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Ocean Speedway 4-17-2010
So the first race of the year
for the Taco Bravo Sprint Series is in the books and
now I realize I stuck my neck out and said I would
comment on each of the races. WTF was I thinking?!!
It sounded good at the time but it is not as easy as
I thought! First of all I really don’t pay much
attention to everything, I just kind of wander
around and hang out and visit and most of the time I
can’t remember what happened or who even won five
minutes after the race is over. I should have taken
some notes. Notes? I don’t need no stinking notes!
Oh well, let’s see what happens here.
This isn’t a race report, I’ll
leave that up to Gary Thomas, but I will say there
were 31 winged 360 sprints that checked in and
that’s pretty cool. I hope the series can continue
to draw enough cars to put on a good show. I thought
the races were pretty good even though it seemed
that in the heats it was tough to pass. Matt Sargent
told me the track was kind of slick but you could
race on it. He said he liked that better than having
a locked down heavy track. Any way, some good cars
missed the main out of their heats. Suggs, Murphy,
Furr, Eliason, they all had to come from the B main,
and they did. Speaking of B main, or should I say B
mains,
I would have liked to have seen one B main
instead of two. One B at say 15 laps instead of two
at 12 laps each would have worked for me. I know
everyone has their own opinion and some will agree
with me and some won’t, I just feel that cutting the
B in half just makes for two more heat races instead
of giving the fans a chance to see a larger field of
cars. Also you run the risk of having one stacked
field of cars in one B and another one with cars
that are of lesser competition. I don’t think that
happened this race since the field in both B’s was
spread out pretty well as far as faster cars
compared to slower cars. You also can end up with
cars falling out or crashing and end up running a 12
lap race that transfers 3 cars and have 4 cars
running. That did happen, in both B’s. Ok, enough on
that, like I said it is a judgment call.
Let’s see where was I before I
side tracked myself? Oh yeah, 31 cars. That’s cool.
The series picked up a couple of cars that are new
to winged 360 racing. Pete Murphy in a new team
co-owned by George Snider, Billy Aton who is running
a winged 360 this year as well as a non winged car,
Ryan Rusconi who I believe ran micros and has moved
up, Stu Cornick who I think has run micros and
street stocks, and Devon Ostheimer who has run
winged stuff some last year but plans to concentrate
on winged stuff this year. Also some teams and
drivers that have run some at Ocean Speedway but
might not have been considered regulars showed up
and from what I know will be doing their best to
become regulars. Those would include Ken Fredenburg,
Orval Burke Jr, Shawn Wright, Steve Jaquith, and Jon
Maiwald. So that is great.
My night was pretty cool. I got
to talk to most everyone and visit some. My buddy
Wayne Katen was breaking in a new ride and I was
able to talk a little set up stuff with him and
between myself and Gary Fugate, who was Jason
Newtons crew chief, we were able to offer some
advise that
Wayne
said helped. Even though
Wayne
didn’t make the A main, he said he was not
disappointed in his night. He was the first
alternate to the main event (that always sucks!) and
he said he was happy he was able to bring the new
car home scratch free and made progress though out
the night as far as getting comfortable with the
car. I made a trip over to the grandstand side of
the fence and the main grandstands were pretty full.
The turn 4 and turn 1 stands could have had more
people, but over all not a bad crowd was on hand. I
will have to stick my nose in the announcer/press
booth up at the top of the main grandstand to try to
harass GT one of these nights but I thought I would
give him a break on his first night at work this
year at the track! Look out Thomas, I know where
you’re at! Lol.
Let’s see now, I
was saying something about it seeming to be tough to
pass in the heats. I kind of think it was tough to
pass all night long, but still there was some hard
racing for position and if someone made a mistake
there was someone there to take advantage. Speaking
of heat races again, it was neat to see a car
sponsored by Taco Bravo win the first ever heat race
of the Taco Bravo Sprint Series. Kurt Nelson won
that in the 72w car. I got to do a little interview
with Kurt as well as with some other people at the
track and they should be able to be seen sometime
soon on
www.cmpvideo2go.com on the Ocean Speedway page,
as well as on the
www.oceansprints.com site by going to the photo
page.
With the track being tricky for
some to pass on I was wondering just how the “Fully
Charged with Sun Electric” hard charger award would
shake out for the night. As of this writing I don’t
have the “official” results, but unofficially it
looks like Devon Ostheimer came from 22nd
to 12th advancing 10 spots. If that is
found to be official Devon
would be the first winner of the “Fully Charged”
award from Sun Electric and get an extra $100 for
it. That’s cool because right before the main I was
talking with Devon and he was bummed because he had found that a spark
plug wire had been off most of the night and he had
though he might have been able to start better than
he was in the main if not for that. I had told him
he was starting back far enough that if he drove his
butt off he might get an extra hundred. Looks like
he just might have done that.
Speaking of awards, I have a
couple of my own to give out on this page, although
I ain’t hand’in no one no money! Just the thrill of
being mentioned should be enough! (yeah, right).
Ok, Sun Electric gave out a
hard charger so I am gonna pick a hard luck winner.
I think that is gonna go to Steve Osborne. “Big
Bird” as he is known as by some took a hard flip at
the start of the first B main. When I asked him what
he thought happened he said that Shawn Wright just
ran into him and they both crashed. So as not to
just have a one sided story, I asked Shawn what his
version was and he said that he tried to set up and
go around Osborne and the car just set and caught
him off guard and he ran into Steve. So not trying
to lay blame or cause drama but it seems “Big Bird
was just a victim and having your stuff tore up on
opening night when it is not your fault is pretty
hard luck in my book. I know there were other guys
out there that had stuff tore up and had some bad
luck, but Osborne gets my hard luck vote this week.
Speaking of tore up, I have to
give an altitude award to Evan Suggs. He was
involved in a front straight crash in the A main
that I caught the end of and he really got some air
and took a ride. Just like Osborne and Shawn Wright
both came out of their crash ok physically, so it
seems did evan. Still he tore up some stuff and was
out of the race. I spoke with Evan and he said that
Pete Murphy got his
left front wheel in front of Evan’s right rear wheel
coming off turn 4 and Evan climbed the wheel and
took off. I didn’t have a chance to see what Pete
had to say, but although Evan was upset he crashed,
he didn’t seem to be saying it was more than hard
racing.
I had been wondering before the
race who might end up doing well, that might not
normally be considered a top team. Eric Rossi
answered that question. Eric gets the underdog of
the week award. Eric has been a racer for years and
has won his share of races and has had his share of
success, but the past couple of years he and
co-owner Chase Wood have done what they can with old
equipment and little money. Eric took a 17th
place qualifying run and turned it into a 2nd
place heat finish that transferred him into the A
main. He then took a 15th place starting
spot in the main and advanced 9 spots to finish 6th.
To top it off he now sits in 5th place in
the points for his efforts. To me that is a great
run by an underdog team!
You might think that the main
event winner would be the hero of the week, and you
would be right, but there is more to it than that.
Yes Bud Kaeding won and in a way he is the hero of
the week, but I am going to go further and pick the
whole Kaeding/Sala/Matherly team as
Heroes
of the week for their top 3 sweep of the main
event. With Bud, Kyle Larson and Brent Kaeding
finishing 1 2 3, the whole bunch deserves credit.
Brent owns his car and the car driven by Larson.
While the car Bud drives is owned by Kaeding
performance manager Brian Matherly and long time car
owner Mike Sala, it is still very much a team car.
So besides the drivers I need to give an atta boy to
Brian and Mike and Billy And Matt and Cajun and BF
and Richie and Jeffery as well as Rich Stadelhofer
and Al Peterson and everyone else who I forgot or
can’t remember names of. You guys are the heroes of
the race for this week. BK was telling me that the
hardest part of the whole thing was just
coordinating stuff and getting everyone and
everything to the track. If you know anything about
Brent you know he is a hands on kind of guy and a
lot of times he would just as easily rather do
things himself as try to tell someone what he wants.
Besides, it’s not like anyone ever listens to him
any way. Lol. So he said just getting to the track
wore him out, then as he relaxed on the way over to
the track he thought “man now I need to drive”.
Wait, let me tune my violin for you Brent! Lol, I
only give him crap every now and then just to see
how much I can get away with. It’s not much, let me
tell you, and I’m sure I am looking at pay back for
this! Oh, track promoter John prentice told me that
his track team cleaned up and dried two inches of
water that were standing in the whole pits on
Wednesday, two days before the race in order to get
the show in. That makes them heroes as well. Also
the fans in the stands that came out to cheer on all
the teams and drivers are heroes in my book.
If I am going to pick a hero of
the week it is only fitting that I have to pick a
zero. (come on, you gotta have a zero!) Lol.
Actually I am going to make it a hero to zero award.
I really hate to do it but I have to give this one
to Brad Furr. Now I like Brad and he is a great
racer, and his crew chief Kenny Thorp is a friend,
but damn Brad, I just couldn’t pass you up for this.
After setting fast time and looking like a hero,
Brad was one of the fast cars that missed the main
from his heat and the meter was turning towards
zero. Then he transferred to the main and the draw
for the invert was zero, putting him on the pole, so
he was looking like a hero again. Then he lost it in
turns one and two on the first lap of the main while
leading, and fell pretty far back in the field so
the meter was heading south again. Still Brad wasn’t
done and was racing his way back up only to go for a
move under Ricky Wright Jr that resulted in contact
that damaged the front end of the Furr Racing #2 and
took Brad out. Even though it was a racing deal and
a result of trying too hard, it pretty much zeroed
things out. So as Kenny might say “hey your fly is
open” on this one. Lol. Again sorry Brad but tag
buddy you’re it!
Well on that happy note I think
I’ll bring this to a close, before I piss off or
insult anyone else! Lol, like I really care! (ok so
I care cause they are all my friends, but just keep
it quiet) Any way, I had fun, I question some things
but all in all it was a great event and I hope
things continue as well for the series the rest of
the season. It looks like a road trip is on hand as
the next Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo event
will be at the Santa Maria Speedway on Friday April
30th.
Santa Maria is a
cool little track and the racing down there is
always good so I hope everyone who can will make the
trip.
See you at the races, Buzz
Rightrear.
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