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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
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SIERRA SERENADE by Norm Bogan |
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Experiencing a new venue is always an exciting adventure. American Valley Speedway in Quincy, California was a first for my racing buddy, Carey Davis and me. The trip to the track is worth the outing. Leaving the Sacramento area, meandering through tomato fields and rice paddies, the crops turned to walnuts, almonds and kiwi fruit. Soon we approached the Oroville Reservoir, headwaters of the massive California Water System. Shortly after passing Oroville, we were traversing the famed Feather River Canyon, entering a scenic drive of about seventy miles, climbing into the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and looking down into the river gorge. Sharing this canyon with us was the former
Western Pacific Railroad tracks, now used by Union Pacific.
The rail bed was constructed over a period of about a decade
by convict labor blasting solid slabs of granite and constructing
tunnels to allow the trains from Chicago to travel to the San
Francisco Bay area. This
was the infamous Feather River Route, that served the traveling
public from the early 1930s to 1970. Our journey terminated in Quincy, in what was
once a bustling metropolis during the 1849 Gold Rush.
Quincy now is a quiet mountain hamlet with some dude ranches
for the city slickers and others still looking for their El Dorado,
as did the 49ers, a century and a half back.
Many retirees from the large metropolitan areas down in the
flat lands have found this area to be a welcome respite with its
clean air and relaxed atmosphere from the hubbub of today’s city
life. The SCRA scheduled a race at the local
racetrack on July 9th, joining a field of late model and
mini stock racers. For many of the fans, this was a new exposure to sprint cars.
Most of the eleven sprinters in attendance came from the
lower Central Valley and trekked nearly 400 miles to exhibit their
non-winged prowess to the crowd.
It was evident around town that excellent promotion of the
event had nearly filled the grandstands. Anticipation was at a high level as the sprinters first took to the track for wheel packing and hot laps. Qualifying found Steven Williams from Merced setting the quick time of the night at 19.03 seconds on the 1/3 mile oval, after tapping the turn one wall on his warm up lap. Several others made the error of taking it too deep into the first turn and sliding up to the wall. All of the racers were able to answer the call to grid for the feature. Heat race wins went to Robert Stice and Tyler
Spath, while Danny Olmstead collected the spoils in the dash,
granting him the pole position in the “A” Main.
Two of tonight’s entrants were regular winged 360 drivers
from Chico, Troy Hovey and John Gray.
Both made credible efforts in their maiden voyages “sans
wings”. Chris
D’Arcy put on an early show for the spectators as his inboard
brake rotor was glowing bright red by about the second lap and soon
was emitting a contrail of sparks.
He ran much of the feature without the aid of brakes and
finished well in fourth place.
Olmstead went wire to wire from the pole position on a
somewhat narrow racing groove.
Point leader Chad Boespflug survived an altercation in the
Dash to gain a runner-up feature finish.
Stice completed the top three.
Fifth place went to Williams followed by first timer Hovey,
who thanked several fellow competitors for helping him with parts,
tires and setups. Jonathan
Logan broke a driveline on the white flag lap and John Gray spun in
turn three to drop him from fifth to eighth.
Spath and Jim Richardson each went to the sidelines, after
two stops on the track. Richard Harvey Jr. was the first car out after stopping on
the track and being unable to restart. This speedway has nice seating with a beautiful
view of the Sierra Mountains in the distance and large areas of
evergreen trees, blue skies and puffy white clouds creating a
picture postcard setting for the races. Spectators flocked to the pit area after the show to meet the racers and view these fire-breathing steeds. Sentiment among the fans was that they enjoyed this program and would like to see more, hopefully with a larger field of cars. It was a fun exhibition at a beautiful location. While the journey was longer than most for the racers, it was a scenic ride to the venue. Additional competitors and a wider racing surface could provide for exciting dices and more passing. Early reports indicate that a couple of events may be scheduled for next year. |
