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Wallace
tops 41 winged Pacific Sprints |
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Marysville, CA- April 3, 2005...Cool and breezy conditions didn’t keep the action from being hot as a pistol at Twin Cities Speedway Saturday night. A record car count for a TCS Pacific Sprint Car Championship point race greeted a packed grandstand. Toss in a new one-lap track record, five sprint car flips and some outrageous stock car action and you have the ingredients for a spectacular evening of racing. The show started out with a qualifying session that put sixteen fire breathing winged Pacific Sprint Cars in the 10-second bracket for the first time ever. Pristine track preparation resulted in an awe inspiring qualifying session. High Flyin’ Herman Klein of Sacramento shattered the existing one lap track record with a blistering 10.638 on his second of two consecutive laps. Klein who has won 11 races at his home track just plain flew around the quarter mile ribbon of clay. As the fates would have it Klein experienced an irreparable engine problem as he took the checkered flag on his record run. Klein had to park the Harley Van Dyke #5h for the rest of the event. Grass Valley’s Billy Wallace claimed the victory in the feature event after a series of unusual circumstances put him in the lead with but five laps left in the contest. Brent Dothage of Lower Lake took advantage of his front row starting position and rocketed to a healthy lead. Dothage was simply in another zone as the twenty-car field watched him disappear. Vacaville’s Joey Magurah did the best passing job early in the event. Magurah started sixth in the field and quickly roared around the high side and planted himself in second. Sprint Car Civil War champion David Robinson found third and the race was on. Sacramento based chargers, Chad Riolo and Andy Gregg made things interesting in fourth and fifth. Heat race winner, Mark Tabor Jr. out of Reno camped in sixth. Wallace was eighth early on. At half way second running Magurah started to reel in Dothage. His challenge came to an abrupt end as he hammered the front stretch wall and suffered suspension damage in the incident. Robinson took advantage and grabbed second. Wallace dispensed of Tabor Jr., Greg and Riolo in a series of nifty moves that put him into third. Then, the unusual became the bizarre. With a handful of laps left Dothage was in heavy traffic as he approached turn three. Oregon chauffer, Dallas Zuniga lost it on the high side of three, corrected and headed toward the infield-right in front of Dothage. Dothage slammed into the side of Zuniga, straightening him out and spun lazily to a stop. Dothage was beside himself and was relegated to the rear of the field with five laps remaining. Robinson inherited the lead albeit short lived. As the field circulated under the yellow, Robinson experienced a problem that sent him to the sidelines. In the matter of a moment or two, third running Wallace was, all of a sudden, the leader. Wallace clicked off the remaining laps in short order. Riolo, Greg and Tabor Jr. followed Wallace across the line. Mark Tabor followed his son into fifth and track champion Mike Monahan was sixth. Dothage recovered and charged to a ninth place finish after his problem. Mid-race incidents took out local favorites Korey and twin brother Kevin Lovell. Kevin Lovell was on the charge when he was involved in an incident off of turn four. He returned to finish tenth. Korey Lovell experienced steering box failure and was sidelined for the balance of the event as was early challenger Kyle Schild. Jim Seibert, Steve Watts and Jeremy Phillips flipped hard in preliminary events. All the drivers walked away. Yuba City’s Charlie Duffey shook off the effects of his grinding turn four crash last week and swept the TCS Stock Car Series program. Duffey still has won every race he’s finished this season thus far. The problem is that in last week’s feature event he tried to drive his quick #4 through the turn four k-rail. That said Duffey dominated the proceedings here. In a rough and tumble race that had the fans on their collective feet, the race was behind Duffey all night. Hard charging veteran Olivehurst’s Jeff Olshowka and Yuba City’s Phillip Shelby were ripping through the field behind Duffey. Olshowka had to make the race by winning the B main event. Olshowka carved his way into the top five by half way. As he came out of turn four challenging the leaders Olshowka tagged the wall and got airborne. The damage was such that he had to retire from the event after a great drive. Similarly, Shelby made some impressive passes as he forged his way into the top five. Former Champion Billy Knoop and Jacob Cavasos staged credible runs. Cavasos put a nice night together, as did Knoop. For the second consecutive week, the good-natured Knoop took his white #73 into second. Likewise, for the second consecutive week, Cavasos had to overcome early race problems that sent him to the pits. He charged back to take the show money and points. Eight of the twenty starters were on the sidelines at the checkered flag in an event that saw favorites Porkchop Johnson and Brad Magenheimer eliminated in separate incidents. Wayne Turk was fast all night and couldn’t buy a break; finally retiring late in the race. Shelby was fourth under the flag, but was set back to twelfth place in the final standings. Race officials said he was penalized for a rough driving infraction. Tough luck grabbed top five runner, Kenny Robinson. He was sent to the rear late in the event for leaving debris on the backstretch. Archie Flynn was hooked up and running hard. He finished fourth. Rookie driver Ray Berkowski was scored in sixth. Berkowski in only his second ride at TCS raised some eyebrows with his competitive run. I talked to the slow moving Duffey earlier on in the evening. He was still feeling the effects of last Saturday’s crash. Duffey was quick to comment that a lot of people helped him get his car together for this week’s show and he was one grateful fellow. Duffey’s inspirational victory after such a big crash last week needs to be applauded. Vacaville’s Steve Stein romped to victory in the Hunt Magneto Speedway Sprint Car Series feature event. Stein’s second victory took some serious running this time. Starting sixth, Stein methodically picked off the front-runners until he got to early leader Rick Eversult of Rio Linda. Eversult at first fought back the challenge and pulled away by a couple of car lengths. Then Stein got up on the wheel, hooked into the tacky clay up high and blew by Eversult with an awesome effort. Eighth staring Ryan McDaniel also stood on the gas as he arrived in third place by half way. McDaniel, like Stein went by everyone with daring high-side passes. McDaniel continues to impress in open wheel competition. For all intents and purposes the race for the lead was concluded at that point. But the race was red flagged and terminated with three laps to go as a wicked, high altitude flip was executed in turn three. Many time midget and sprint car champion Gary Koster from Woodland flipped end over end for some fifty yards or more. The accident was an odd one. Corning’s Nathan Johnson and local star Charlie Marrs mixed it up in turn three with Johnson taking a nasty side for side flip at the top of turn three. The red lights were immediately flashed onto the speedway. As cars came to a halt, Koster, at a very high rate of speed apparently did not see the red lights, or perhaps had his throttle stick. Whatever the case, Koster hit the left rear tire of defending champion Chris Magoon half way down the backstretch. Koster’s car headed for the sky on impact and landed nose first further down the track. It then bounced end for end some six times coming to rest on its wheels between turns three and four. In nearly sixteen years of covering the races at TCS, I have never seen a car flip so far, high and hard as Koster’s. Koster who has competed at the national level for much of his career was removed from the car conscious and remarkably alert, considering the violence of the crash. The tough racer that he is, Koster was apparently uninjured but severely shaken. The race was concluded as it took an extended period of time to extract Koster from the machine and clean up the accident scene. Eversult placed second with McDaniel and Jimmy Steward next. James Castleberry ran a solid fifth. Yuba City’s Ken Reische trounced a great field of TCS Mini Stocks to repeat his opening night performance. In a fast-paced, high speed contest Reische simply picked off each competitor as he encountered them and drove away uncontested toward he end. The race was shortened due to time restraints, but the outcome had been settled. Marysville's Robert Luster ran a great race finishing second to the orange #20. Last year’s champ Kevin Sprague got the show dough with Marysville’s Mike and Shaun Merritt rounding out the top five. Thrilling, IN YOUR FACE~HIGH SPEED ACTION returns this Saturday night. The fire-breathing Winged Pacific Sprint Cars will headline another four-division show. The TCS Stock Cars, the TCS Mini Stocks and the Speedway Sprint Cars will also be on the ambitious program. Gates open at 5 with racing at 7PM at the one and only Twin Cities Speedway. There is NO increase in admission prices this year. Adult tickets will be $10, juniors and seniors $7, children $5 and under six will be admitted for free. In fact, season passes are available for the first time this year at a reduced, per race price. Call (530) 675-2050 or drop by the ticket office on Saturday. Twin Cities Speedway is located at 1468 Simpson Lane in Marysville. For additional information call (530) 742-9222 or go to www.twincitiesspeedway.net. PACIFIC SPRINT CARS, SPEEDWAY SPRINT CARS, MINI STOCKS, STOCK CARS TWIN CITIES SPEEDWAY - MARYSVILLE, CA APRIL 2, 2005 - POINTS RACE #2 PACIFIC SPRINT CARS HEAT RACE WINNERS C-MAIN EVENT WINNER B-MAIN EVENT WINNER MAIN EVENT JOE HUNT MAGNETOS SPEEDWAY SPRINT CARS MAIN EVENT MINI STOCKS MAIN EVENT TCS STOCK CARS MAIN EVENT |
