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CARDEY HAS A NEW BABY AND A NEW RIDE AS HE PREPARES FOR SATURDAY‘S SOKOLA SHOOTOUT AT PERRIS AUTO SPEEDWAY! |
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(FEBRUARY 24, 2009, PERRIS, CA) When Perris Auto Speedway kicks off its 2009 USAC racing season this Saturday, February 28th, with the Sokola Shootout featuring the Lucas Oil USAC/CRA & National Sprint Cars and the Western and Mopar National Midgets, a familiar car and familiar driver will be joining forces on the Riverside County clay oval. Riverside, California’s David Cardey will be teaming up with famous Gardena based Alexander silver #4 Sprint Car as they pursue the 2009 USAC/CRA championship. Cardey has had a distinguished career at The PAS. When he won the 2003 California Lightning Sprint Car championship, he was undefeated on the Don Kazarian promoted track. Last Halloween, on his 33rd birthday, he won what was arguably the best ever 410 Sprint Car main event at The PAS during one of the preliminaries for the Budweiser Oval Nationals. After driving for the highly respected Glenn Crossno owned ITI Performance Motorsports team the past two seasons, Cardey takes over the Alexander car that Tony Jones drove to the 2007 USAC/CRA title and more main events than any driver in the series the past two years. Cardey told the story on how the ball got rolling. “Last year Glenn kind of said that he was thinking about running a limited schedule or not at all at the beginning of the 2009 season. So at the end of last season when Tony was leaving, we were over there talking to the Alexander crew. My crew chief (Lonnie Claybaugh) said to them, ’hey, you know, Cardey would look pretty cool in there (Alexander’s car).’ We kind of both looked at each other and he said, ‘hey, I was just joking.’ We went on our way and as we were leaving the track, they stopped us and said, ‘are you serious.?’ We talked a few times after that and I talked to Glenn and he gave me the official word. It (the deal with the Alexanders) was pretty much done before Christmas.” Cardey answered quickly when asked if getting settled into the new team will be an adjustment. “It will for sure. New team and new car, but I am hoping not big. We are hoping to have a chance to win when we come to Perris next week after being at Manzanita and Las Vegas. The set up on the cars is similar to what I was running last year.” While the setup on the cars may be similar, the proximity to the race shop is not. Last year the drive from Cardey’s Riverside home to the beautiful ITI Performance shop in Ontario was a relatively short one. The Alexander’s shop is near where Ascot Park stood until 1990. And, it is even closer to the plot of ground occupied by Carrell Speedway until it was bulldozed in 1954. That puts Cardey over 70 miles away from his team’s race shop. “I haven’t worked on car at all other than to fit my seat in, but I have went down there a couple of times to meet everyone and hang out. Basically just getting used to each other,” Cardey said over the phone. “Honestly, I knew those guys from the track, but not all that well. We wanted to get a lot of the communication out of the way in how we are going to talk to each other and what to expect. And, looking at shock number, set ups and gearing. We have actually done quite a bit homework while having some fun and a few beers, too.” Cardey will be bringing three crew members along with him to the Alexander operation. His father Jim, Claybaugh and “Big Show.” According to Cardey the team has two cars ready to go and another on the way. After winning the 2007 USAC/CRA title, the Alexander team confined most of their racing to The PAS in 2008. Cardey did not run the entire series either. This year plans to be different for both as they are headed at it full bore and hunting for the hardware and cash that goes along with the championship. “That is the goal right now, unless things get way out of hand,” Cardey said. “Everybody is hurting from the economy right now. We were not sure about making all the races in the beginning, but once we started looking at the schedule we realized that if we can get by this first week, we will be racing on the average of once every three weeks or once a month. We should be fine once we get rolling. A bunch of the old sponsors have chipped in and I brought a couple over. We are actually looking pretty good right now. We are looking for the championship.” Make no doubt about it; David Cardey is a very popular driver at The PAS. However, in the tracks previous 13 seasons, no driver has been more popular than the likable Tony Jones. They are big shoes to fill and some would call them boots, but Cardey says he does not feel any extra pressure in moving into Jones’ ex-ride. “I thought about that in the beginning and I was a little nervous to be honest,” he said with a laugh. “I don’t think anybody can replace Tony and I am not looking to replace him, but I am in the same car and people identify with that car. I am sure people will have high expectations for me, but I am just going to go and do what I do and we are going to have fun. They (the Alexander crew) are going to do what they do and hopefully we click and will pick up right where Tony left off, which was winning races. As far as filling his shoes, no. I am not looking to fill his shoes. I am not worried about that.” While not worried about having to fill Jones shoes, Cardey did admit that he talked to his predecessor. “Yeah, I have talked to Tony. I actually heard rumors that he was maybe not quite retired,” Cardey laughed. “I wanted to make sure he was officially not coming back. I did not want to take his ride if he was coming back a little down the road. He assured me he was not coming back and he told me those guys (the Alexanders) are good, go out and have some fun with them and win some races.” Besides the new racing team Cardey had an especially busy winter. He and his wife Danita had an addition to their team in mid-December with the birth of their first child, Drake James Cardey. “He just turned two months old,” the proud father beamed last week. “Our first child. That is fun. Hopefully we can take him to the races once it warms up a little bit. We are looking forward to that.” Saturday’s open wheel doubleheader will have both hot action for the Sprint Cars and Midgets featuring qualifying, heat races, preliminary mains and slide job throwing A main events. Please note spectator gates will open at 2:00 PM with qualifying at 4:45 and the first race at 6:50. Advance tickets for this Saturday, which are $30.00 for adults and $10.00 for kids 6-12, are available in advance by calling 1-800-595-4849. They can also be ordered on the Internet at tix.com or perrisautospeedway.com. In case of inclement weather on Saturday, the race will be rescheduled for Sunday, March 1st. Fans who arrive within the first hour of gates opening can enjoy two for the price of on all food items excluding beverages and value menu items. For more information call The PAS at: (951) 940-0134. Video and DVD productions of all USAC/CRA races at The PAS dating back to 2004 are available from Jeff Kristensen’s Raceway Video. For more information on these productions you can call: (818) 618-9764 or visit the web site at: racewayvideo.com. Perris Auto Speedway is on the Lake Perris Fairgrounds (home of the Southern California Fair), approximately one hour east of Los Angeles and one hour North of San Diego. To get to the track, take the 215 freeway, exit on the Ramona Expressway and go two miles east to the fairgrounds. racesatthepas@aol.com is the only authorized Internet address to issue official media news released from The Perris Auto Speedway or Oval Entertainment |
