With the 2019 racing season coming to an end for the winter months, the Zimmer Service Center United Late Model Series (ULMS) will be putting together a very aggressive 20th anniversary season schedule that will see the series split into two regions for the very first time.
ULMS Series owner, Chris Zuver, commented on the new two regions; “In the past few years we have tried to stretch our boundaries hoping to attract new teams from outside our normal region to follow the series. What we have seen is that some racers are no longer willing to travel more than a few hours for a regional series. There are many racers who want to follow us, but the southern / eastern teams don’t want to travel four hours to Eriez or Genesee and the northern teams do not want to travel that same distance to Williams Grove or Port Royal.”
“One of our major focuses in conducting our series has been to cultivate good relationships with all of our participating tracks, operators, and racers. Many have stated they want to follow our program but traveling long distances has prohibited them from competing full time with ULMS.”
For the 2020 season, which will also mark the 20th anniversary season for the Zimmer Service Center United Late Model Series, we will be split into a northern and southern region which will feature two separate point funds. Both regions expect to have approximately 15 events on the 2020 schedule.
Currently, the 2020 season opener will be Friday, March 20th and March 21st, 2020 at Williams Grove Speedway in Mechanicsburg, PA and Port Royal Speedway in Port Royal, PA. This will be opening weekend for the ULMS Southern Region. Rick Eckert won the ULMS event last March at Williams Grove as it was the series first ever visit to the legendary central PA oval. Jason Covert, Michael Norris and Max Blair won the three ULMS events at Port Royal this past season.
At the present time, Freedom Motorsports Park will be hosting the ULMS Northern Region season opener on Friday, May 22nd, 2020 (Memorial Day weekend) with the annual Ron Baker Memorial.
”With two regions, we expect to see even bigger car counts in both regions as teams won’t have to travel long distances to follow our program and the racers will still be eligible for a nice point fund,” stated Zuver. “There is a possibility of having two different champions with the two regions or one driver could win both region championships.”
A change in the scoring procedures for the 2020 season will see all positions being scored with the last completed green flag lap. “We had a few instances this past season where the scoring wasn’t consistent and I take full responsibility for that. Unfortunately, these incidents included counting the lap when the leader had already crossed the line and many times the rest of the field was scored racing back to the line, which is not how the series wanted the lap to be scored,” stated Zuver. This isn’t the track’s fault; it was miscommunication or bad communication between me and the scorer at different events this season. Instituting this simple rule of the last completed lap will take away any chance of error,” commented Zuver.
Additional news and information regarding the 20th Anniversary season in 2020 will be forthcoming over the winter months during the off season. Don’t forget to follow ULMS on Twitter and Facebook along with the website at www.ulmsracing.com.