Tulare Thunderbowl Raceway 5-22-10,

So the Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo Series made it’s second road trip of the season to the Groppetti Automtive Thunderbowl in Tulare, Ca for their latest event. Tulare usually provides some great racing action and this race was no exception! Gary Thomas has a great race report that is posted on this site so I will let you check that out to get the full details, but let me just say it was a heck of a race.

As far as what I got to do and my take on things there, we will get into that, but let me first thank Don Sharp for allowing myself, Bruce Velo and Earle Stanton access to the event so we could do interviews and take video as well as being able to bring you this buzz report.

First off Earle, Bruce and myself had the chance to stop off at Harris Ranch for lunch on the way to the track and that always makes the trip worth it! When we got to the track and were waiting for things to get started we had a chance to visit with some race fans that we have gotten to know. David and Lisa are great fans who get to every sprint car race they can. We got the first hand report on the GSC race that was run at Hanford the night before from a fan perspective and it is always nice to see the enthusiasm that fans have before a race as well.

There were 27 sprint cars so that was nice to see. The series has been lucky to have pretty respectable car counts so far this year despite it being financially tough for teams out there. The series picked up some Central Valley cars but lost a few Bay Area regulars. Craig Stidham, Steve Jaquith, Steven Tiner, Garrett Ishii, and the Roth car with Tim Kaeding were just some of the Valley cars along with cars from other areas including Billy Butler and Andy Gregg as well as Zach Zimmerly who were there to challenge the Taco Bravo regulars. Evan Suggs and Ricky Wright Jr were a couple of regulars that were not there. A couple of Valley cars that I thought might be there were Davey Pombo and Anthony Simone, but neither one of them was there.

There were also a few people there as spectators that are worth mentioning. Former NHRA fuel car champion Gary Scelzi was there with his son. Scelzi is pretty much a regular at Tulare and Hanford sprint car events but it was still nice to see him and his son come check out the Taco Bravo Series. George Snider, who is a co-owner of the car driven by Pete Murphy in the series was also there to watch his team race. I had not seen Ziggy for years and the 1964 winner of the Johnny Key Classic as well as a veteran of USAC and the Indianapolis 500 looked great. I didn’t really get to say more than hi to him but hope to see him around at some other events. Also on hand was former San Jose Speedway and Kearny Bowl announcer Kenny Takeuchi. Kenny usually gets to most shows at Tulare and along with a whole bunch of drivers and owners of his time he is a legend in area auto racing. Kenny shared that he had some heart trouble and had to undergo surgery a while back but is now doing fine. We hope to see Kenny at future events as well.

I also had a chance to talk a bit with Steve Jaquith. Steve is a new driver who started racing last year and despite being about as low budget as you can get, says he is just having fun racing with his family. He is a school teacher in Chowchilla, CA and says he uses his race car and his racing to help inform younger kids about the sport and hopefully get them interested and involved.

I had heard the track was kind of dry when we got there and it was kind of tough to prepare because it had been pretty windy and that was just going to make it hard to prepare. The track crew got moisture down in it though right before wheel packs and the track held up pretty well through most of qualifying before it started to fall off. By the end of the door slammer heats and the beginning of the sprint heats the track had gotten pretty loose and challenging. The heat races were still not bad even though it was tough to pass. By the main even though the track turned pretty racy.

Jon Allard had raced the GSC race at Hanford the night before. He wasn’t racing this night but was on hand helping out Justin Sanders and just having fun I guess. I never really asked him why he wasn’t racing but thought it might be because his team might not have a 360 to run as they hurt it at the Taco Bravo race in Santa Maria a couple of weeks ago. I did get to ask a bit of set up advise of Jon though as I was doing what I could to help my buddy Wayne Katen who had missed the show in his heat and was having to run the B main. By the way Wayne did great in the B, stating 4^th and after running 2^nd for most of the race, ended up 3^rd, finishing well enough not only to transfer to the main, but well enough to get his qualifying time back for the A main line up. Unfortunately he was caught up in a spin early in the main event and although the car received minor damage, it was too much to repair in time to restart. That was tough luck for Wayne.

Speaking of tough luck, I am going to give my hard luck award of the night to Eric Rossi, who was tied for 3rd in series points, just 7 points out of the lead going into the night. Eric missed the show out of his heat and that put him in the B main. He was involved in an incident that damaged the front end of the car and even though his team got the car repaired and back out on the track, he was down a lap and that was more than he could make up to gain a transfer to the main. That dropped him to 6^th and 34 points out of the lead.

Eric missed a heck of a main event though with Tarlton and TK fighting it out early with Larson getting past them both down the front straight once before Tim got the lead back in turns one and two. Tommy hurt his tires and slipped to finish 4^th and that allowed for a great battle between Larson and BK for second and third. BK eventually ended up second and since he started 12^th and advanced 10 spots that makes him the hard charger of the race, picking up the “Fully Charged with Sun Electric” award.

A couple of guys that did make the show out of the B main were Kurt Nelson and Matt Sargent. They finished 12^th and 13^th respectively in the main. Since Kurt was in 10^th place in points going into the night, and didn’t make the show out of his heat, it looked like his top ten in points was in jeopardy. But by winning the B main and finishing 12^th in the A main, Kurt held onto his top 10 points position and moved into a tie for 9^th. That makes him my underdog of the race.

As I said it was a heck of a race with Tommy and TK going all out wheel to wheel early, splitting cars down both straights and putting on a great show. Still I think I am going to give a best move of the race to Kyle Larson for getting past both of them coming off of turn four and taking the lead while TT and TK were battling each other. Even though TK took the lead back in the next corner, Larson still gets my move of the race.

 For out lasting Tarlton and out running Larson, and winning a heck of a race, Tim Kaeding gets the hero of the race award in my book. TK put pressure on who ever was leading and got past them and then out ran who ever tried to put pressure on him.

For the first time this year I can’t say that anyone did anything to ruin their night, and give me enough of a reason to hand out a zero award. I do have one thing to say though. I know that everyone can’t make it to every race, but if you had the means and ability to go to this one and just passed it up, give yourself a big fat zero for missing the best Taco Bravo Series race of the year so far! LOL!

The series has raced four weeks in a row at three different tracks and will now take a week off before returning to Ocean Speedway on Fri June 4^th. That will be the last race before qualifying begins for the Jonny Key Classic on June 25^th.

See you at the races, Buzz Rightrear.