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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| TURKEY
NIGHT 2003 by Norm Bogan |
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Since 1934, the Turkey Night Grand Prix has been a fixture around southern California. A midget show extraordinaire, it showcased a virtual “Who’s Who” of open wheel racers from around the country. Beginning at the legendary Gilmore Stadium, it ran from 1934 to 1950, with three years off for WWII. After 1950, Gilmore fell victim to urban sprawl and became CBS Television City. Absent for four years, J.C. Agajanian resurrected the event at the Gardena Speedway in 1955 and the show has carried on ever since. Beginning with the 1960 race, Turkey Night made a thirty race run at the famed Ascot Park clay oval, with one detour in 1975 to the Speedway 605 macadam in Irwindale. Following the closure of Ascot, the show moved to the pavement at Saugus, then returned to clay with five races at Bakersfield and one each at Perris and Ventura, before settling in at the newly opened Irwindale Speedway in 1999. 2003 will be the 63rd running of the Turkey Night Grand Prix and the fifth anniversary of the event at Irwindale, bringing a new awareness by adding a live television broadcast this year. With this being the final USAC
National Midget show and also Western States Midget event, most of those chasing
the season point championship planned to be in attendance.
Ironically, both champions secured their title the previous week at
Tucson. J.J. Yeley became only the second driver to win the Triple
Crown, capturing the USAC National Championship in the Silver Crown division,
Sprint Car division and the Midget division.
Yeley stands with Tony Stewart as the only two drivers in USAC history to
capture all three titles in the same year.
The Western States champ is Steve Paden of Bellflower, California.
For the balance of the point seekers, a good finish at tonight’s show
could possibly move them up in points. The format is a three-division
program with the Midgets being the centerpiece and book-ended by the Ford Focus
Midget and Western States Sprint divisions.
On hand were twenty-nine Focus cars, of which 27 answered the call for
the 30-lap feature. Ryan Pace from
Arroyo Grande, California collected the spoils that found sixteen cars finishing
on the lead lap. Now it was time
for the Western States Sprints, which have a somewhat skewed entry list with
names like Michael Lewis from Noblesville, Indiana and Jason McCord from
Anderson, Indiana being regular competitors, driving West Coast cars.
With thirty-nine cars on site, the forty-lap feature led off with
twenty-nine cars. Aaron Pierce from
Muncie, Indiana led the first thirty-eight laps before Michael Lewis running the
whole race on top dove under Pierce and paced the final two circuits.
Lewis also claimed the Western States championship, driving for the
potent Western Speed team of Larry Triguero. The featured division had
forty-two cars in the pits. The quickest twenty went directly to the “A” Main, with
the balance competing in a twelve lap-qualifier and Josh Wise besting the
nineteen cars, of which ten transferred to the back of the qualified cars in
their order of finish. The
top six cars were inverted, so fast time Dave Steele from Tampa, Florida started
in sixth position. At the green flag, pole sitter
Bobby East jumped into the lead and held it for the first nine laps, until
Steele caught and passed the youngster, moving out to a decided advantage.
After each of several yellow flags tightened the field, Steele would
immediately run away again. At the
checkered flag, his lead was 6.13 seconds or nearly three-eighths of a lap ahead
of second place Michael Lewis. Western
States Champ, Steve Paden held on for the third podium spot.
After the race, Steele
acknowledged that he was fitted to a good car and that the track was very smooth
and racy. Dave hopes to continue
driving for Dino Tomassi, who adds this Turkey Night win to the Belleville
Nationals victory collected earlier this year.
Next year, Steele will be taking over the Tony Stewart Sprint Car seat
vacated by J.J. Yeley on pavement races. Michael
Lewis revealed that he would return next year with the Western Speed team and
challenge for a second championship. He
is also near a deal with Richard Childress Racing to compete for them in an
A-B-C program in 2004. Steve Paden
indicated he would race close to home this year, while completing his college
education. An interesting sidelight
is that Dave Steele won this race two years ago and Michael Lewis pulled off the
win last year. Paden is running in
good company, so maybe he can ascend to the top of the podium in 2004.
This show pretty much folds up
the tent for auto racing until Tulsa’s Chili Bowl in January and then the
Copper World at Phoenix in March. Many
teams will just relax after they complete Christmas shopping and take a
leisurely approach to preparing for the 2004 season.
Others will have some testing sessions scheduled, appearances at the PRI
show and other public relations obligations.
All teams will be foraging for that one big sponsor to help put them over
the edge. After another year of
travel and perseverance, these teams will again descend on Irwindale next
November for the 64th running of the Turkey Night Grand Prix.
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