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Burt dominates, Shelby rocks in sprint wins; |
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Marysville CA - July 12, 2008 --- Grass Valley’s Jeremy Burt put Marysville Raceway Park’s new sticky surface to good use and put together a wire to wire win in the monster fast, dust free MRP Winged Sprint Car feature at Paul and Kathy Hawes awesome speed plant. Rookie Philip Shelby had to pass point leader John Anderson with a daring high-side pass to win the Wingless Sprint Car Main. Damian Merritt finally had all the pieces of the puzzle fall exactly into the right place and claimed his first Mini Stock feature. 2007 Champ Tim MacLaughlin won a nail biter in the SORA Sprint 100 main. New clay created tight two groove racing and the fans were on their way home at about ten. Two time Champion and quick time qualifier Mike Wasina had the pole for the Winged Sprint Car feature. Burt lined up outside Wasina. When the green flew Burt was gone. Outside row two starter Brandon Dozier made a bold move into second as Wasina fell into the clutches of point leader Brent Dothage. Dothage roared into second a lap or two later. With the track so racy, the race almost went caution free. As the event closed in on half way, Dozier pulled even with Burt with an inside look. Dozier cranked it a little too sideways and the effort didn’t work; Dothage was on Dozier in a heartbeat. Yuba City’s Korey Lovell had easily worked his way into fourth. Burt was being harassed by lapped traffic and the trio behind him went to work. The two-way battle between Dozier and Dothage became a four-way battle with Lovell closing quickly. Dozier nosed right up to Burt. Burt sliced through the traffic better than the rest and carried his lead into the last lap. Dozier Had Dothage glued to his tail. As the pair headed into one for the final time Dothage tried an inside move for the runner up spot. It didn’t work. The Dothage and Dozier locked wheels and spun to a stop in turn two. The most surprised guy in the place benefited the most and that was Lovell. Running fourth at the white flag, Lovell was second at the checkers. Lovell was only eight points out of the lead in the championship standings behind Dothage. Dothage was placed ninth as there were a lot of lapped cars in the quickly paced event. Lovell made up two points in heat race competition and ten points in the main, securing the top spot for the first time in the campaign. It was obvious from a spectator’s perspective that the new clay was a big reason for the fast, competitive, and nearly caution free feature event. The were some bumps, but the sustained high speeds and entertaining side by side competition more than made up for it. Heat race competition saw an incredible double flip at the green flag in heat 1. Derek Dozier and Jeremy Phillips locked wheels at the flag stand and both cars executed a series of barrel rolls deep into the first turn. Both drivers emerged rocked, but unhurt and competed later in the event. The MRP Wingless Sprint Car Race was, again, a thriller and a new star may have emerged. Phillip Shelby of Yuba City gave his stock car to his sister and strapped on a wingless sprint car for the first time this year. While Shelby has a lock on the Rookie of the Year, his performances were, even by his own standards, frustrating. This charger is used to running at the front and is the two-time champion of the MRP Street Stock division. Shelby lined up next to pole sitter, and point leader John Anderson. Multi-time feature event winner Tony Richards and the “Flyin’ Ford” of Jeremy Hawes were lurking right behind at the start. After an aborted first start the action went caution free for the entire distance. As expected, Sacramento’s Anderson got the jump on Shelby and started to pull away at will. By lap five Richards had found fourth and Hawes third. The sticky surface had cars parked on the cushion and the pole in a blur of spectacular sprint car action. Tim Sherman Jr. was coming hard from the back in another impressive ride from the Sacramento youngster. As the race approached half way Shelby stopped following the leader, got up on the high side and started to close on Anderson. Hawes pulled into the infield with mechanical problems leaving Richards in an easy third and closing on the lead duo. Anderson was approaching traffic and got bogged down on the low side as Shelby was flying around the top. On lap nine of twenty, Shelby got a sweet bite off of turn two and carried the black 86 deep into the cushion in three. Anderson, on the inside saw Shelby and both cars were side by side out of four. It was a grand fight for the lead. On the next circuit, in turn three, Shelby (on the outside) used lap traffic as a pick and rocketed by Anderson into a lead he would not relinquish; not that anyone was fast enough to catch him. If anyone was it was Richards. Richards got by Anderson as the race flew to its conclusion, but Shelby was not going to be beat on this night. Shelby masterfully cut through traffic on the high side, while Richards was impeded by the same traffic moments later. Richards finally cleared the traffic and set sail after Shelby, but Richards needed a yellow that never came. Shelby won handily in a gritty performance. Anderson stayed in third. Sherman got fourth in a virtuoso drive to the front. If it were not for Shelby’s picture perfect drive to the front we would be talking more about Sherman’s march to the front. Once again the track was virtually dust free with multiple grooves to allow some serious flat out, caution free sprint car racing. It was a dazzler. The MRP Mini Stock finale was a mass of hard fought racing, bumps, crashes and remarkable come from behind performances… and a great first time feature event victory by Marysville’s Damian Merritt. After the initial green there was a war for the first five laps before 2006 champ, Sutter’s Joel Giusti, emerged at the front leading Jeff Olschowka and a snarling pack of racers. Misty Castleberry started to head to the front during this time. Only four championship points separated Giusti and Castleberry as the night began. A couple of incidental yellows kept things bunched before Olivehurst’s James Gillaspie started picking off cars on his way to the front. Marysville’s Jamey Ollar found the high side and he, too, started to reel in the leaders. While this was going on Giusti and Olschowka had a literal wheel-to-wheel battle for the lead going on. This allowed all of the racers behind to close the gap. It was Mini Stock racing at its most exciting level. Then the bizarre started to take hold of this event. First, Castleberry went off with a flat tire and had to go to the rear. Then, race leader Giusti had to got to the pits with the same problem. Castleberry looked like her bid for the championship lead was eliminated before Giusti suffered the same fate. With the two lead point contenders in the rear, Olschowka inherited the lead with Gillaspie and Ollar in close pursuit. Merritt was running a competitive fourth in arguably his best performance to date. A lengthy green flag segment allowed the leaders some breathing room as Castleberry and Giusti carved their way back into contention. With six laps left the complexion of this race changed in an instant. The leader Olschowka was trying to lap one of the back markers when they made contact. Olschowka’s tire erupted with a bang as his car went high in the air. The lapped driver spun to a stop collecting both Gillaspie and Ollar. The top three cars were taken out in one big mess, all at the same time. Gillaspie was rocked by the impact from Ollar and the race was red flagged for a while as Gillaspie was attended to. He was OK and left the raceway under his own power. At the new green it was Merritt who was leading and, remarkably, Castleberry and Giusti had made it back to second and third respectively. That’s the way it ended as Merritt kept them behind him with six perfectly executed laps. He flashed under the checkers with his first win by almost a quarter of a lap. Olschowka used the last six laps to fight back to fifth after his misfortune. Merritt also swept the program with and excellent victory in his heat race. The traveling Sprint 100s presented another fine main event that created yet another last lap drama. Pole sitter Nick McColloch bolted away from the field at the opening green. However, second row starter John Cardoni was on the move. Cardoni raced into second right away and started to catch McColloch with relative ease. Cardoni showed his nose to McColloch and McColloch got a wake up call. Cardoni was not to be denied and continued to pursue the rapid #17. As the race approached half way Cardoni got by with a slick move off of turn two. However, the yellow flashed on for a spin by Jim Pfifer, negating the pass. The yellow would set up a stirring finish. While the Cardoni/McColloch duel was going on, MacLaughlin had carved his way into third. MacLaughlin was now a factor. The new green produced a thrilling duel between Cardoni and MacLaughlin. McColloch was benefiting from this duel and getting some distance on both. With a handful of laps remaining Tony Gaoiran got into the fight. This was great auto racing. MacLaughlin then got up on the wheel and forced his way into second and took off after McColloch. As the white banner flew MacLaughlin pulled up beside the leader and they were neck and neck. MacLaughlin had a better turn one than the leader and had him cold up the back chute. MacLaughlin put a lapped car between himself and McColloch and that was it…almost. McColloch got tangled up with the lapped car and slid to a stop just BEFORE he got to the finish line. The balance of the field passed the helpless driver who had led nineteen of the twenty laps. Heat race winners were MacLaughlin and McColloch in the Sprint 100s, John Michael Bunch and Brandon Dozier in winged sprints, Richards, Shaun Ternora of Reno and Jay Youngman of Grass Valley in wingless sprints, and Merritt, Castleberry and Ollar in mini stocks. Pedro Alcola of Marysville placed first in the mini stock B main event. Next week it’s Christmas in July at MRP. A crazy barrage of Christmas related giveaways will be offered on a night when the raceway will present, once again the MRP Winged Sprint Cars as the headliner. The motorized, crash ‘em up mayhem of the EXTREME BOMBERS will be presented along with roaring action of the MRP Street Stocks, the MRP Mini Stocks and visiting Sprint 100s. Remember, MRP is just a few miles from anywhere in the Yuba Sutter area. Stay close to home, save your gas and experience Yuba-Sutter’s only professional sports series. Only at MRP. Pit gates always open at 3 with the grandstands opening at 5. Practice and hot laps start at 6 with qualifying and racing to follow. Put www.marysvilleracewaypark.com on your “favorites” button on you computer. Watch this site for press releases, updates and complete results. $300,000 in contingency rewards ongoing through 2008: Remember, our racing program will get $150,000 worth of contingency dollars for our winged and wingless sprint cars. The way it works is that Contingency Connection has signed up 181 sponsors nationwide who contribute products or merchandise each race to the winner. The only catch is that drivers must be sporting the decal of that sponsor to earn the bonus. If a driver who wins the MRP Winged or Wingless feature race has every decal on his car, he could receive some $1150 in products or merchandise. The vouchers can be saved and traded in for larger ticket items. The bonus is a healthy addition to the weekly $1,000 promoter Hawes already pays to the winner of MRP winged sprint car main events and the $750 he pays to MRP wingless sprint car feature winners. You must be a member of the association, but you can buy a membership at any event throughout the year. In addition to the $150,000 Contingency Connection is providing during the regular season, the program also has earmarked another $150,000 toward a year-end bonus for the top two drivers as well as four other "at-large" drivers whom the promoters believe are deserving of some added cash. Note: Please make this observer aware of any names that are misspelled or incorrect. The text is based on information we have at the time of its release. Complete finishes, stats and points become official and available at the close of business on Tuesday and will be posted to the web site. |
