2014 Sauble Speedway Mini Stock Champion: Billy Schwartzenburg

Heading into the 2014 season, Billy Schwartzenburg was going to do his tour of the tracks, heading to a different venue each week to see whether he could beat the regulars. However, after taking the points lead at Sauble Speedway a couple weeks into the year, the plans changed to Schwartzenburg running the full schedule in hopes of scoring his second Mini Stock Championship.

The pieces would come together for the driver of the No. 86 Spira Fire Protection, Lucas Oil, Guelph Wish Fund, Victim Services, Chetty’s Hot Sauce, Inside Track, Wix Filters, Plastikote, Nuco, Pro Treadz, Erb & Erb Insurance, Artic Ice (Cambridge), Conestoga Roofing, Dave Frank’s Photos, Dominion Sure Seal, Eastside Auto Service, Fleet Image, Gunk, Klotz Auto Repair, Process Group, Race Time Radio, R&R Cycle, Roof Trusses & Components Ltd., Vitaulic and Woseley Mustang as he would win seven of the 10 features en route to scoring the championship.

“Sauble is fun. Different experience,” Schwartzenburg commented this past weekend. “Seven feature wins in 10 races so can’t complain about that. The people up there are great. I wish they had better car counts but overall, I had a good year. I had a lot of fun.”

Over the past three years, Schwartzenburg has been considered as one of the cars to watch in the Mini Stock division as the Spira Racing mustang is always super fast no matter the track that he attends. On top of winning the championship at Sauble this year, he also scored a victory at Sunset Speedway in May and won a couple races at Full Throttle Speedway this season.

With the regular season under his belt, the focus now shifts to the Short Track Playoffs and this weekend’s 35-lap invitational feature at Sunset Speedway as part of Velocity weekend. Schwartzenburg posted a solid third place finish in the 50-lap feature last Thursday night, giving him some momentum heading into the weekend.

“I hope we can get a little more out of the car for Sunset,” he said. “That seems to be the toughest track around right now. Hoping to improve on the third place finish at Velocity, and follow through with the rest of the playoffs.”

Schwartzenburg will be running the full Playoff schedule, which includes Ocktoberfest at Flamboro Speedway, Autumn Colors Classic at Peterborough Speedway and FrostFest at Flamboro.

“Really looking forward to Peterborough. Last year kind of sucked for us – we struggled really badly so hopefully we can do better this year,” Schwartzenburg commented. “Flamboro – I got lots of track time there so it shouldn’t be a problem. Hopefully we can scrap a top three out of that as well.”

One of the interesting things is Frostfest will feature twin 30 lap features, versus doing a straight 35 or 50 lap affair. In asking Schwartzenburg as to which format he prefers, he commented, “I like the 50 lap feature better than the twins 30s. Just cause we don’t get to run a lot of races like that in the Mini Stocks and the twin 30s feels like you’re doing two separate nights.”