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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
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Interrogation
by Gary "Hammerdown" Costa |
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Kaplan Dominates SCRA! Waterford,
Ca…After taking my Busch Series “Napcar” nap, my
7-year-old daughter Kyra, and I ventured down to Hanford to
watch the SCRA 360 sprint car opener at Kings Speedway. After moving approximately 15-times, Kyra
FINNALLY located a
spot that she was able to deal with. She decided that we sit
atop of the bleachers heading into turn 1. OK fine by me babe! Please bear with me in regards to drivers
names, sponsors, chassis makes, bullet builders, etc, etc, and
so on. I could not hear the announcer at times, and at times
he didn’t know who was who. That’s not a shot at him
either. The SCRA gassers and mashers took
qualifying under a beautiful blue sky with pink clouds.
There’s just something about being at the racetrack period,
but when you’re taking all of this in with your daughter who
hangs the moon to begin with, it just makes you realize
what’s most important to you. With a very nice crowd on hand,
16-year-old female rookie Justyne Hamlin wheeled the beautiful
yellow #8 to an impressive mid-15 second lap, and proceeded to
take fast time. According to the announcer, Justyne was 3rd
in the nation in Micro-Midget’s. To my delight, super fan Mike James and
his beautiful fiancée came and sat with us. It’s always a
delight to see “Oak”, who hails from Oakhurst and converse
with such a knowledgeable, devoted fan of our sport. Ahhhhhh yes. The soothing sound of the
360 power plant’s come to life as Heat #1 rolled out. The “Awesome Aussie”, Peter Murphy
brought it all home, but it wasn’t a “gimme” by any
means as New Zealand’s Dean Alexander was WFO running the
cushion, and dogging Peter to the finish. In Heat #2- Jesse Mack broke while
leading. Which left a fight for the win to Davey Pombo and a
super impressive Ryan Kaplan who was wheeling the Rick
Williams owned and wrenched #6. Pombo eventually prevailed and
brought home the 2nd race of the evening. Heat #3- Leading proved to be bad luck in
this heat as well. Steven Williams who was leading also broke.
Daniel Hood and Tony Everhart finished 1st and 2nd
in this one. In the dash, the kid from Chico, Ca.
simply put it to ‘em. Ricky did a superb job setting up the
car, as the track started slickin’ off pretty good. Ryan
kept hitting all of his marks like a seasoned vet. Did I
mention that this was his first race in a sprint car?! Ryan and Ricky kept getting faster as the night went on. It
was absolutely incredible. The SCRA main event was staged on the
straightaway. So Kyra and I took a stroll to go look at the
cars. As we were walking the straightaway past the cars, she
stopped and said, “Daddy, I like that black one”. I told
her that I did too. It was the black Tom Tarlton owned #21
piloted by Peter Murphy. I gave Peter the usual “good luck
mate”, thumbs up. It was pretty cool. Before lining up,
Peter was idling around the track, and he waved at Kyra, she
thought it was the coolest thing. That kind of stuff can bring
tears to a Father’s eyes ya know? Here
I am, kickin’ it with my princess, and one of the coolest
dudes around is acknowledging her….. From the racecar!
Sounds crazy, I know. It’s amazing how just a simple wave
from a driver can mean so much to a child at a track. During the intermission “Oak” and I
were ready to see what “Kap” was going to do in the main.
Mike boldly stated to me, “if you can win in a Midget, you
can win in anything!” Well, that statement soon became fact. When the green flag dropped Richard
Harvey’s SCRA non-winged sprint cars thundered into turn-1.
Kaplan didn’t jack around, and without hesitation got the
elbows up and went to work. There was about a 20-30’ slick
strip on the race track entering turn-1. Ryan was really
cranking her sideways on that slick spot, and just
obliterating the cushion. The track went red on lap-12 as John
Nigel (sp?) flipped hard in turns 1-2. After re-racking them. Pombo would be on
his bumper and when the green waved again, Ryan raised the bar
even higher. He not only did a superb job of getting through
lapped traffic, but just knowing that a tough competitor such
as Davey Pombo was giving it his all behind him he never
stumbled. Ryan Kaplan brought home his first ever sprint car
win, with Davey coming home 2nd. Rusty Carlile finished in the 3rd
spot after a tremendous fight with Peter Murphy who moved up
from his 10th place starting spot to settle for 4th. Ryan Kaplan simply amazed me. It
doesn’t matter if he ran away with it. He still got through
lapped traffic, and he also looked extremely comfortable in
the sprint car. After about 2 laps in on the restarts, the car
really started
working and became a rocket. It got faster and faster with
every lap. If he made a mistake in a corner on entry or exit,
he made sure it didn’t happen again the next lap. If he
threw the front end, he would change his exit or entry. The
kid kept digging, and never gave up. We already knew that Ryan was a good
Midget shoe, but to see the driving display he put on this
evening in a sprint car left me thinking about it the whole
2-hour trip home. It’s not too often that you get to see
something as special as what went down this night in Hanford. I spoke briefly with Ricky on the front
strait after the win, and offered my congratulations and as
always he was his modest self. As a matter of fact, as I was
giving my congrats to him, he gleamed over at Ryan who was
taking pictures and said, ‘Ryan didn’t do too bad either.
This was his first race in a sprint car!’ No Ricky, Ryan didn’t do too bad at
all, and neither did you. Congratulations to you both on the
big win. Check out Ryan Kaplan here; http://www.ryankaplanracing.com Follow the SCRA here; http://www.scra.com Winning tuner Ricky Williams will be
under the wing next week at Placerville’s Civil War race and
2nd place finisher Davey Pombo will be piloting the
David Key Trucking winged sprint car for this weekends Golden
State Challenge double header at Hanford. BCRA Midget driver David Prickett took a
few practice laps in his Midget to give the fans an idea of
what to expect on March 24th, as the BCRA Midgets
will get after it in a companion show with the SCRA sprint
cars. I wish something could be worked out
before this Midget race. The USAC Western States Midgets are
up the road in Bakersfield. This is the kind of thing that
hurts us all. Instead of having a solid head-to-head BCRA vs.
USAC show, we will have diluted fields at both tracks. Nevertheless I will see you at a track
soon! gary_costa1@yahoo.com |
