TUCSON, Ariz. Recapping the 10th annual Keyser Manufacturing Wild West Shootout at USA Raceway with a list of superlatives from six unsanctioned miniseries events at the 3/8-mile oval (complete Tucson coverage):

Best driver: Who else? Miniseries champ Jonathan Davenport (pictured) of Blairsville, Ga., the Lucas Oil Late Model Dirt Series champion who won three of six races and never finished worse than fifth. He totalled nearly $28,000 in earnings as the driver to watch every single night.

Best MORE

I always get a chuckle when one of my dirt racing colleagues regales me with the best feature race he ever witnessed.

When this trackside veteran first began to tell me one of his favorite racing memories, I expected a thrilling World 100, a last-lap pass at Hagerstown Speedway or perhaps a Florida Speedweeks race with Scott Bloomquist and Billy Moyer dueling in the final laps.

Instead, he waxed poetic about a 20-lap, three-car street stock race at a popular Tennessee track where the third-place MORE

I love dates.

No, not the dried fruit, but the four-digit numbers that mark important years in history. I love remembering them. I love guessing the year of a song or a movie. I love knowing the years of Kentucky Derby winners and presidential elections and 100-meter champions at the Olympics. I simply love dates.

I know, I know, a million educational studies have shown that rote memory — like recalling names and dates — isn’t the best way to learn something. But dates are important in MORE