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| KENNY WILEY WINS BAKERSFIELD SPEEDWAY NMRA-TQ MIDGET 25-LAP MAIN – By Tim Kennedy |
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Oildale, CA, Mar.. 21 – Kenny Wiley started third Saturday in a 14-car field of NMRA-TQ Midgets on the banked, third-mile clay Bakersfield Speedway and won a 25-lap main event in his own new No. 96 WMK chassis. It was his second outing as a car owner. He took the lead on lap 9 and paced the final 17 laps. The NMRA feature triumph was the seventh in the seven year TQ racing career for the 48-year old driver from Sun Valley. The predominantly open-wheel night also had three classes of USAC Midgets and a local hobby stock car class in competition. Per USAC reports--Garrett Hansen, in Andy Bondio's No. 47 Bondio/Barnes, won a Western Midget Series 16-car feature after leading all 30 laps. Randi Pankratz, daughter of 2000 series champion Wally Pankratz. finished second. Nick Carlson took the 20-lap California Ford Focus Midget Dirt Series 13-car main in his Beast/FF. Eric Gunderson, a 15-year old making his second FF Midget start, was second. The 2008 INEX Legend Cars rookie driver won three Legends main events last year on the Irwindale third-mile. Kyle Edwards, from Fountain Valley, led all 15 laps of the Junior Ford Focus Midget Series race in his Beast/FF. All three feature winners became point leaders of their series. Wiley was NMRA's 2002 rookie of the year and has driven every season through 2008 for Paul Lopiccolo. The Wiley/Lopiccolo Rick Stewart/Honda 836cc team won their first TQ feature in the 2007 season opener at Kings Speedway in Hanford. Wiley won two TQ features in 2007 and captured both the NMRA driving championship and the car owner title for Lopiccolo that year. They won four of the 11 NMRA main events last year. With Anthony Lopiccolo, 22-year old son of the car owner, winning NMRA co-rookie of the year last season, Anthony moved into his dad's No. 21 seat for 2009. Wiley built his own WMK chassis and numbered his new car in honor of late USAC Midget No. 96 car owner Jim Boone, the father of driver Bobby Boone. Wiley and Lopiccolo are pitting together this season and racing as an unofficial team. Richard Ortega, Jr., the 2005 NMRA rookie of the year, started fifth and finished second. The one-time NMRA feature winner (in 2007 at Ventura) finished seventh in NMRA's 20-lap point-season opener at Perris on March 7. He jumped to fourth place in current points. He drove his own Stealth/836cc Kawasaki. Bruce Hiroshima started his own No. 5 Stewart/Honda from pole position, led the first eight laps and settled for third. Greg Edenholm, a former NMRA-TQ driver and 2003-04 NMRA championship car owner, returned from an absence of several years. He dusted off his driving uniform, started eighth and finished fourth in his comeback drive aboard his No. 2 Dennis Hart-built car. West Evans, the NMRA director since its rebirth in 2002, came from sixth to fifth in his own Stealth/836cc Suzuki. Scott Niven, 2008 co-rookie honoree Jimmy Dodson, 17-year old TQ rookie Dakota Schweitzer, rookie Amanda Thomas and car owner Dave Lambert completed the top ten. All of them were on the lead lap. Reigning NMRA champion Chuck West, the March 7 winner at The PAS, and Ron Ahrendt dropped out on lap 10. West and Edenholm won the pair of seven car, eight-lap heat races; all drivers finished eight laps. West fell from first to third in 2009 point standings. Hiroshima climbed from second to first in both driver and car owner points with two of the current 16 scheduled TQ races in the books. Four open race dates are TBA. NMRA has scheduled races at four dirt tracks—Santa Maria Speedway, Ventura Raceway, plus the Perris and Bakersfield tracks. The next NMRA race will be Saturday, March 28 at Jim Naylor's fifth-mile, banked clay Ventura oval. Summary: Heat 1 – Chuck West, Scott Dobson, West Evans, Richard Ortega, Jr, Jimmy Dodson, Amanda Thomas, Dakota Schweitzer. Heat 2 – Greg Edenholm, Kenny Wiley, Ron Ahrendt, Bruce Hiroshima, Scott Niven, Anthony Lopiccolo, Dave Lambert. Main – Wiley, Ortega, Hiroshima, Edenholm, Evans, Niven, Dodson, Schweitzer, Thomas, Lambert, Lopiccolo, Dobson, West, Ahrendt. POINT STANDINGS (after 2 of 16 races): Drivers Car Owners 1 Bruce Hiroshima 120 1 No. 5 Bruce Hiroshima 126 2 Kenny Wiley 110 2 No. 96 Kenny Wiley 116 3 West Evans 104 3 No. 36 West Evans 110 4 Richard Ortega, Jr. 102 4 No. 8 Richard Ortega, Jr. 108 5 Chuck West 94 5 No. 38 West Evans 100 5 Scott Dobson 94 5 No. 18 Guy Barber 100 7 Scott Niven 89 7 No. 66 Scott Niven 95 8 Anthony Lopiccolo 87 8 No. 21 Paul Lopiccolo 93 9 Amanda Thomas ® 73 9 No. 40 Ed Thomas 78 10 Dave Lambert 69 10 No. 55 Dave Lambert 76 |
