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Traditional Sprint Car FanSite |
See You At The Races!!! |
| FORMER SCRA STAR GARY HOWARD
WINS IN IMCA SPRINTS by Gary Jacob |
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IMCA Sprints, IMCA Modifieds, I-4 Modifieds and Pony Stocks |
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Ventura, CA -June 19, 1999-- Fresh off his strong
second place run the previous week, former SCRA sprint car star Gary
Howard won the 30 lap IMCA sprint car main Saturday night at Ventura
Raceway. He battled from 10th starting and won ahead of third starter
Jimmy Crawford and previous week winner Bobby Graham, who started 4th.
For the second straight week, a rookie driver won the 20 lap IMCA
Modified main as Mike Furlong won with Steve Greenland second. Steve
Chuhaloff won his first I-4 Modified main ahead of Marty Desbrow and
Brian Rader. Chuhaloff is 5th in points as Desbrow and Rader are
dueling George Kreider for the point championship. Richard Johnston
from Thousand Oaks won the 20 lap pony stock main ahead of point
leader Jack Fullerton.
The IMCA sprint cars had a 24 car turnout. Ronnie Case edged out Howard in the first heat, Jim Gresham won heat two and Michael Smith won the third heat that saw Jeff Heatons car heavily damaged in a spectacular flight into the backstretch billboards. Clark Templeman III edged Dale Harwood in the B Main that helped limit the feature field to 19 cars. Howard lined up 10th in the 19 car A main field. Gresham and Case shared the front row, but they were banging wheels before they got to the green flag. Gresham was flipping before he got to the line and he flipped the length of the front stretch. He was unhurt and Case now shared row 1 with teammate Jimmy Crawford. Crawford leaped into the lead with 4th starter Graham into second. Howard had climbed to third in the first 10 laps and 12th starter Kevin Kierce went to fourth in the same distance. Kierce is the season point leader. On lap 15, Kierce flipped in turn 1 for a red flag, but he scrambled out unhurt. When green flag racing resumed, the top 3 of Crawford, Graham and Howard could be covered by a blanket and Tom Stansberry took over fourth. Crawford had trouble with the cushion in turn 3 and blocked the path of Graham to allow Howard to race from 3rd to 1st in one corner. A pair of slide jobs saw them trade the lead and Howard was leading when Case spun in turn 3 with 7 laps to run. Howard ran over over the closing rounds to win ahead of Crawford, Graham, Stansberry and 16th starter Randy Moody. Chris Wakim was sixth ahead of Steve Conrad and Greg Taylor. Just like Kathy Pierson had done the previous week, Mike Furlong was a wire to wire winner in the IMCA Modified main. They had a 15 car field, but William Kruft trailered early. Furlong won ahead of Greenland, Bill Waltman, Rich Wolfe, Donald Houghton, John Aitken and Jamie Taylor. The 20 lapper was slowed by just 2 yellow flags. Defending track champion Randy McGraw was the first car out of the 20 lapper. Summary IMCA Modified Main-Mike Furlong, Steve Greenland, Bill Waltman, Rich Wolfe, Donald Houghton, John Aitken, Jamie Taylor, Kathy Pierson, Gary Curtis, Ed Shelton, Robert Paquette, Chris Tonoli, Randy Gens, Randy McGraw. IMCA Sprint Car Heat 1-Ronnie Case, Gary Howard. Heat 2-Jim
Gresham. Heat 3-Michael Smith. B Main-Clark Templeman III, Dale
Harwood. A Main-Howard, Jimmy Crawford, Bobby Graham, Tom Stansberry,
Randy Moody, Chris Wakim, Steve Conrad, Greg Taylor, Bill Welch, John
Wright, Mike Knopf, Case, Tony Dighera, Will Perkins, Kevin Pierce,
Harwood, Templeman, Gresham, Smith. |
