March 8, 2012

By Ken Wagner

It’s been a busy 10 days what with a Thursday night race and Mrs Wags rotator cuff surgery that was a major rebuild of her left shoulder. Throw in some fun with the leftover racer friends and I am just getting around to doing a little writing.

For my pics this week Click here to view. For Doug Allen's great pic's Click here to view.

Let’s start with a pretty competitive race on the dirt track in Las Vegas that has given us few racy tracks in our visits there over the years. This evening was the warmest in a week in the sin city and yet very cool when the sun went down. With 32 West Coast 360’s ready to rock, it all started with a pill draw and line-ups for the heats. With no qualifying, it usually saves the track some, but with the Modifieds and WOO running as well, there was no hope for the dirt surface to stay near wet enough.

There were four well known local So Cal drivers doing good in the prelims as Danny Sheridan and Troy Rutherford won their heats with Brody Roa and Mike Spencer won the two semi’s. There was plenty of racing as the winner came from the 5th row. Sheridan led the first three laps in the red # 21 Dorathy car before Rutherford took it away until young Ryan Bernal grabbed the lead on lap 6. Ryan came from the 11th starting spot and looked to have everything going his way until Bud Kaeding chased him down on lap 19. Ryan was coming back on him when the checkered flag flew unexpectedly 5 laps early, without any notice, and it was done. Shame on LV management as there isn’t anyoneto keep awake out there but the airbase, and I think they were still up! Too bad it ended early, as we won’t know if Ryan could have taken it back, but it’s no shame for the 18 year old to finish 2nd to the exceptional Kaeding.

I was pretty much a wimp on this racing night as I was in my car behind the backstretch wall for most of the racing I saw this race. I watched some of the WOO feature, my first in a long, long while and once again the wingless racing was better than the shaded sprint car version event, in my opinion of course. It was very interesting that father Brent Kaeding got a lot of bragging rights when his two sons won on this night in the two divisions.

What did I learn? Wear heavy clothes when watching racing in the cool desert nights and I couldn’t tell if they were 360 or 410’s on the track, it was good racing for me. If no one told me it was the 360’s out there I would have assumed it to be 410’s. The track held up well as passing was up top and on the bottom through the feature. I spent the afternoon hanging out with Danny Sheridan’s crew doing nothing but watching until the heats. I visited with many people and only missed Elvis, our friend Joeywho is an Elvis impersonator who once raced here with us. I got a clear view of the Stealth plane as it took a few laps in the sky early afternoon and it’s very impressive.

I didn’t do much more than the 360’s on my camera, but had a nice day looking and watching it all. Next up is the CRA event at the PAS on March 31st, so look for me there. I don’t have any news so have a good one.