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| HammerDown Report by Bobby Gerould |
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Barber cuts to
Stockton 99 USAC Western Sprint Car win. |
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August 27, 2005 – Stockton, CA. … Stockton 99 Speedway played host Saturday night to the first ever co-sanctioned USAC Western / CASA Sprint Car event. The hot night of racing was leg two of the Stockton Sprint Car Triple Crown. At the checkered flag, on the quarter-mile paved oval, Tim Barber of San Francisco won the 50-lap feature convincingly driving for Ken Pierson. “The car was a dream to drive”, said Barber in the winner’s circle. The win placed Barber in the top ten all-time on the USAC Western Sprint Car feature winner’s list. His fourth career triumph tied him for ninth with former Pierson pilot Kevin Urton, Todd Ellison and Tony Stewart. Without a full moon in the sky, two incidents took a toll of more than one hour of downtime. First a race fan in the grandstand felt an irregular heartbeat and needed the services of the track paramedics. A near half-hour delay was the result. Then, during the feature, 2004 USAC Western Sprint Car champion Tony Hunt crashed hard after his #94 suffered a stuck throttle. The crash that Hunt walked away from took down portions of the turn two fencing, and wiring for the track’s safety lights. Hunt’s sprinter walloped into the turn one fence before climbing it, and skidding along the top of the wall. The red flag period lasted nearly 35 minutes as track crews made repairs to the turn two crash wall. The race started with Brian McClish, the winner of leg one of the Triple Crown June 25th, stopping on the front chute. A complete restart was called for but McClish had to re-start at the rear of the 22-car field. Redmond, Washington’s Robert Beck led the opening ten laps after sitting on the pole. Nick Rescino Jr., who started third, was chasing down Beck when he dove low in turn three in an attempted pass of the leader. The attempt fell short and Rescino’s #11 rode up the left rear side of Beck’s sprinter. The resulting spin by both cars sent them to the tail for the restart. Barber inherited the lead and never looked back. Michael Trimble made a low pass of Brad Bumgarner on lap ten in turn three to put himself into the top-five. On lap 12 Hunt passed 1998 USAC Western Sprint Car champion Jeff Gardner for third place. Trimble moved Gardner back one more spot with a lap 14 move, moments prior to the Hunt crash. After the delay with 36 laps remaining the running order for the restart was Barber, Kody Swanson, Trimble, Gardner, Bumgarner, Matt DeMartini, Cody Veenstra, Brian Geiszler, Destiney Hays, and Chris Petersen. Bumgarner was bumped out of fifth on lap 29 by Veenstra. The caution flag sent Bumgarner to the rear. On the re-start Trimble dove low to pass Swanson for second. By lap 41 of 50 – Barber opened up a half straightaway lead. The eventual winner made a daring ‘thread-the-needle’ pass of two lappers at the completion of lap 47 to seal the deal. The finish showed a top ten of Barber, Trimble, Gardner, Swanson, Veenstra, Geiszler, Nick Green, Beck, McClish, and Hays. Green started 19th in his first USAC event. He earned the Weld Racing Hard Charger Award for passing 12 cars. The rookie 18 year-old is the son of former NARC, Golden State, and Knoxville Raceway champion Tim Green. 27 cars were in the pits. Hunt out-qualified the field with a 13.328 clocking. Hunt, Shauna Hogg, Barber, and Mike Murgoitio were heat race winners. DeMartini won the Last Chance Race. The next action for the USAC Western Sprint Car Series is set for September 5th at Rocky Mountain Raceways in Salt Lake City, UT. VALVOLINE USAC WESTERN SPRINT CAR SERIES RACE
RESULTS: QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Tony Hunt, 94, Kaiser-13.328; 2. Jeff Gardner, 51, Gardner-13.348; 3. Tim Barber, 14, Pierson-13.405; 4. Nick Rescino Jr., 11, Rescino-13.468; 5. Kody Swanson, 75, Swanson-13.511; 6. Robert Beck, 3, Beck-13.513; 7. Brian McClish, 04, McClish-13.529; 8. Brad Bumgarner, 88, Bumgarner-13.608; 9. Matt DeMartini, 6, DeMartini-13.613; 10. Cody Veenstra, 07, Veenstra-13.615; 11. Michael Trimble, 15, CTR-13.633; 12. Mike Murgoitio, 80, Murgoitio-13.652; 13. Brian Geiszler, 44, Geiszler-13.684; 14. Destiney Hays, 28, Hays-13.711; 15. Trevor Cummins, 17, Cummins-13.803; 16. Chris Peterson, 18, Petersen-13.844; 17. Jessica Helberg, 4, Helberg-13.942; 18. Shauna Hogg, 5, Hogg-13.991; 19. Ivan Worden, 63, Worden-14.029; 20. Nick Green, 14x, Green-14.076; 21. Tony Iacobitti, 71, Iacobitti-14.078; 22. Ryan Baumgarten, 24, Baumgarten-14.083; 23. Glenn Hopper, 61, Hopper-14.323; 24. Marvin Mitchell, 68, Mitchell-14.417; 25. Anthony Simone, 10, Simone-14.472; 26. Scott Clough, 5x, McCreary-14.666; 27. Joe Hauck, 99, Hauck-14.867. FIRST HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Hunt, 2. Swanson, 3. Helberg, 4. Geiszler, 5. Iacobitti, 6. Clough, 7. DeMartini. NT SECOND HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Hogg, 2. Veenstra, 3. Gardner, 4. Hays, 5. Beck, 6. Baumgarten, 7. Hauck. NT THIRD HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Barber, 2. McClish, 3. Trimble, 4. Hopper, 5. Worden, 6. Cummins. NT FOURTH HEAT: (8 laps) 1. Murgoitio, 2. Green, 3. Rescino, 4. Bumgarner, 5. Simone, 6. Peterson. NT SEMI: (15 laps) 1. DeMartini, 2. Beck, 3. Peterson, 4. Worden, 5. Bumgarten, 6. Iacobitti, 7. Clough, 8. Simone, 9. Hauck. NT FEATURE: (50 laps) 1. Tim Barber, 2. Michael
Trimble, 3. Jeff Gardner, 4. Kody Swanson, 5. Cody Veenstra, 6.
Brian Geiszler, 7. Nick Green, 8. Robert Beck, 9 Brian McClish, 10.
Destiney Hays, 11. Chris Peterson, 12. Brad Bumgarner, 13. Mike
Murgoitio, 14. Tony Iacobitti, 15. Jessica Helberg, 16. Shauna Hogg,
17. Matt DeMartini, 18. Ryan Bumgarten, 19. Ivan Worden, 20. Glenn
Hopper, 21. Tony Hunt, 22. Nick Rescino Jr. NT FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-10 Beck, Laps 11-50 Barber. NEW USAC WESTERN SPRINT CAR STANDINGS: 1-Swanson-470; 2-Hunt-425; 3-Barber-421; 4-Murgoitio-414; 5-McClish-365; 6-Trimble-363; 7-Veenstra-359; 8-Bumgarner-326; 9-Peterson-275; 10-Hogg-261. NEXT USAC WESTERN SPRINT CAR RACE: September 5 – Salt Lake City,Utah – Rocky Mountain Raceways |
