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California
Lightning Sprints - Round 11 @ Barona Speedway
Paul Townsend is always smiling as he strolls
slowly through the pits visiting with the competition in spite of
having some of the worst luck offered up in this business. Paul has
a new reason to smile as he picked up his first feature win in front
of a packed Barona Speedway house!
The evening got underway with qualifying on a very rough surface
which made the 2 laps difficult for most except Ashley Walker who
circled the track in 14.5 seconds. The first heat race had Greg
Bragg come from the 3rd row to beat Vince Tjemeland to the finish
ahead of Dylan Morris, Seth Kramer and Paul Townsend. Ernie Bartley
won the second heat race from the front row ahead of Jonny Bates,
Josh Williams, Karl Benefeil and Steve Cardey. Jesse Dean led most
of the 3rd heat in a heated contest with his son James Dean. James
beat dad for the win. David Cardey was third. Adam Householder again
jumped out of his 600 Multi-Sprint and into his Lightning Sprint to
take 4th. Kip McCleary was 5th. With the low car count (22) there
would be no B Main. The top 5 in each heat race lined up for the A
Main according to their qualifying position. A #4 pill was drawn
which indicated the front 4 rows would be inverted. The A Main did
not get under way until after 11pm due to several crashes throughout
the evening in other classes. Adam Householder found himself on the
pole for the main along side Paul Townsend. Fast qualifyer Ashley
Walker suffered a mechanical problem in her heat race and had to tag
the back of the field. The first lap had not been completed when
Steve Cardey crashed hard flipping end over end down the front
straight (Steve was OK). Upon the restart Gary Sexton and Mike
Barnette tangled leaving Gary parked for the evening. Another
restart. Paul Townsend led the field with Householder 2nd, Ernie
Bartley 3rd, Greg Bragg 4th, David Cardey 5th. The dry track was
quickly reduced to one groove around the bottom making passing
difficult. Ernie Bartley passed Adam Householder for 2nd on the 3rd
lap. Paul Townsend opened up a good lead on the tight running field
until caution flew as David Cardey spun on lap 6. David spun quickly
almost 360 degrees and had just about saved it when he got on the
brakes hard to prevent contact with Josh Williams and then stalled
(THANKS DAVID). Greg Bragg was the only one able to mount much of a
charge on the single lane track and passed Bartley for 2nd on lap
13. The field remained close throughout the remaining laps but with
little changes in position. Greg Bragg challenged Paul Townsend for
the win on the final lap as the two came out of turn 4 almost even
with slight advantage to Townsend. Paul won the drag race to claim
his first CLS victory! Keith Janca earned hard charger moving up 7
positions to finish 11th.
Race Summary: Qualifications - 1 Ashley Walker 14.596 2 Gary Sexton
14.687 3 Josh Williams 14.949 4 Greg Bragg 14.955 5 David Cardey
14.97 6 Mike Barnette 15.008 7 Dylan Morris 15.012 8 James Dean
15.06 9 Ernie Bartley 15.132 10 Paul Townsend 15.135 11 Adam
Householder 15.183 12 Jonny Bates 15.199 13 Vince Tjemeland 15.478
14 Jesse Dean 15.485 15 Steve Cardey 15.486 16 Seth Kramer 15.557 17
Kip McCleary 15.62 18 Karl Benefeil 15.679 19 Nick Nicholson 16.121
20 Steve Barnette 16.438 21 Keith Janca 16.46
Heat 1 - Bragg, V. Tjemeland, Morris, Kramer, Townsend, Nicholson,
King, Walker
Heat 2 - Bartley, Bates, Williams, Benefeil, S. Cardey, S. Barnette,
M Barnette
Heat 3 - James Dean, Jesse Dean, D Cardey, Householder, McCleary, G
Sexton, Janca
A Main - Townsend, Bragg, Bartley, Householder, James Dean,
Williams, Bates, McCleary, Morris, Jesse Dean, Janca, Walker, D
Cardey, Benefeil, S Barnette, Kramer, Tjemeland, M Barnette, G
Sexton, S Cardey, King DNS, Nicholson DNS
Points: Greg Bragg 1448, David Cardey 1302, Jonny Bates 993, Gary
Sexton 990, Steve Cardey 953, Ashley Walker 946, Jesse Dean 892,
Josh Williams 883, Danny Swanson 859, Karl Benefeil 812
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