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Ocean Speedway 6-4-10,
Well the Ocean Sprint Series
presented by Taco Bravo was back in action after a
week off and Ocean Speedway promoter John Prentice
offered up a $2000 to win - $200 to start main event
purse to thank the teams for their support. We all
know that we are in tough times financially these
days and for the promoter and the teams to back each
other and show their support for each other goes a
long way in helping the Taco Bravo Series to
continue forward. I hope that both the teams and the
track will continue to work together to bring
everyone a great race series.
I had a pretty relaxed night to
tell you the truth. There didn’t seem to me to be
too much going on other than the normal race day
stuff in the pits. The only exception I guess would
be that Kurt Nelson who drives the 72w car sponsored
by Taco Bravo had an ignition problem that resulted
in some distributor changes and seemed to eventually
put him out of competition as he didn’t run any heat
race or any other event that I recall. Also Wayne
Katen who drives the 99 sponsored by Car Quest Auto
Parts had a brake problem after his heat race and
was changing the inboard rotor on the rear of his
car before the main event which he transferred to
from his heat race.
While I was roaming around
before the races started I had a chance to visit
with Dean Nelson who is not only the father of Kurt
Nelson, but a veteran driver of both winged and non
winged sprint car racing in the area. It was nice
have a chance to talk with Dean and see what he
likes and doesn’t like about some of the racing now
a days, and to also find that we have the same
opinion on a lot of things. That isn’t saying we
know it all or might even have the best ideas, it
just means as racers and fans we are seeing some of
the same things and have some of the same ideas on
it. I’ll just leave it at that before I go off track
on a bunch of opinions and ideas! Lol.
Speaking of Dean and him being
a racer from the past, at one time I looked around
and in my area of view there were several former
drivers. Besides Dean there was Tim Green who was
there helping his son Nick who was racing non winged
that night. There was chuck Miller who comes out to
the track from time to time. There was also Gary
Nelson Sr, who’s son Gary Jr was also running non
winged. Also Howard Kaeding was on hand as he is
most nights to watch his son Brent and grandson Bud.
John Golobic was there helping his son Shane and
also roaming the pits was my buddy Jason Newton who
was the rookie of the year in 2007 for the winged
series when it was the Wright One Series and had to
step out of the cockpit this year due to finances. I
joked to Jason that I needed to do a “Where are they
now?” segment and he could be the first subject! He
didn’t like that too well, and anytime I can zing
Jason, my job is complete for the night! I thought
it was cool to see so many former drivers still
enjoying the sport and being active in it.
I also got to hang out a little
with my buddy Ricky Wright Jr who just graduated
from Bellarmine
College Prep
School and will be attending
Oklahoma
State
University
in
Stillwater, Oklahoma this coming year. Jr wasn’t having a
very good night as he qualified poorly and missed
the show from his heat and had to come through the B
main. He transferred from the B main to the main
event and eventually ended up 15th. He
found that most of his problems were due to having
an inexperienced new guy on his crew that was not
keeping track of things and maintaining the stagger
and air pressure he was asking for. The problem was
eventually found and Jr said he knew he was having a
bad night when Tim Kaeding, who was there watching
the races, came over and wanted to know what was
going on and started helping to find the problem. Jr
welcomed the help but said when other people come up
and start wanting to help, you are either doing
pretty good or pretty bad. He knew he wasn’t doing
good! Lol.
Someone else I got to spend a
little time talking with was Kyle Larson’s dad Mike.
I had a chance to talk with him not only about Kyle
and the season he is having, but about racing stuff
in general. I don’t get to talk with Mike Larson
very much and I am glad I got the chance this past
week. On another Kyle Larson note, Howard Kaeding
was handing out Kyle Larson hero cards in the pits
after the races and made sure everyone including
myself got one!
Matt Sargent got the luck of
the pill draw to start on the pole of the main
event, but had veteran Pete Murphy beside him on the
front row. Matt did a heck of a job leading the race
early before eventually finishing 8th.
Still that was a decent run for Matt who had been
struggling a bit and had to come from the B main the
past couple of weeks.
Pete and Tommy Tarlton, who
started 6th and eventually went on to
win, put on a heck of a show fighting for the lead
with Pete ending up second. All the drivers had to
race hard for every position and there was passing
going on through out the pack.
The guy that ended up getting
past the most cars and taking home an extra $100 for
it was Brent Kaeding. BK advanced 10 spots beating
out his son Bud by one car to get the “Fully Charged
with Sun Electric” hard charger award for the night.
This makes two in a row for Brent as far as the hard
charger and makes him the only repeat winner of the
award so far this year. The other car that was in
the running for hard charger this night was the 121
driven by Shane Golobic who started 16th
and had gotten up to around 5th or 6th
I believe until he hit the back straight wall and I
think broke a right rear radius rod and bent the
Jacobs ladder on the car and ended up with a 10th
place main event finish.
My vote for hard luck of the
night has to go to Kurt Nelson, who as I said
earlier, had motor problems and didn’t make any
racing laps that I remember. That took Kurt out of
the top 10 in points and dropped him to 14th,
twenty-seven points out of the top 10.
My pick for underdog of the
night is Jerry Bonnema who lives very close to the
track and competes on a very low budget. It was nice
to see Bonnema have a good run and finish 11th
in the main event.
My mate Paul Baines who is the
crew chief for Tommy Tarlton says that Anthony
Simone deserves an honorable mention for his second
place run in the heat race that saw him and Tommy
fighting for the win. Tommy eventually nipped
Anthony at the line, but Paul says Anthony did a
great job and deserves credit. So here is credit to
Mr Excitement himself, Anthony Simone, for a great
race and for finishing the thing going the same
direction he started it! Lol.
Speaking of Tommy Tarlton, he
and his team that includes not only Paul, but Jason
and Trucker and Wayne and Tommy’s wife Melissa and
his dad Tom put together a clean sweep of the
evening. They not only won the main event, but had
fast time in practice and in qualifying, as well as
won their heat. Still I am not sure who to make the
hero of the night. So I am going to split it and
give it to both Paul Baines for giving Tommy a car
he could kick butt in and to Tommy for not screwing
up Paul’s perfect night! Lol. Good job guys!
I also have to say that if Paul
Baines gets to pick an honorable mention, then so do
I! Brad Furr had a good night winning his heat going
away and then finishing out the night with a 5th
place main event run. That moved him into 10th
place in series points. So Brad gets an honorable
mention.
There was some pretty good
racing going on and I thought we might get through
the night with no one going from hero to zero, until
Kyle Larson stepped up to claim the prize. I still
really don’t know WTF happened even though I went
back and looked at the video. All I know is Kyle was
having a good run from his 8th place
starting spot in the main event and was up to third
by lap 24 of the 30 lap event. Then it seemed he
caught lapped traffic at the wrong time going into
turn one and spun trying to avoid contact. Even
though it was just bad racing luck, when you go from
running third to sitting in the middle of the turn
sideways, I gotta rule it a hero to zero move. So
even though Larson has been having a great year, I
gotta be fair when someone makes a mistake that
costs them and give him the award this week.
So on that note, the series
will be off for two weekends and return to action at
Ocean Speedway on Friday June 25th. That
night will be the first of four qualifying nights
for the 50th running of the Johnny Key
Classic. The “Key” race will be run on Sat August 28th.
I still haven’t heard what the format or anything
will be for this 50th running so I hope
we get that info soon so the fans as well as race
teams can know what to expect.
See you at the races, Buzz Rightrear.
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