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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| Western
States Sprint Car Notes by Kerry Fasig |
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October 24, 2004...
Sorry for the long absence but with personal problems at work one
can only do so much. When the USAC Valvoline Western States Sprint
car series race scheduled earlier this year in Las Vegas was
rained out everyone wanted to know when the race would be
rescheduled. I don't know why? just kidding. I think we all know
why, the lights, the food, the fun, the gambling everything to do
after the races are over, you can always find something to do in
Las Vegas to unwind.
So with the season winding down and other series like the USAC Rocky Mountain Series finished for the year some competitors were still up for the 1st of three races left in the Western States Sprint car series season. An open practice session was held Friday evening with quite a
few teams on hand, the only Race morning dawned overcast and it had everyone including race track management hoping it would burn off as we all didn't need a repeat of last time, and sure enough it did bringing bright sunshine all day long. Rocky Mountain Champion Jimmy Waters and Jimmy Wysong made the tow from Salt Lake City and Ted Finkenbinder showed up with 2 cars, Meridian winner Greg Anderson showed up driving the 3F car as he hurt his familiar #2 car two races ago at Stockton. Sparky Howard was trying his hand at pavement racing driving Ted's #3 car. Darren Hagen made his USAC Western States Sprint car series debut in the former Eric Butze car which Eric raced in National series sprint car competition. With as many as 6 cars practicing under the track record of
14:024 set by NASCAR Heat race winners were Brad Bumgarner, Michael Lewis and Tim Barber with Tony Hunt winning the semi main. After qualifying 7th fast Tim Barber in the Pierson #14 looked like he would be starting 7th in the main but when Greg Anderson had problems in the semi and didn't get his time back Barber started on the pole for the 40 lap feature. At the drop of the green flag Tim set a torrid pace but after
only a few laps Michael Lewis had worked his way up to 2nd and he
was applying some serious pressure on the leader. After a mid week stop at Western Speed and Fuel in Fresno for some help straightening out a very ill handling race car Oroville's Destiny Hayes restarted the field for the second half of the race. Destiny withstood numerous attempts to have the lead snatched away by Michael Trimble and then ran the racetrack to perfection to turn Robert Beck away at his try for the lead, and picked up the win being only the 2nd women to win a Western States Sprint car series main event, the first being last year at Madera, Shauna Hogg. So the finishing order was Hayes, Beck, Trimble, Brian McClish and Jimmy Waters who fought back from an early flat tire and made quite a run from the back of the pack to finish 5th. 6th thru 10th were Hunt, Bumgarner, Anthony Simone, Troy Rieger and Chad Ede, rounding out the field were Darren Hagen, Shauna Hogg, Alan Kaiser, Barber, Wysong, Murgoitio, Lewis, Amy Barnes, Sparky Howard and Greg Anderson. So with point leader Lewis having a problem and a 6th place finish for Tony Hunt, Tony leaves Las Vegas with a 21 point lead. The final 2 races of the season will be extremely tough as they both are companion events with the National Midget series and usually the midget guys bring their sprint cars, sometimes adding as many as 8 to 10 cars to the field and boy do they mix it up. I'll keep you up to date on what goes down so you have some insight on the Western States Sprint car series. |
