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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| JUNE'S
SOUTHWEST REPORT by June Lowitz |
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ASCA Sprint Cars |
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This first column I thought I’d give you a bit of a background on
myself so you can get to know me a bit better.
My name is June Lowitz, and I’m a die hard race fan. I’m 38 yrs old and separated at this time. I’ve been involved in racing for most of my life as my father was a crew chief on a USRC Midget. I grew up going to old race tracks in California such as El Toro Speedway, Corona Raceway, Chula Vista Speedway, Speedway 605, Craig Road Speedway (in Las Vegas), and I’m sure others I’ve forgotten. My father got out of racing when I was about 8 or 9 yrs. old and when I turned 16, I felt the racing bug bite me again, so I took myself to the CRA sprint car races. I haven’t quit racing again. The racing bug bit me hard and I don’t ever see myself not going to a race. My passion is open wheel racing; preferably non-winged Sprint Cars, but I will go and watch just about anything. I’ve been involved with Late Models and Hobby Stocks and I learned about IMCA Modifieds. When I was married, my ex husband and I were heavily involved in CRA and SCRA racing. We have helped out a few drivers, but we were involved with Gardner Motorsports the longest and that’s where I have some of my best memories. Thanks to my involvement in Gardner Motorsports, I learned a lot about what it takes to put a sprint car on the track. They taught me a lot about racing, race cars, how important set-up’s are and different things like that. The team had a few drivers, but the most recent drivers were Troy Rutherford and my longtime friend and one of my all time favorites, “Super” Rickie Gaunt. I have watched Rickie race since he first started at Ascot back in the late 80’s, so I consider him a friend too. Now, you are probably wondering, what does all of this have to do with ASCA? I just wanted to introduce myself and to let you know that basically, I’m just a fan who’s trying to give the ASCA boys more exposure. You’ve probably seen my postings on the message board, and yes at times I can be very opinionated. I will try to keep personal opinions to myself and talk about what happened on the track. Please feel free to email me and let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions to what I’m doing. Tell me if I'm totally doing terrible so I know to just give it up, that I’m not a column writer ok? I have to take the time to thank Lance Jennings for giving me the chance to do this. I can’t say enough about what a great person Lance is. Lance and Lori and Mom put so much time and effort into this website, I feel honored to be a part of it. My hat’s off to the Jennings’ for what they have done. Ok.... Now about Saturday night, 3/15/2003 and the ASCA racing. The weather was perfect when I got to the track; about 75 degrees with a slight breeze that made me wonder will the track hold up all night. There were 3 divisions running and 84 cars total showed up. The Dwarfs and Mini Sprints put on a pretty good show, but their racing did take its toll on the track by the time the Sprint Main pushed off. For the first race of the season, I have to say there were some awesome looking paint jobs on the cars. They all looked great, but the ones that really caught my eye were #12 Jeff Henry and his day glow orange and blue with white. What an eye catcher and he was easy to spot on the track all night. Car # 99, Shon Deskins also looked awesome with his dayglo orange and blue. Bob Ream, Jr's paint job of the orange with the purple down the center looked hot as well. But I think the one that really caught my eye and a lot of the crowd where I was sitting was #78, Chris Bonneau’s red with the yellow lightning bolts on the side. These cars were easy to spot all night and my hat off to the one’s who chose the paint job. One thing that I noticed that ASCA does in their hot laps that I’ve never seen at any other track was to have the cars line up 3 abreast to get all the grooves worked in. I saw that and wondered what the heck is going on? A parade lap this early in the night? Then Windy McDonald, Manzy’s faithful announcer said they were doing this to get all the grooves worked in. My thought was hmmmmmm... wonder if it works? The first race night had 4 rookies show up. #15, the 15 yr old sensation R.J. Johnson, #95 Justin Fisher (I heard he was 16 yrs old), #28 Mike Keumper and 25 Jesse Dunham. All 4 rookies seemed to have been to lots of practices because they sure didn’t look like rookies. They were really smooth and a pleasure to watch. All 4 seemed to use common sense and use their heads while driving. Not something you tend to see in most rookies. I felt sorry for 2002 ASCA Champion Eric Wilkins as his motor sucked a valve, according to Windy McDonald. Wilkins hot lapped but was unable to continue racing that night. I’m sure not the way he wanted to start out his 2003 racing season. Here’s the results that I got from Sat night. Now, if there were any penalties imposed after 12 midnight, I don’t have the right results as I left at midnight and these were the results posted. Trophy Dash: 1. 17 Josh Pelkey, 2. 2 Bob Ream, Jr., 3. 12 Jeff Henry, 4. 27 Marty Miller (DNF) 1st Heat: 1. 2 Bob Ream, Jr., 2. 22 John Gaston, 3. 78 Chris Bonneau, 4. 18 Terry Belcher, Jr., 5. 52 Joey Moriarty, 6. 25 Jesse Dunham, 7. 91 Jason Sutphen, 8. 7K Mark Descovick (DNF) 2nd Heat: 1. 77 Charlie Davis, Jr., 2. 44 Ben Gregg, 3. 12 Jeff Henry (DNF) Bernie Smith spun in turn 4 and was hit by 79 Jimmy Norman and 2A Tony Smiley. Tony Smiley had a flat right rear, his crew was able to change it and get him back out for the restart and on the 1st lap after the green, he and 91az Paul Norbury got hooked together and both pulled off the track. 3rd Heat: 1. 97 Brandon Lane, 2. 17 Josh Pelkey, 3. 51 Ricky Johnson, 4. 98 Jeremy Sherman, 5. 95 Justin Fisher, 6. 21 Jay Ervine 4th Heat: 1. 27 Marty Miller, 2. 01 Kaylene Verville, 3. 99 Shon Deskins, 4. 57 Mike Martin, 5. 15 R.J. Johnson Semi Main or B Main: 1. 95 Justin Fisher (yes the rookie!), 2. 15 R.J. Johnson (yes the 15 yr old!), 3. 21 Jay Ervine, 4. 14 Bernie Smith, 5. 2A Tony Smiley, 6. 91AZ Paul Norbury, 7. 91 Jason Sutphen, 8. 28 Mike Keumper, 9. 25 Jesse Dunham Side note here: as 91 Jason Sutphen pulled into the pits, his car was on fire. The firemen were chasing down his car; he pulled into his pit area only to have his crew start pushing his car out of the pit. Jason flew out over the top of the roll cage and was reported to be ok. Main Event: 1. 27 Marty Miller, 2. 51 Ricky Johnson, 3. 97 Brandon Lane, 4. 98 Jeremy Sherman, 5. 01 Kaylene Verville, 6. 17 Josh Pelkey, 7. 14 Bernie Smith, 8. 57 Mike Martin, 9. 44 Ben Gregg, 10. 61AZBugs Norbury, 11. 15 R.J. Johnson, 12. 21 Jay Ervine, 13. 2 Bob Ream, Jr., 14. 77 Charles Davis, Jr., 15. 79 Jimmy Norman, 16. 99 Shon Deskins, 17. 78 Chris Bonneau, 18. 22 John Gaston, 19. 95 Justin Fisher, 20. 18 Terry Belcher (disqualified for unknown reason) Marty Miller led wire to wire except for one lap when Rick Johnson got around him for about a half lap. It was an awesome finish. I was bummed out when fan favorites Charles Davis, Jr. and Bob Ream, Jr got together on the back straight and both spun out. There is more to this story, however, from what I heard, the officials deemed this incident a “racin deal” and there were no fines or anything. I did see from the grandstands that Charles seemed to be very upset and walked over to Bob’s car while Bob was still strapped in the car. Being the professionals they both are, I’m sure both will forget this incident and move on. I thought sure there would be more wrecked equipment and more spins and flips but to my surprise there was only 1 flip during the night by Chris Bonneau. Bonneau didn’t seem to hurt the car too bad. Thanks to Manzanita Speedway and ASCA for putting on such a great show. I really enjoyed my first time going to an ASCA sanctioned race and I am sure I will enjoy it in the future. Please let me know what you think of this column. What you want to see and don’t want to see. And if ya don’t like it, I can take the heat too. I also have to give special thanks to Bob Ream Jr, for making sure I got the schedule for ASCA. See ya next time @ Manzy........ June :) |
