Motor Sports Weekly News

By: Drew Hierwarter

With all of the major race series in the U.S. on winter break the attention of race fans can turn to some of the lesser known events. One of these is the “Rumble in Fort Wayne” held each year on a tiny 1/6 mile indoor track set up in the Fort Wayne, IN Memorial Coliseum Expo Center. “The Rumble” features a 60 lap main event for United States Auto Club (USAC) midgets and has been won six times in the last nine years by none other than Tony Stewart. This year however, the winner was veteran Lou Cicconi, Jr. who beat Stewart by more than a third of a lap.

“I was so excited, I’ve been thinking about this for a year — beating Tony Stewart.”, said Cicconi, who was still excited more than half an hour after the checkered flag. The 44 year old East Coast USAC star was followed across the finish line by Stewart, Jon Stanbrough, Mike Fedorcak, and Dave Darland in a race that saw only one caution flag on lap twelve.

The Saturday night feature capped two full nights of racing on the indoor track that included quarter midgets, and various classes of go-karts. Tony Stewart was the fast qualifier and won a preliminary feature on Friday night. Stewart, who now owns a NASCAR Sprint Cup team as well as a World of Outlaws, and USAC sprint car and midget teams, confirmed that this would be his only indoor race of the winter. In many previous years he has raced in the annual “Chili Bowl” indoor midget race in Tulsa, Oklahoma, but has said that while he will attend the event, other commitments will keep him out of the driver’s seat.