hogan fom Columbus MT, Rick Johnson from Barstow and 17-year-old David Scaroni are all within striking range of the championship with a win this weekend.

Class 1400
Kyle Taylor will have this one by a solid margin if he finishes. However, if he does NOT finish and Darren Skilton or Bucky Strunk wins this weekend, that driver will take the championship. In fact, if Taylor does not start or for any reason is DQ-ed, even Jesse Jones could win the season.

Class 1500
Leading what has been one of the largest classes at each showing (19 entrants at the Terrible's Town event), Mark Weyrich makes the haul from Troutdale OR to this last race with a slim 12 point lead. With no DNF's on his record or on that of second place Chuck Hovey, if either DNF's this one, they will effectively hand the championship to the other.

Class 1700
Only one entrant this season, Gonzalo Jimenez at the Baja Mex, it doesn't look like a championship will be awarded. Jimenez isn't expected to enter the Showdown in the Desert.

Class 2000
Kevin Graves of El Cajon has run three races and holds top points for the series.The other four competitors have only run one race each, so Graves should be solid for the year if he choses to race in Vegas.

Class 3000
Carlton Beal III made the haul from Midland Texas for the Vegas to Reno in June; unknown if he plans to come for this final race.

Class 3100
Mike Falkosky appears to have the championship here. However, with only an 18 point lead, a win by John Holmes, Scott Douglas or Nicholash Crouch this weekend and a DNF would change the year end podium.

Class 4100
Hand Mark Stein the check and plaque now. The only driver to finish all four events so far, he sits on a comfortable 40+ points lead. Second place looks to be John Sunderland, again, unless Mike McComas turns spoiler, winning the event, and overtaking Sunderland for second for the season.

Class 5000
Excitement here will be for the event glory only - two drivers have entered one race each so no champion is pending. We'll see if there are any entrants in the Vegas 200.

Class 5100
Same here - six entrants, one race each. These are all locals that ran a race on their own home turf just for fun.

Class 7100
Congratulations to 60 year-young Malcolm Vinje from San Diego - with four entries and four finishes, he sits atop the class points solidly. Miguel Alvarado has entered loyally as well, with only one DNF this season, looks to be a sure thing for runner-up trophy Sunday morning.

Class 7200
Perrienal favorite Larry Roesler doesn't quite have the championship in the bag yet - with a DNF at the Parker 425, he will need the points from the Vegas 200 to beat rival Hector Salazar. This class also has a fair amount of young blood to spoil the points, with 21 year-old drivers Eric Hardin, Jason Jernigan, Shawn Wanzek making good showings at races this year.

Class 7300
Aaron Dixon holds the points series by 20 going into Saturday's race, however, he can't count out Rob MacCachren. MacCachren beat him twice this season, and only stands behind due to a DNF at the Parker 425.

Class 8000
Curt LeDuc is looking at a slim 6 point advantage over Keith Moore. Jim Bosman could even come from third in points to second, if Moore gets no points this race adn Bosman takes a win. Bosman has beat Moore twice, but needs a class win at this point.

Class 8100
Greg Foutz holds a solid points lead with 163 total points, winning 3 of the 4 events so far this season. However, depending on the number of entries, there may be enough points on the table at this race for Randy Merritt to take the championship

Class 9000
Only one entry this year, Howard Goldsmith at the Parker 425, so no championship is pending.

Class 1100
Again, one entrant, one race. Alfonso Castro did run and finish the Baja Mex 300 but is not expected to compete in Vegas.

Class 1500
One race, one entrant - Bruce Farley. He didn't finish the Terrible's 250, however, with another home-town race, he may come out to give it another try

Class 1800
Danny Anderson won the Baja Mex - will he race in Vegas? Only other entrants in this class this year were locals at the Mex race.

Class 2000
Oscar McClure travelled from Moriarty New Mexico to run this class at the Parker 425 - will he come back for another "just for fun" drive?

Class 4100
Mike Brinkerhoff of Queen Creek Arizona drove and finished the Parker 425 as well - does the Vegas 200 call to him?

Class 5000
Vince Wavra finished the grueling Vegas to Reno - the Vegas 200 will be a walk in the park. No sign of him on pre-entry list yet...

Class 8000
Gabriel Arce was the only entrant in this class this year, and has a DNF from Mexico to show for it. Will he give it another shot?

Class 8100
Again, another case of one driver, one race, one DNF. Is Gary Sunderland coming out to play in the sun with us this weekend?

Stay Tuned - a look at more classes within the hour...

Motorcycles

Class 125 Pro
Matt Sales, 17 years old, leads this class. Having entered 4 races this season, he should easily come away with a championship on Sunday night, and probably a win on Saturday.

Class 250 Pro
Gordon Keller has been there for every race except the very first in Parker. While he hasn't been on the podium each time, persistancy will reward him with the 2003 championship. Bryan Folks has finished well in the races he's run to sit in second in points, but did not run the last three races.

Class 4Stk Pro
Christopher Blais from Stanton CA currently holds the points lead in this class, however, Daryl Folks is only a handful of points back. With no DNF's on either's record, they have an equal number of points that would be "thrown out" when calculating the year end standings. So this will come down to Saturday's finish line. Bert Bradford is riding for 3rd on the year end podium even with an event win, but should be solid in that placement.

Over 30 Pro
Jason Weeks has run five events so far, sitting solid in the points for the season, more than 100 points over Tom Willis. Saturday they'll be running for event glory - Willis has finished ahead of Weeks twice already.

Over 40 Pro
This class has only had entrants three times this year - Ross Williams, Tad Goimarac, Matt Shook - Saturday's race will be for day money only.

Open Pro
The 11 entrants in this class this season have regularly put on a great show. Destry Abbott currently sits atop the points, however, Johnny Campbell and Kurt Caselli have each won an event and could take the championship away.

Class 250 Sportsman
Jonathan Martinez, also only 16 years old, is most likely looking at a championship, with any finish points at all. However, with the way racing can go, it is possible for 18 year old Justin Wray to take it away if he does well on Saturday and Martinez does not.

Class 4 Stroke Sportsman
Finally, someone old enough to grow facial hair! Kevin Parsons has a solid lead in points, even with the throw out race, he can afford to sit in the easy chair on Saturday and still come to breakfast Sunday and pick up a Championship. Don't expect him to sit back and watch though - with almost 30 entrants in this class over the year, Parsons won't let those whipper-snappers take it easily!

Class Ironman Sportsman
Troy Walker from Running Springs CA has run this class every event this season, and for that alone he deserves an Ironman award! Sitting atop the points with 239, he'll take the championship, but Saturday's race is still up for grabs. Look for stiff competition from Dan Lorenze, Mike Kay or local favoriate Kirk Stephensen. A side note, more than 60 riders have run this class this season; 50 of those have finished events.

Over 30 Sportsman
Brett Hoffman and Duane Schwab both have a shot at the year end championship, with Schwab coming out on top only once in their meetings this year. However, Schwab is from Henderson, and likely is more familiar with the lake bed area to be raced in the Las Vegas 200.

Over 35 Sportsman
Ron Purvines from Henderson stands atop the points here, and has enough to coast to a championship. With only one race marring a perfect record, a third place finish in the Vegas to Reno, Ron will be wanting to cap off 2003 with a win.

Over 40 Sportsman
Mark Davidge, Kurt Sofka and Dod Heil have less than 20 points seperating them at this point. With no DNF's among them, points at this final race will determine the series champion. No money on the line for Sportsman Classes, so this is definately for bragging rights!

Over 50 Sportsman
Over 50 - are you kidding? These guys are all already heros. However, Glenn Browwn of Adelanto wants to puntuate that with a clean sweep of the year (the only race he didn't win was the Laughlin, and he didn't enter it). He has the championship; what he wants now is a look at that BITD finish line for the 6th time.

Class Open Sportsman
Code Gremel has this one pretty much sewn up. As in other classes, your points leader hasn't won every event of the series, but he has been there for every event, and that dedicated support of BITD and our sport is enough to earn him a championship. Scott Herweg and Randy Tapparo are within just a couple points of each other, and will be fighting it out for the second spot for the year.

Quads

With only two main divisions in Quad for the year-end championship, you are either Pro or Sportsman (Experts and Amateurs individual race entries are both counted as Sportsman for purpose of year end standings. Don't ask me why - never made sense to me why there are 16 divisions of trucks and buggies with less than 10 entries each, 5 motorcycle classes with less than 10 entries, but quads don't rate being broken down in classes when there are 24 Pros lumped together - all age brackets, bikes of 450cc's up to 650. The 27 Sportsman may be their very first race on a 400 or a 5 year veteran on a 700. Here's hoping that the huge growth in interest and entries in the quad divisions finally catches the attention of race promoters and the classifications become a little more fair :-)

Quad Pro
Great competition here. Wayne Matlock, Doug Eichner, Jimmy Stephensen, Allen White are all with 30 points, about what Saturday's win is worth. Only a handful of points back and within podium range as well are Danny Rudd and Steve Beilman. Shaun Moore is the only other rider to enter all 5 races so far, however, a lone DNF at Mexico has bumped him back in the running. At 19, he is certainly giving the big boys a run for their money.

Quad Sportsman
Ed Teixeira sits atop the points, but ORC's Dean Waters and Jeff McBride are less than 10 points back. In only their first season of racing, Waters' team had raced Amateur all season. However, grumblings by another team that wins in the Amateur Division were allowing ORC team to creep up on leaders of the Expert Division, earning points higher than Experts they had actually finished AFTER in events, led BITD to "graduate" them to Expert status mid-year. This way, though they are relative novices to the racing scene, they will be compared more fairly on a per-race basis to the other riders. Made more sense for year-end standing since the two divisions are lumped together to name a single Sportsman Champion based on total points, but rather ridiculous on a race-by-race basis. A huge compliment I guess to be called an Expert when one of your team members is only 13 years old, but also takes out of their hands the opportunity to claim the Amateur Championship they were focussing on for the year. There's not really a fair way to do it either way, by our view, so what can you do. In racing, sometimes you just gotta take the rules the way they are layed out to you.

Lynn Prosser has been running very strong, and if not for an incident in Mexico that left her with 0 points, she would be atop the Sportsman leader board. Even on adjusted points she's out of luck - she didn't enter the Parker 250 so will have to take a 0 for one of the races. Each of the other leaders do have one DNF, so it will take a finish Saturday to get one of the 2 plaques Sunday morning.

*All this said, I could be totally wrong - consult the BITD Points Standings if you have any questions or think I've interpreted it wrong. BITD points are based on a sliding scale that depends on number of entries in each class. So the total points available could change and pull a winner out where we didn't think it could change, or lock out someone that may otherwise have had a chance at it. Best bet will be to just come watch the race, cheer for your favorite, and see how the points shake out. Diane will be up all night Saturday with the calculator flying. Sunday morning will see the checks and plaques handed out, and only THEN will we call it a done deal.

*Pre-entry list
*Define classes
*Ford Money