For Buddy Schweibinz, the Mid-Atlantic Sprint Series championship down to the final race. He led by a narrow three-point margin over Troy Betts.
“I had to be on my A game,” said Schweibinz, of Petersburg, New Jersey. “It made [it] enjoyable. I never knew Betts until this season. We had raced side by side all season long, it seemed.”
Prior to entering the IMCA RaceSaver Sprint class, Betts competed mostly in 360 sprints.
“I knew any guy who steps down would be good, and have good equipment,” Schweibinz said of Betts. “From the first race, I saw he is here to win, not to play around.”
Schweibinz won the 2022 and 2023 series championships. He knows what it takes to win a title. Schweibinz could not afford any mishaps if he wanted a third consecutive title.
“I got a good lead midway through the season, and then we had fueling issues for five races,” said Schweibinz. “By time we figured it out, the points between us were really close. We were both up front for the last four races. I had to be on my A game every week at the end of the season. He was definitely on his A game.”
Troy Betts won the second-to-last points-paying race. Buddy Schweibinz finished second.
Going into the final night of the season at New Jersey’s New Egypt Speedway, only three points separated the two. That race Schweibinz won. Betts finished runner-up. Six points separated the two in the end.
“The first year I won the championship with two races to go,” Schweibinz said. “Last year, I won it with one race to go. This year, it was nerve-wracking, especially going out onto the track for the start of the race. In some respects, I’d rather have won the championship that way. It was better than having a stress-free end to the season.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
