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See You At The Races!!! |
| USAC Sprints At Las Vegas by Ed Hollowell |
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LAS VEGAS, NV-RIS- It was a big night at the Las Vegas Motor
Speedway dirt track for the USAC/CRA Sprint Car Series. Forty one
car were at the track and forty qualified for the nights racing.
Many of the stars of the USAC National Sprint Car series were out
from the Midwest and using the race as a warmup for the Oval
Nationals at Perris, California which start the following Thursday.
Levi Jones, Dave Darland, Jerry Coons, Jr., Brady Bacon and Robert
Ballou were among the 'visitors' for this race. There was also a
USAC Western States midget race as a support series where none other
than Sammy Swindell was the winner.
All the pieces for a great night of racing were brought in but
one question was on all the racers minds, what would the track be
like? The history of the Las Vegas half mile dirt track has been
very mixed. When it opened it had a well deserved reputation for
being a rough, rutted, sandy and dusty track. It's no longer rough,
but it is still sandy and The drag strip right next door to the dirt track was hosting an NHRA Meet and the start of the dirt track action was delayed until that was largely complete. This meant qualifying wasn't scheduled to start until 6:15 and 'European' style qualifying with five or six cars taking too the track at once was the rule for the night. Robert Ballou set fast time at 20.216 seconds and Damion Gardner second at 20.524 seconds. It was noted that the track was becoming faster as the sessions progressed as it was 'taking rubber' from the tires and improving traction. Veteran drivers Rip Williams and Brad Noffsinger both spun during their early qualifying sessions. It was debatable whether the qualifying change saved much time and from this point on the program was being rushed to get done at a reasonable hour. Heat races were 10 laps with ten or eleven cars per heat with the top four advancing to the feature and the remainder going to the semi. Darren Hagen won the first heat with Rodney Argo, Brady Bacon and Jimmy Crawford following in that order. Fast qualifier Ballou was sixth one position behind Jon Stanbrough. Heat two went to Blake Miller who lead 'wire-to-wire'. In that
second heat Bud Kaeding came to a stop at the start and had to go
the the rear of the field for the restart. That turned out to be a
mistake because on the sixth lap Bud got clipped on his right front
wheel after which the axle broke and he flipped and flew into the
fence. The car was tangled in the fence and remained on end as it
stopped then it broke out into flames from oil on hot exhaust
headers which gave everyone a good scare. Fortunately the flames
stayed away from Kaeding and he was soon out with no major injuries.
From the damage to the car, he should consider himself quite lucky.
Following Miller at the finish was Danny Sheridan, Heat three had an interesting start as Ventura, California's Cory Kruseman split traffic to move from fourth starting position to lead lap one and all of the ten laps to win. Second place went to Kevin Swindell with Dave Darland third and Alan Ballard fourth. Both Jones, Levi and Tony (no relation) missed the transfer from this heat. A new name in the sprint ranks, Michael Trimble won from a third place starting position in a Cory Kruseman owned car. Chris Bonneau was second followed by Bret Mellenberndt and Tim Kaeding. Brad Kuhn, Jerry Coons Jr., Rickie Gaunt and Brad Noffsinger all failed to transfer. Robert Ballou was gridded to start on the pole for the semi but failed to make the start. According to some it was due to a lack of good tires. As was related earlier the track was being hard on tires. Tony Jones lead every lap of the semi which was cut from 12 laps
to ten at the request of the track. The track should have been
pleased as the semi ran without a caution. Eighth drivers
transferred from the race and they were Jones, Rip Williams, Mike
Spencer, Jerry Coons, Jon Stanbrough, Levi Jones, Brad Sweet and
Tyler Brown. Rickie Gaunt and Before the start of the feature it was announced that the distance would be cut to 25 laps from 30. It may have been a good thing as it turned out as tires were going to be a problem and many failed even after the race was cut further to 20 laps. Brady Bacon was on the pole for the start, sharing the front row with Cory Kruseman. Behind Bacon was his teammate Kevin Swindell. Darren Hagen started fifth and Darland was sixth. At the start Kruseman made a run for the lead but it was a bad deal for him as he went tank first into the turn one wall bringing out the caution. Bacon took the lead on the restart and was followed by his teammate Swindell with Hagen in third. Caution came out on the second lap with Damion Gardner, who had been in fifth place stopped in the second turn with a flat tire. Dave Darland was then in fifth and showed that he wanted more as he passed Weir for fourth on the restart. Only two laps later Dave got off line in the fourth turn and fell back to mid field. Tim Kaeding was working hard and had moved up to fourth place while driving in a very wild fashion that got the attention of all the fans. On the seventh lap the race was halted when Tyler Brown flipped during an accident in the fourth turn involving Jimmy Crawford and others. No injury was reported. The race was restarted with six laps down when Hagen took after Swindell and passed him for second on lap seven. Three laps later Swindell's right rear tire went out and he hit the wall at the exit of turn two. The race was restarted and three laps later Bacon lost a rear tire. It was at this point, on lap 13 that the officials announced that the race was being cut to 20 laps. With seven laps remaining Dave Darland was running in eighth
place. Hagen was in front with Levi Jones second and Scotty Weir in
third. Darland began his advance and was in fifth by lap 17. A lap
later he was in third having passed Spencer and Weir on the same
lap. On the final lap Dave took second from Levi Jones. There was
not much doubt about It was past midnight when the program was finished and no one was too upset about the reduction in laps. The USAC/CRA Sprint Car continues with a combined event with the
USAC National Series at Perris Auto Speedway for the 2007 Budweiser
Oval Nationals. The first of three nights of racing starts Thursday,
November 1.
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