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PERRIS, CA-RIS- Tony Jones added to his points lead by winning his third
USAC/CRA Sprint Car Series feature main event of the year at Perris,
California. He passed Rodney Argo to claim the lead on lap 21 of the 30
lap race. Rip Williams came home third. With this win Tony became the
first repeat winner at the track in 2007 in the series.
Thirty cars were ready for qualifying as the Lucas Oil USAC/CRA Sprint
Car Series returned to Perris for the tenth time in 2007. In the first
nine races there had been nine different winners. Much of the pre-race
interest was focused on Damion Gardner who was back from Indiana for a
rare 2007 apperance. This race was also being recorded on video tape for
future broadcast on the Versus channel.
Jones started off the night right by setting fast time with a 16.656
second mark. Mike Spencer and Cory Kruseman were second and third fastest with 16.692 and 16.812 second laps.
The action headed straight into the ten lap heat races. The first heat
had David Cardey winning wire-to-wire with Tony Jones pressing him hard
at the end while Blake Miller took third from Jimmy Crawford on the ninth lap. The second heat saw R. J. Johnson take the lead from Tony
Everhart on the third lap and go on to win. Mike Spencer came from
seventh place to finish second while Seth Wilson and Scotty Weir came
home third and fourth. The third heat featured a bold move by Cory Kruseman to take the lead from third place on the first lap. Kruseman
looked to be having things his way until his drive shaft broke on the
fifth lap. That left Danny Sheridan in the lead and he went on to win
with Damion Gardner finishing second, Rodney Argo third and Billy Blinn
fourth. The fourth and final heat race went to Josh Ford who took the
lead from J Hicks on the ninth lap. Rip Williams came in second followed
by Hicks and Rickie Gaunt. Gaunt was running on only seven cylinders and
would run the Main event in that condition as well.
Cory Kruseman dominated the twelve lap B main, leading every lap. Tyler
Brown driving the Crossno 97x car came home second with Brian Venard third.
Because of the starting grid inversion Seth Wilson started the feature
on the pole, sharing the front row with Jimmy Crawford. Rodney Argo grabbed the lead away from both of them from his third place starting
position but Blake Miller had taken the lead by lap three. Spencer fell
into line in fourth place but had moved up to second by lap three while
Argo was third and Crawford was fourth.
On the fourth lap Jones was starting to make his move as he took fifth
place from Wilson. Two laps later he was fourth. Kruseman had taken fifth place on lap eight.
On the tenth lap everything changed when Miller had his right rear tire
loose pressure. He bicycled in the third turn and when he did second
place Spencer had no where to go and ended up stopped against the wall.
Miller drove to the work area during the caution period and changed tires while Spencer had his equipment checked out and then returned to
the fight.
At this point the running order at the front was Argo, Jones and
Kruseman. Argo had things his way for awhile, but on lap 14 Jones turned
up the heat and tried to pass Argo. Nothing came of this because Danny
Sheridan blew his engine in a most spectacular way as he went down the
front straight. Oil flames erupted from under the car as it slowed and
spun to a halt at the bottom of turn one.
Only one lap was turned after the restart as Gardner slowed on the track
and pulled into the work area with a reported flat tire. Wilson also
went into the work area at this point and neither car was able to continue. Wilson had broken a torque tube while Gardner reported that he
had “broken a bolt”.
The race was restarted with 15 laps finished. Rickie Gaunt was putting
on a good fight despite his being short a cylinder. He had moved up to
fourth and was giving third place Kruseman a lot of worry. Back in fifth
place Rip Williams was starting to show his cards. On the 21^st lap Jones passed Argo for the lead. While Jones left the field behind
Williams took fourth place from Gaunt on lap 27 and then took third from
Kruseman on lap 28. There was one last caution for Brian Camarillo who
got into the wall in turn four but it made little difference in the race.
Tony Jones won with Rodney Argo second and Rip Williams third. Mike Spencer recovered from his early race incident to finish eighth while
Blake Miller finished eleventh.
The win gives Jones a 143 point advantage in the series points chase
going into the next event which is the July fourth race which will also
be at Perris.
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