Not too many years ago, a ticket to the Anderson 400 was considered one of the hottest tickets in motor sports by Stock Car Racing magazine.

That was in the days when the former American Speed Association national tour would make an annual visit to Anderson Speedway with some of the biggest names in short track racing on hand, including Mark Martin, Rusty Wallace, Jimmie Johnson, Bob Senneker and Mike Eddy.

Saturday, the Champion Racing Association will bring two divisions to Anderson Speedway for a modified format of the race. The CRA Street Stocks will compete in a 100-lap feature followed by a 300-lap event for the CRA late models.

Defending champion John Van Doorn is entered for the $5,000-to-win late model feature along with former winners Bull Baker and Jeff Lane. Van Doorn is coming off a victory last Friday at Toledo Speedway.

As of Tuesday, 21 teams were entered for the Anderson 300, including current points leader Scott Hantz, Illinois driver Boris Jurkovic, Rick Turner, Zach Taylor, Aaron Pierce, Kenny Tweedy and Brian Rievley, who always runs strong at Anderson Speedway.

There will be a 10-minute break at the 150-lap mark for teams to make adjustments to the cars, change tires and refuel.

The Anderson 300 is one of the toughest races on the CRA schedule because of the tight racing around the quarter-mile banked bullring.

The leaders are running among lapped traffic early in the race, and the drivers have to display a lot of patience during the race to remain in contention for a victory.

Former ASA standout Scott Hansen always used the strategy of just staying out of trouble for the first 75 percent of the race and then running hard for the final 100 laps.

Tickets for the Anderson 400 are priced at $12 in advance and $15 on race day.

It’s always hard to predict a winner in the late model race but I’m guessing that Hantz will pick up the victory in close competition with Lane, Van Doorn and Jurkovic. My long shot pick is rookie-of-the-year contender Taylor.

In other racing news: With just a few races remaining until the Chase for the Sprint Cup championship, the two hottest drivers on the circuit are Carl Edwards and Jimmie Johnson.

Johnson has not finished outside of the top three in the past three races and could easily have recorded wins at Chicagoland, Indianapolis Motor Speedway and Pocono.

Edwards has a win and a second over the past two events, finished 32nd at Chicagoland, but recorded a runner-up showing at Daytona. Points leader Kyle Busch, coming off back-to-back wins at Daytona and Chicagoland, finished 15th at Indy and 36th at Pocono, but would have recorded a top-five finish last weekend except for making a late stop for fuel.

With the Sprint Cup teams heading to Watkins Glen this weekend, I expect Jeff Gordon to record his first victory of the season.