The York County Racing Club's Hall of Fame banquet will be held Saturday, Jan. 6, at the Holiday Inn Holidome in West York.

Recently, however, the YCRC had to announce a change in plans for the banquet.

Former NASCAR champion and Daytona 500 winner Benny Parsons was set to make his third appearance as the guest speaker at the banquet. Unfortunately, that won't be happening.

Many folks know that Parsons spent part of this year battling lung cancer. He seemed to have beaten the cancer, and returned to his television commentating job near the end of the NASCAR season. Then, a few weeks ago, he began having problems again. Seems the treatments for the cancer have affected Parsons' health. His doctors recently told him not to do any traveling for about three months. So Parsons was forced to cancel his appearance in York.

Local fans are certainly going to miss seeing Parsons at the YCRC affair, but the hard-working folks at the YCRC have a backup plan. The new guest speaker for the banquet is Midwestern sprint-car legend Jack Hewitt.

Over the years, Hewitt was a big winner with both the All-Stars and USAC. His travels in sprint-car racing even brought him a win at Lincoln Speedway during his long and colorful career.

While Hewitt is no longer racing, he is still a great ambassador for the sport. His speaking ability is legendary, and his racing stories are sure to bring a smile.

PIT STOP
TOP ROOKIES: In the middle of the season I took

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a look at how this season's sprint-car rookies were doing. Now that the season is over, I thought I'd take another look at how the rookies fared this season.

Sometimes it's difficult to define a rookie driver on the local circuit. There are drivers who race occasionally in the 410 sprints while also racing in other racing classes. Most tracks call a driver a rookie if he hasn't raced more than five times at that track in the past. Using that formula, some drivers in their first full season racing sprint cars don't qualify as rookies. That is why some tracks' Rookie-of-the-Year picks don't always seem clear.

In my look at rookies, I will steer clear of drivers who had some prior sprint experience before this year. In my mind, top young drivers such as Michael Carber, Alan Krimes, Blane Heimbach and Cory Haas had enough prior 410 experience not to qualify as rookies.

If one were to use the overall Speed Dawg points, Red Lion's Cody Darrah would get the nod as the top rookie. The 17-year-old, fourth-generation driver ended the season in 34th place.

Darrah's closest challenger was Steve Clabaugh, a former thundercar driver, who finished 40th in the Speed Dawg series. Rookies Scott Geesey and Ryan Bohlke ended tied for 47th, and Cale Grubb was 70th. Those were the only true rookies who scored Speed Dawg points. The Speed Dawg series awards points to the top-10 finishers in each local race.

Bryan Householder covers dirt- track racing for The York Dispatch. He can be reached at sports@yorkdispatch.com.