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2013 Trophy Cup Offers Change
by Ron Rodda
For the last couple of years, Trophy Cup founder, Dave Pusateri, planned on making next year’s Trophy Cup the last one. He wanted the event to complete its 20-year run in a big way by offering $50,000 to the event champion. The plan changed at this year’s very successful three-day run at Tulare Thunderbowl when family members urged Dave to keep the event going.
With input from family and friends. Dave changed his thinking and the Trophy Cup will continue beyond the October 17-19, 2013 event in Tulare. While the founder will still be involved in an advisory capacity, it will be family members who will do the majority of the planning. Several changes will occur; two involving offering substantially more money to the drivers, and an another change will be to the format.
With the event continuing beyond next year, a change to the winged payout will still pay much more than this year, but spread the additional cash among more drivers. The 2013 Cup champion will be guaranteed $25,000 in total earnings, up $5000 from this year. The money that would have bumped the winner’s share to the originally planned $50,000 will instead be spread throughout the point fund.
The point fund payout is substantially higher next year with 2nd in points earning $8,000 compared to this year’s $5,000. Finishing 3rd in points will be $7,000 instead of the $4,000 this year, and 4th will be $2,500 more, up to $5,500 from $3,000. Making the Saturday A main will guarantee $1,600 from the point fund with all spots from 2nd through 24th having money from the racing purse added on.
The total point fund payout for 2013 is set at $90,500. Since the 24 drivers who share the point fund will be the 24 that make the Saturday A main, adding in the racing purse makes a total of $105,250 to be awarded to those two dozen drivers. The total for racing purse and point fund for the two days of winged 360 sprint racing is approximately $127,000, making it by far the highest paying Trophy Cup ever.
As if that was not enough for financial news, the Thursday nonwing event will have a huge jump in total purse. The inaugural Thursday race this year offered $21,000 total for racing purse and point fund. That amount will jump to $35,000 in 2013 to raise the three day total payout to approximately $162,000.
A very significant format change will see qualifying points still award 150 for fast time, but instead of a one point drop per position it will be a half point. This change makes it possible for a driver that has difficulty during qualifying to still contend for the Cup title. A tighter point battle among more drivers is expected to be the result of the scoring change.
Using this year’s results as an example, Jason Meyers would come out 2 ½ points better with the new qualifying chart and his 14 point winning margin increases to 15 ½. However Kyle Hirst would finish 2nd in points, up from 3rd this year, and Shane Stewart would tie with Rico Abreu for 3rd. Stewart would get the spot due to a faster qualifying time. One change in the top 5 order would result but the point gap between drivers becomes much smaller with the new half point drop.
October 17-19, 2013 at Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway the biggest Trophy Cup ever will take place. While, luckily, the 20th annual will not be the last, it will offer more money than ever. Between the purse and unique format, the Trophy Cup will continue to be a can’t miss race.
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