|
Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| June's Southwest Report by June Lowitz |
|
|
|
ASCA Sprints |
|
March 12, 2005- It was an eventful, busy and exhausting Saturday for me.
The first race of the ASCA racing season was tonight.
Finally after months of methanol withdrawal, I could finally get
my fix. I did cheat though, I went to the USAC/CRA race on
1/20/05 at Manzanita and the 2/5/05 race at Perris Auto
Speedway. It didn't feel the same to me because it wasn't
"my boys" in ASCA racing.
I have to say for my racing buddy Sandra and myself, it was a
challenge to make the race. For some unknown reason,
Sandra decided that we would move into our new apartment on race
day. Sandra and I decided that why should we pay for 2
separate apartments when we hang out together and work together
when we could save ourselves a nice chunk of change by becoming
roommates. Moving meant finding pickups and muscles to
help move us. I have to say a special THANK YOU to one of
our racing buddies, Todd, who generously and graciously helped
us with the move. Of course, in order for Todd to help, we
had to promise we would be done in time to make the race, which
wasn't a problem. We had some of Sandra's friends helping
us, Jason and Molly, who will be coming to a race in the near
future and my neighbor Eric. We plan on turning our non
racing helpers into race fans soon. I can't say
"THANK YOU" enough to everyone for their help.
After getting all of our stuff into the apartment and cleaning
up, we were off to the track. We managed to get Molly to
come out to the track with us with promises from Jason and Eric
to join us at another time. I have to say Thanks to the
management at Manzanita for not raising prices for admission
into the track. We met up with Todd at the track and then
headed for our usual section, the blue wooden bleachers in turn
one. It felt good to look out into the pit area and see
all of the new paint schemes and cars. It was a great
showing for ASCA as there were 34 cars there.
The night started out late. ASCA was adopting a new format
with trying out qualifying for the first time. They also
had a new scoring system as they now run transponders on their
cars. The track was good and wet and took awhile to come
in. Watching this and knowing that a heavy track to start
qualifying means the guys who drew low numbers were going to
have a tough time. Qualifying was exciting as the new one
lap track record for ASCA on the 3/8 mile is 14.893. Most
would think that would have been set by "The Sherminator"
Jeremy Sherman, but it wasn't. Congratulations to Josh
Pelkey and the crew of the 52 car for having a fast smooth car.
If I counted correctly there were four rookies on the track last
night, Thomas Ogle, Drew Stark, Michael Mundy and Johnny
Williams, Jr. I feel that ASCA could learn how to have
qualifying go faster by watching USAC/CRA and how they do it.
Instead of giving the cars one complete warm up lap and then
giving them the green flag to start qualifying, why don't they
do like USAC/CRA does and give them the green flag when they
first come out of turn four? Also, push out the next car
in line when the first car is still qualifying. It would
save some time and help speed up qualifying. Personally
speaking, I like the old format of drawing a pill for the
starting position. It has worked for many years for ASCA
and I'm not sure why they are trying this new format. One
good thing was that I could hear all of the times when Windy
announced them and I appreciate Manzy for making the sound
system work so well.
After qualifying we had to wait and let the IMCA modifieds run.
I completely understand why we run 2 divisions on a race night,
but why can't we run another open wheel division? Midgets
or Mini Sprints would be a better combination with the Sprints
rather than Modifieds. Oh well, that's just my two cents
worth and we all know what two cents can buy in this day and
age.
Heat race wins went to Chuck Buckman in the #61az Arizona
RaceMart car; #57 Mike Martin, #21 Jay Ervine and #77 Jeremy
Sherman.
Hard luck of the night had to go out to "The Bullet"
Bob Ream, Jr. He raced in Heat #1 and broke a radius rod.
The #8 BRaT Racing, Parker Store sponsored team was able to fix
the radius rod, but he finished 5th in his heat which put him in
the Semi Main. He looked to have a transfer spot until the
last lap where #14 Bernie "The Bern Dog" Smith nipped
him at the line. It was a shock to me not to see The
Bullet in the main. I'm sure the BRaT Racing team won't
let that happen again and will have Bob ready for the next race.
Jeff Henry, in the #12 ABC Motorsports car had a rough night as
well. Jeff was involved in a lap one incident in the
Semi-Main and was able to restart but didn't finish in a
transfer spot. I have to say that the ABC Motorsports car
seems to be continually one of the best looking cars in ASCA.
With the bright color and graphics you can always find it on the
track. Another nice looking paint job is the one Jay
Ervine has. I really liked the flames on his car and the
red and white looks great. All in all, I have to say that
after watching a lot of sprint car racing in my life, the ASCA
as a whole has some of the best looking cars around.
Main Event time and we are running late. By this time,
bleacher butt has set into my already stiffening and sore body
and I'm ready to get the show on the road. Thankfully the
powers that be decided to push the cars off from the staging
area rather than the front straight. The way this night
had gone, I knew it was a Sherminator night. Jeremy was
just too good. Todd tried to get me to bet against Jeremy
but I knew better. I might have gotten into a bet trying
to guess how many laps it would take Jeremy to grab the lead.
I don't know if I would have won a bet like that, but I know
that I was close in my mental guess. I was thinking he
would take the lead by lap 5 and I was off by one lap.
Jeremy took the lead from Bobby Boone on lap 3 and never looked
back. At one time Jeremy had something like a 7 second
lead over second place but the yellow came out. Jeremy was
never able to get a lead like that again as the yellows and/or
reds kept coming out. There was heavy attrition as only 9
cars out of 20 finished the race. Great night for the
repair shops, bad night for the ones footing the bill.
Jeremy won the race, "Jeremy Style" as I call it.
He could go anywhere on the track and pass when he needed to.
My hat is off to the Fred Bryan crew. They had the car set
up perfect on a not so perfect night.
The management decided to run the Modified feature after the
Sprint feature and due to being so exhausted and sore, we
decided to skip the pits and just go home. As bad as we
wanted to go say hi to everyone, we decided that we needed to
get home and rest our weary bodies as we still have the
unpacking to do from our move.
One thing I did notice was that Bugs and Paul Norbury were
missing from the race as was Bruce St. James. I haven't
heard why they weren't there but I hope all is well with them
and I hope to see them out soon.
Next weekend is the USAC/CRA weekend with the running of the
Sokola Classic. I plan on being there and having fun.
We will be celebrating Sandra's birthday on Friday night along
with a few other things. Plan on going as the race is
going to be great. Dave Darland, driving the Dwight Cheney
#42 car will be back trying to make it 2 for 2 at Manzanita.
Challenging him will be Cory Kruseman in the Glen Crossno #38,
Mike Kirby in the Alexander Racing #4, Damion Gardner in the
Chaffin #50 and the rest of the USAC/CRA gang. I can't
wait to see the race as I'm bringing a group with me.
Sandra's friends as well as my boss from work will be in our
usual spot as well as many others. If you have a chance
come on by and say hi.
Remember this, our racing depends on the fans. I am
issuing the same challenge to everyone I did last year.
Bring someone new out to the track. Make a new fan out of
your neighbor or friend or co worker. I am and I did.
Can you meet the challenge??????
Special thanks again to Todd, Jason, Eric and Molly for helping
us move and make it to the race. Great job Jeremy!!!
I'll see you all next week at Manzy. If you have any
thoughts or questions, feel free to email me at ASCAJune@aol.com.
|
