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Ocean Speedway 7-16-10,
Well after a few weeks off the
Ocean Sprints presented by Taco Bravo 360 Series was
back in action at Ocean Speedway in Watsonville CA.
This event was a match between the local Ocean cars
and the traveling California Civil War Series 360
cars. Thirty-eight 360 cars signed in with I think
twelve being Civil war cars. In qualifying, Ocean
regular Kyle Larson set a new track record for 360
cars at 11.611 seconds. Ocean cars qualified nine
out of the top ten spots, with Mason Moore being the
highest qualifying Civil War car at seventh fast. As
a matter of fact, Ocean cars made up eight out of
the top ten spots in the main event, with the top
eight all being Ocean cars. So the local guys
defended their home turf very well.
Bruce Velo, who usually is
there to film the races and interviews, was not
there this night as he was not feeling well. So
without interviews to do, I was drafted by my buddy
Ricky Wright Jr to lend a hand on his car for what
may very well be his last race at Ocean for some
time. Jr is moving with his family to
Oklahoma in the next month as he will
start college at
Oklahoma
State
University
the first week in August. Jr didn’t have as good of
a night as he would have liked. He was the first car
out to qualify and was just too tight. He missed the
heat invert and had to start eighth in his heat.
During his heat he made it up to battle for a
transfer spot in the main, but he and the car he was
battling with for position had contact that spun
them both and popped Jr’s right rear tire. The tire
was changed on the yellow (thanks Bud Kaeding for
the help) and Jr tried to race back into a transfer
spot but came up just one position short. He didn’t
have much better luck in the B main and missed the
show. Sorry Jr, I know you wanted a better night.
Mark Chaves Sr made his debut
of his ford powered winged 360 sprinter. Some motor
issues made for a short night as the team parked the
car before they made things worse. Marks dad Arnold
Chaves who built the motor said something about
having some oil scavenging problems with the dry
sump system I think. Even though the car didn’t get
to run much, it was nice to see the latest
incarnation of the famous “Blue Goose” that Arnold
has always named his cars dating way back to the
1960’s and maybe even further.
Another driver that had some
motor problems and didn’t get to race was Craig
Smith. Craig said he had a valve spring retainer
break and didn’t have the right part at the track to
fix it.
Let’s see now. Since I was
helping Jr, and didn’t do any interviews, I really
didn’t get around and talk to many people.
I did get to
say hi to Kyle Larson’s mom Janet, as well as bs a
bit with my friend Kenny Thorpe, who is Brad Furr’s
crew chief. Brad Furr has been having a pretty good
couple of Taco Bravo races lately and I am looking
for that team to pull out a win here soon. They have
been working hard at it. If you haven’t had the
chance to go see Brad after the races, you need to
do yourself a favor and go down and say hi and get a
t-shirt from him.
I saw Mark Bristow, who is the
crew chief for Jason Statler, hanging out and
lending a hand over at the Kaeding pit area. Statler
and his wife are about to become parents again so
Jason was not racing.
I don’t really know what else
to say. Like I said before, I didn’t really get to
snoop around too much this week. I did get to have a
chance to talk a bit with Joe Von Shriltz, who owns
the #121 car that Shane Golobic has been driving.
Shane was the “Fully Charged with Sun Electric” hard
charger award winner for the second week in a row,
coming from 17th to 6th in the
main event. Both Shane and Joe said they had no
problem taking Jeff Delte’s money!
I gotta start picking my awards
for the night here, so I need to think about this.
This was a hard night to try to pick awards for.
There were plenty of guys that had hard luck. Craig
Smith and Mark Chaves for having motor trouble and
not racing. Tommy Tarlton for getting involved in a
lapped car crash while leading and ending up going
to the back of the field. Bud Kaeding was running 4th
I think and was involved in the same lapped car
crash as Tommy. All these guys had bad luck. Still I
think I am giving the hard luck award to Sean Becker
who was leading the race and had a tire go down on a
yellow flag on lap 23 I think of the 30 lap main
event. That cost him what looked like a good shot at
the win.
I am going to give a WTF was
that, award to Stephen Allard who flipped all by
himself in the main event coming out of turn 4. I
didn’t really see it, but was told Allard just
looked like he slid off the top of the turn and
caught something with the right rear and flipped.
That was the second flip of the night for Stephen as
he flipped in his heat too.
I have to give a big shout out
to the track prep crew as they put together a track
record surface that stayed together the whole night
and had multiple grooves.
For the underdog award, I have
to give it to Matt Sargent. Matt had a good night
even though he started third and ended up 7th.
Matt did a good job and if he hadn’t got caught in a
late race incident that cost him a few spots because
of a bent front end, he would have had an even
better night.
Kyle Larson ran a hell of a
race and had some things go his way as well to end
up winning his second Taco Bravo event in a row. He
gets the hero of the week award, but I am going to
say he is going to have to share it with veteran
Ronnie Day who had his best run of the year so far
in finishing second and becoming the second
qualified driver for the 50th running of
the Johnny Key Classic coming up on Sat Aug 28th.
I really don’t know what to do
about a zero of the night. Tommy Tarlton did end up
taking himself from the lead to the tail of the pack
on lap 8 by getting involved in a crash with lapped
cars. I didn’t really see that so I can’t say for
sure that Tommy stepped on it, or was just a victim.
I always told Paul Baines who is Tommy’s crew chief
that he was going to be the zero for something, so I
think this week Paul is the zero for not giving
Tommy a car he could miss the wreck with! How about
that? So you are the zero this week Paul, just
because I can’t think of anyone else! Lol.
There was a pretty good crowd
on hand this past week and I hope that continues to
be the case as the Taco Bravo Series will be back at
Ocean Speedway on July 30th for the third
round of qualifying for the 50th Johnny
Key Classic.
I did speak with Tony Karis,
who helps with announcing and PR stuff at the track
and he reminded me that he has a radio program every
wens from 7-9 pm on station KNRY 1240AM. It is
called Motorsports Radio and is also on KNRY.com. so
please remember to listen, and if you want you can
call in live. The number is, 831-373-1234.
See you at the races, Buzz Rightrear.
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