|
Ocean Speedway 5-7-10,
After all the drama and
controversy of last week in
Santa Maria, this week seemed
tame. Still this last ocean Sprints presented by
Taco Bravo Series race was exciting and provided
it’s own interesting series of events.
I have to start off saying the
series saw some teams show up to race for their
first time this past week. The locally based
Morgan Hill, CA team with driver Tim DeCarlo Jr made it’s
first appearance and I would guess we will see them
more on a regular basis. Two
Sacramento, CA
area teams also made the trip to Ocean Speedway in Watsonville, CA
to compete. Those would be the teams with Justyn Cox
and David Silveria at the wheel. Justyn said he
hopes to return next week on Fri night before
heading out to the mid west with his car owner
Harley Van Dyke to run the ASCS national series this
summer for their sponsor, Lucas Oil Products.
Silveria’s car owner, Sherman, said they would love
to come back depending on finances. A couple of
other drivers that have run the series before, but
were making their first appearance of the season
were Shane Golobic and Nick Ringo Jr. Actually Ringo
is Nick Ringo III. His dad is well known
San Jose area racer Nick
Ringo, who was named after his father, Nick. I guess
I am showing my age, because I remember going over
to old man Nick Ringo Sr’s place with Marshall
Sargent! Any way, Shane Golobic is just plain Shane.
He wasn’t lucky enough to be named after his dad,
John. Or on second thought, maybe he’s lucky he
wasn’t! LOL.
Ok, WTF else happened out
there? Oh yea, Evan Suggs wasn’t there and I heard
that was because they are down to one car that they
are using for both 360 and 410 racing. Since the
Bradway was the following night in
Chico, I hear they wanted to
not risk hurting their stuff. I also heard Evan had
a school project he was working on. Hope to see the
Suggs team back next time.
The track was pretty good. It
maybe could have held up just a wee bit better as
far as keeping some moisture all the way across it,
allowing the guys to race even harder, but that is
just an opinion. As I said it was pretty good and so
was the racing, it just seemed a little tougher to
pass than I would have liked. Still both Kyle Larson
and Golobic passed 9 cars each, with Larson by my
unofficial count getting the “Fully Charged with Sun
Electric” hard charger award because he was the
higher finishing of the two.
Man, all in all it was pretty
much an uneventful night for me as I just did my
normal thing of visiting and so on. Rick Alberran,
who is the race director at the track tried to
switch things up by getting his hands on the video
camera and trying to compete with me by interviewing
myself and Bruce Velo from Campbell Motorsports
Productions. I sent him an email stating that since
no releases were signed, that video might not be
able to be released! We will see just how it all
comes out in editing before we make that call! LOL.
Oh, I almost forgot, the famous
Joe Von Schriltz was hanging out keeping an eye on
his #121 sprinter that Golobic was driving! Nice to
see Joe. Also John Prentice, who is the track
promoter, was pulling double duty driving a dwarf
car. I seem to remember that he might have been
leading the race until he had an incident. I guess
if I paid more attention I would know that stuff.
Sorry John. I have a hard enough time remembering
the information I do, then writing about it!
Since I can’t think of anything
else to say, I might as well try to figure out what
awards I want to give out this week. Like I said, I
think Larson is going to get the hard charger from
Sun Electric.
If I had to pick a hard luck
award this week (I don’t, but I will!) I would give
it to Ricky Wright Jr. Jr had a problem with his
throttle linkage as he was qualifying. That is bad
enough, but then it was ruled that since he had
pushed on the track and was in the process of
qualifying, that he would be done and get no time.
That seemed strange, since most everywhere you go,
you get a chance to make repairs and are allowed to
get in a qualifying run, even if you are penalized
by where you have to start the heat races and the
main event. After some investigating and looking at
a copy of the rules that one of the officials had,
it seems there is something in the rules that says
once you enter the track to qualify, you are done,
no matter if you complete the laps or not. Upon
further investigation there was also something else
found:
“Any car that has a mechanical problem, either
before or during his qualifying run, will have two
car positions to have it fixed without being
penalized if he has not started BOTH laps.”
Since Jr had not even finished his first lap (he
questions whether he even started it) it then seemed
he should be allowed an opportunity to complete his
qualifying. The written rules state you have the
time it takes for two other cars behind you to
qualify to make repairs and be ready to finish your
qualifying run. If you can’t do this, you can
qualify, but will receive a penalty of where you
start in the heats and main. All this was brought to
the attention of one of the officials down in the
pits who related this to other officials, but for
some reason was over ruled. All I know is the only
thing the teams and drivers have to go by is the
written rules. When that doesn’t happen it just
causes hard feelings and confusion. We just went
though that the week before. So maybe I should add a
“please get your rules straight” award.
I don’t want to call out my friends on the ocean
staff, but there are some contradictory rules that
seem to need some attention.
Ok, now where was I? I think the “Gimme back my
bullet” award will go to “Cowboy” Craig Smith. He
had motor problems the week before and just barely
got a motor back in time to race. I heard he got it
around 4:30 Fri afternoon! Dave Haver, who is a good
friend of mine, builds Craig’s Motors and I was
joking saying that getting a motor in the nick of
time was about normal! As Craig said, he had a
motor, he was there racing, and he was happy.
For my underdog of the week I am going to go with
Craig’s Taco Bravo team mate Kurt Nelson. Even
though Kurt has been racing for some time I know he
doesn’t have the funding that is up there with some
of the other teams. Kurt started 5th in
his #72w sprinter and was hanging right in there
staying in the top 10 and finishing 9th.
That and a 6th place heat race finish put
him back into the top ten in points.
My “missed it by
that
much” award goes to Ryan Rusconi, who finished just
outside a transfer spot in the B main. That always
sucks. Oh, speaking of B main, I’m glad they decided
to run just one B main and not two.
I found myself watching Bud Kaeding and Tommy
Tarlton racing hard for 3rd and 4th
at one point in the race so I am going to give a
“that got my attention” award just because I had fun
watching them!
Ok now, gee who am I going to give my hero of the
week award to? With out a doubt it has to go to race
winner Justin Sanders and his team. Justin lead
every lap, at times being pressured by young Justyn
Cox and then by Bud Kaeding. Still Sanders not only
held his ground, but out ran everyone to get his
second main event win ever at Ocean Speedway. The
win comes almost exactly one year to the day that at
the same track, he won his first main event ever.
Congrats to Justin and his sponsor “Smoke’in” Joe
Silvera of North County Plastering, his dad Rick who
owns the car, and to the rest of the team.
You know in racing you can be either a hero or a
zero and it can change in the blink of an eye. I was
beginning to think we might get through the night
with out a zero award this week as things were going
pretty good and no body had really “stepped on it”
enough to warrant it. Then as the main event was
winding down, young Justyn Cox, who had been running
second most of the race and at times looked like he
could challenge Sanders for the lead, put himself in
a position to grab the award. On around lap 25-26
Justyn was making a run on Sanders and then found
himself boxed in on the bottom of the track coming
off turn 2 behind the slowing car of Steve Osborne.
I don’t know if Osborne just didn’t get a good run
off the corner or what but Justyn had his momentum
up and was trying to get under Sanders who was
outside of him when he got into the back of Osborne.
The resulting contact saw Osborne spin to a stop
just off turn two and caused Cox to spin and do a
360 before continuing on. The yellow flag flew and
Cox ended up being sent to the back for what I first
heard was rough driving but later was informed it
was for causing the yellow. Now this is where I get
confused. Most every place you go that races sprint
cars, when you are involved in a yellow, no matter
what, and you don’t stop, you get your position
back, unless you are popped for rough driving or
something like that. Like I said, I am confused
because as most any sprint car follower will tell
you, when you keep going on a yellow, and don’t
stop, no matter if you are involved in the crash or
the cause of the crash, you get your spot back. So
maybe on second thought I will just give Justyn half
a zero and give the other half to the track! What
the heck, I already ragged on them about the
qualifying thing so I might as well get it all in at
once! Oh well, it’s not like I haven’t put myself in
a position to be on anyone’s $h!t list before!
My opinions are only my opinions as I have said
before, and sometimes I might get a bit carried
away. So keep that in mind.
It is nice to see that a decent amount of cars are
turning out to run the series each race, and that
some new teams are testing the waters as well. I
hope that continues.
See you at the races, Buzz Rightrear.
|
