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Ocean
Speedway
4-25-10,
I pretty much figured I would
confine my comments here to the Taco Bravo Series at
Ocean Speedway, but since I got to go out to the
track two nights in a row this week I thought WTF,
might as well say something about it. Actually, Mike
Avila (sorry if the spelling is wrong) better known
as Car Wash Mike, had asked if I was going to do a
buzz’n around ocean thing this week and I said I
really didn’t know. So I guess you can thank Mike,
or blame him, what ever you prefer, for putting the
idea in my head.
Any way, like I said, I got to
go out two nights in a row to Ocean. Fri was for the
open play day and Sat for the GSC show. The play day
was just that, with plenty of different cars
practicing and trying things out. I am not going to
name each type of car but pretty much all the
classes that compete at the track were represented.
You get the picture, and most classes had a good
number of cars present. It was a good time to hang
out and BS with some people at the track when they
weren’t busy trying to actually race and they felt a
little less pressured. I got to have a pretty good
conversation with Joel Kaeding who was there with
his son Adam to try some things with their non
winged car. In the years I have known Joel I always
have fun talking with him. We got to talking about
set up stuff and then about the old days and the
things we each did to try and make the cars work
back then. Come to find out he was doing a lot of
the same things at the fairgrounds to get his dad
Howard around it as we were doing to get Mike
Sargent around it.
Keith Day had his car there and
he and his brother Ronnie, who is racing the car for
him this year, were taking turns driving. Keith said
they made some progress in trying some things that
they hope will help them this year.
I had a chance to talk with
Mark Chaves Sr and he gave me an update on his plans
to return to racing. He is putting together a winged
360 car that will be Ford powered. Ford power has
kind of been a Chaves trade mark and it seems it
will continue when Mark returns. It will be a few
more weeks until that happens, but you can bet that
team will waste no time in becoming competitive as
Mark is always in the thick of things when he
competes.
I got to meet Stu Cornick who
had Kevin Pylant testing the #73RT winged 360 car
that night. Stu is the normal driver and is new to
sprint car racing this year although he has run
stock cars and micro midgets. The team is involved
in Road Turtle Enterprises and keeping kids safe on
the road. You can find more on that at
http://besafeontheroad.com/index.php.
Bud Kaeding had his #29 410 car
there to shake it down for the next night of GSC
racing. Kyle Larson ran some laps in the Stadelhofer
Const #99 410 and BK was there with his 410 car
testing some parts and pieces that I won’t mention
because I don’t know if he wants what he was doing
advertized. If you were there and took a good look
at his car you will know what I mean.
The track was what you might
expect at a non race event, it got pretty dry pretty
quick. That carried over to Sat night as well with
the track being a hand full to qualify and run the
preliminary events on. The track crew went to work
after the dashes though and brought the track back
around and the surface was race worthy the rest of
the night.
When Alissa Geving, who is
running for GSC points this year, went out to
qualify on Sat it seemed she had some motor
problems. When I asked what the deal was, I was told
that that it was with the pre filters that are
installed over the air filters on the motor. The pre
filters are fine mesh nylon filters that slip over
the main air filters and help to keep them from
getting clogged with fine dirt. It seems the pre
filters got clogged and the motor didn’t want to run
very well in qualifying. That is unusual as her dad
Gary, who builds the motors normally has no problem
with his stuff. Oh well, stuff happens to everyone
now and then I guess. They got things sorted out but
with the way the track was for the heats and with
the bad qualifying time, it put Alissa in the B
main. She won that and got to run the main
Another thing I
learned on Sat is that Evan Suggs is down to just
his 410 car after his 360 car was damaged last week
in a flip in the main event. I didn’t know the car
had been hurt that bad. Even plans to go to
Santa Maria
this coming Fri night as the Taco Bravo 360 Series
makes it’s first trip out of the bay area. The team
will run a 360 motor in the car on Fri and then make
a motor change on Sat to run the GSC race. Quite a
number of teams I talked with say they will make the
trip to Santa Maria so that sounds good.
The GSC main event on Sat was
great. You need to read the write up Gary Thomas
wrote to understand more. I am not going to try to
relate it here other than to say it was great seeing
Bud and Kyle race though traffic.
Congrats to them for their 1 2
finish and to my buddy Paul Baines for wrenching
Tommy Tarlton to a 3rd place finish. Also
my pal Ricky Wright Jr ended up with a 10th
place finish with a 360 motor under the hood. That
should help dad put fuel in the rig to get to
Santa Maria. I didn’t ask if
Jr plans on staying over at Santa Maria to run the GSC show on Sat, but I
bet if he doesn’t tear his stuff up on Fri and his
dad Rick thinks there is some money to be made, he
just might.
I need to make amends to Brad
Furr for giving him my “from hero to zero” award
last week at the Taco Bravo race. I don’t think Brad
was too happy with me, even though it was all meant
to be good natured. Lol. Brad had a bad night then
and I had to call it like it was. He had a good run
on Sat in the GSC show though and ended up 7th.
Nice rebound Brad, good luck in
Santa Maria.
Well I am tiered of typing now
even though I can now type with TWO fingers (but
still with just one at a time!), so I’m gonna end
this. All in all I had a good time. Hey I was at the
track, how can you go wrong there?
Oh, I forgot to say it was neat
seeing John Prentice run around in his fire suite
and driving his dwarf car this week and being more
in driver mode that promoter mode.
I also got to spend time with
one of my friends from the old days, Gary Nolan.
Gary
used to work for Champion Cylinder Heads back in the
days I was helping Mike Sargent and Champion was
named that after they helped us win a San Jose championship. Gary now runs Champion Engines in Campbell, Ca
and has helped some of the racers with motor work.
Gary and I raced go-karts together at Baylands and
other places, and it was great to hang out with him
on Sat.
Ok, so everyone that can, needs
to try to make the trip down to
Santa Maria and help support
the Taco Bravo Series race this coming Fri the 30th.
I know it is on a Fri and I know it is a drive, but
if you want you can stay over and catch the GSC show
the next night. I think racing starts around 5 on
Fri and it’s about a 3 hr drive. It’s about the same
as going to Tulare
from the San Jose area.
Ok, now I’m done.
See you at the races, Buzz Rightrear.
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