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The
CASA Chronicles (No. 10) |
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July 12, 2004- San Jose, CA. As the California Asphalt Sprintcar Association looks to expand and promote pavement sprint car racing in the Northern California region over the coming years, it is apparent that CASA will now have to entertain some of the many track promoters who have contacted CASA about booking future dates. When CASA was founded not quite two years ago, it was necessary to establish CASA as a new racing organization by building car counts and relationships with Altamont Motorsports Park. Without Altamont’s help, efforts and willingness to take a chance, CASA would likely have never hit the track. Together we scheduled a reasonable number of events and presented a fair number of cars to support them. Soon after our first race, other track promoters began calling with inquiries about booking CASA events. Through our website and office phone, fans asked when we might visit either their favorite or local track. CASA’s response was always the same; “We have to walk before we can run, BUT we will certainly look into expanding when the time is right.” The 2004 season schedule was expanded to 13 races at ARP with four more scheduled in Carson City, NV and one in Anderson, CA. Maintaining reasonable travel distance, time, and expenses has always been a major concern for CASA management and membership. Approximately ninety percent of CASA members live within 100 miles or about 2 hours travel time to Altamont’s centralized location. Carson City is about a five-hour tow for some of our Bay Area members and about the same two hours as a trip to Altamont for our Sacramento/Foothill teams, while Shasta Speedway in Anderson is considerably farther for most all CASA teams. CASA’s travel goal has always been that members can sleep in their own beds on race nights without too much undo stress. For our racers who might be just out range to accomplish that goal, CASA has worked with track promoters to secure free lodging as needed. So while a CASA race may take up our members Saturday and some of their Sunday, at this time CASA does not intend to schedule races, which require Friday travel and Monday return trips. With those travel goals in mind, there are approximately ten paved tracks in CASA’s travel range, including Ukiah Speedway in the beautiful Medicino County wine country. CASA car owner, Mike Consani, working with Ukiah’s track promoter Blair Akins arranged a CASA test session during Saturday, June 10th’s regularly scheduled Late Model race. Three CASA cars, Jared Consani from nearby Santa Rosa, a one-hour tow, Ryan Baumgartner from Citrus Heights, about two hours towing time, and Glenn Hopper who made the three and one-half hour trip from San Jose, took to the high-banked quarter-mile speedway for a couple hot-lap sessions. Having just competed at Champion Speedway in Carson City, all three teams left nearly identical setups on their cars. They ran the same tires and stagger combinations and gearing. Consani tried a slightly lower gear for the second session but all felt that the track bore great similarity to Champion Speedway. “Carson’s probably my favorite track in my modified and this is a real close second” said Baumgartner. Lap times proved similar to Champion with all three cars running in the low 12-second bracket; 12.00’s to 12.20’s on well used tires. “With fresh tires we could be in the 11’s” noted Consani. In the second session, the three ran in a close pack to verify if close racing and passing could be accomplished on the bullring-like track. While the groove proved somewhat narrow, Hopper felt comfortable running the high side above Consani who noted that while having to hold the bottom exiting the corners required some throttle control, passing could be accomplished. Hopper felt that passing would require some patience as cars really needed to establish track space before completing a pass. Baumgartner tucked in tight behind the side-by-side duo and said that the cars looked pretty stable yet racy. Preliminary discussions with Akins revealed the intention to pave the remainder of the pit area before this season’s end – there are level cement pit pads in place now, and set a schedule for a four to six race series. “I’d love to have you guys come up and run once a month or so.” Many pit personnel felt that that the majority of the large crowd came to see the sprint car test as the Fairgrounds marquee had advertised Sprint Cars for the last week. One track official said, “If you guys bring a bunch of these fast-@$$ cars, this place will be standing room only!” As previously mentioned, the expansion of CASA will be careful and deliberate. Membership will be presented with options, provide input, and decisions on schedule, travel and tracks will be made in the best interest of all parties involved. But one thing is certain; CASA races are likely to be in high demand as we move forward. |
