July 6, 2014

By Ken Wagner

Looks like my reporting is down to bi-monthly now, but I'll try to do better or at least sooner. Since I missed my planned two day show trip last week to No Cal, I decided I would head to the PAS and follow that up with a Santa Maria experience where the CRA would not be paid by the promoter, since it was guaranteed by USAC, or I wouldn’t have gone. Alas I was alone and on the road again, but I cruised on down to Perris midafternoon and avoided the grueling hot pit walk I have always done there. The cars were lined up on the front stretch so the fans, that incudes me, could walk around and see the cars and crews. I did about 20 minutes of that and realized without my Mule, I had no Gatorade with me and I was feeling that dizziness that comes with the heat for me. I headed up to the grandstands and but for a friendly pit person (thank goodness) who caught me before I fell backwards down the stairs, or my weekend would have probably been done right there. I know him very well, but can’t bring his name to my head, that’s how old I am. I made it to down two cold bottles of Gatorade and relaxed, but felt that weird “dizzy feeling” the rest of the night.

For Mr Wags pics from Perris Click here to view! For Mr Wags pics from Santa Maria Click here to view! For Steve Lafond foto's pics Click here to view! For the Doug Allen Photos click here to view.

It was great to see a lot of familiar faces and to hear many proclaim they missed me. That’s nice to know, but everyone assumed I had a problem to keep me away, but I assure you, I have no problems that will keep me away except my own new plan for the future and the desire to step back a little bit in my retirement from my past nutty desire to work hard, help the racers and enjoy my Wagtimes things. It was the first time I have paid at the front gate to see a race at the PAS and I thank Don Kazarian for all the years I was on his nickel to do my thing. It did feel weird walking in the front gate without my Mule, but it is what it is.

Lucky for me Krista Cordova saved me a seat and it felt normal to be sitting up there watching the racing with my friends like the good old days. I’ve always said these are the good old days and that still works for me. I did take my camera and used my excellent Canon high dollar 28 to 300 lens that has served me so well for a while. It is now sold and gone because as little as I would be taking pics, my old cheap long lens will serve this non pro just fine in the future. With plenty of daylight, I enjoyed taking some action shots, but none will be worthy enough for anywhere except my own website, what with the high fence not allowing any real focusing for me. Still it felt good to try to capture a little track action.

There were 29 cars lined up for the night and a 40 lap Firecracker 40 getting ready to unfold in front of the large crowd. The heat and 4th of July action sizzled in the night as we got started. Mike Spencer put the little red sucker on the top of qualifying list, but the time was not close to the track record as the heat beat down on the track so the hard work for the track prep crew to get it watered and racy or the night was again another hard job. It didn’t help that “Coach” played tire repairman when he couldn’t find a real tire guy available, but his patching job worked most of the night. It didn’t hurt the racing any, but the night started on a low note when after all the 4th hoopla with the veterans that we always thank for their service on the track. With some special patriotic music, the track was watered and it took a while to get it back to racing shape and not too slick. The low note was after first heat cars finally packed it in, they had to stop and refuel before the first heat even started. Then the first “stringing them out nicely” heat race was rolling and since there was no passing, only follow the leader noise of a ten lap parade that wasn’t racy at all. That didn’t bother D J Johnson who won without any opposition, you can be sure. The second heat was really racy as the Demon came from the back to show off his wild high pointed headers to the pack behind him. Brody Roa and Ryan Bernal won the last two heats as the track was now allowing plenty of passing. Earlier due to the sloppy track leaving him no choice but to run the Semi, Mike Spencer won that 12 lapper going away.

With all the seniors and the young guns and the other sprint cars running, plus the lightning sprints, there was much action going on all night. The 20 minute fireworks bombardment of our senses was as usual pretty spectacular, but a little of that goes a long way with me. When the lights came back on it was time to go racing.

The feature had Josh Pelkey and Matt Mitchell on the front row with Cody Williams and the Demon following and so on. The start saw Matt take the lead from Pelkey on the green and a lap later the Demon quickly passed Matt down the front chute at the end of the 2nd lap. Damion went low into turn one and Matt went high, hoping to roar around him on the top, but oh noooooo, it didn’t work out that way! Matt biked it big time and the ensuing flip killed that chassis, but Matt was fine. The restart was just a prelim to another Gardner victory run as he was good to the last lap, sort of. Spencer gave him a brief run for his money after a restart, but even though the 5 time champ pulled close for a few laps, he couldn’t power by and began to drop back as they weaved thru traffic. Late in the race Damion had an incident in turn four that showed off the underside of his car to the pit viewers, but he gathered it in and headed to the checkers. With a few laps to go Spencer was actually reeling him in when two lap cars parked the two racing grooves kept him back until the end without allowing him by. The move over flag is just a suggestion, but one wonders if Mike could have pulled off the pass without the blockers. D J Johnson and the Kruiser were the guilty parties, but as they say, that’s racing and that’s what they were trying to do! A word in their ear on the official race radio might help these situations, but that’s not part of the rules.

When that ended I was ready for my night-night. I headed on over to the Duffy homestead and made myself at home as they are in South Dakota for the summer. I was up a 5:30 am and on the road for a breakfast treat with my buddy, and former racer crew chief now transformed into a wanna-b-golfer, Randy Shiosaki. He guided me to one of his old hangouts back in his college days and we had a great visit before he had a scheduled golf ball knocking experience with his 8 year old nephew at a local golf driving range. Great visit, thanks for breakfast and he’s still too busy to go racing. He’s going to Japan at the end of the month, so one day we’ll see him at a race somewhere, won’t we?

Now Santa Maria was next and I arrived at Jocko’s for lunch with Mr Lafond. He had a tasty looking steak sandwich while the jocko burger was what I always dream of. After chowing down and filling my tank, it was on to the race track where I loaded up my little rolling mini-mule box with my camera and stuff, and headed into the pits. Again, being a retired non-working journalist now, I bought my own pit pass for a change and headed into visit and take a few pics before going up to my preferred picnic table perch, where I am easily found at this little bull ring! An afternoon of visiting with so many friends, both pit people and grandstand fans, was a delight and then things began to go a little south on the 1/3 mile track when I started watching track prep.

The first thing I noticed was the water truck cutting a deep trough low in turn one? I saw Chris Kearns telling the boy to do better I guess, then he did it again but a little more in the middle of the front stretch. Those gouges never got repaired properly and kind of narrowed the track for the racers all night. The next thing I noticed was in hot laps the cars weren’t hooking up very well as the leaping frogs of Calaveras County made an appearance, ha ha. True most had real pushing problems and all had severe bouncing issues. Jake Swanson somehow out qualified the field, with a whole different order of results that were interesting. Logan Williams was 2nd quick with Dennis Howell and D J Johnson all up in the rare air of qualifying spots. Some normal fast guys were way off. It would make things velly velly interesting!

The start stop attitudes of many sprinters made the final results a little exciting, but those that maintained spots near the front were just better at dealing with the strange conditions. It’s kind of like at the drag races where the top fuelers blast off and have to pedal their cars, when they immediately go up in smoke, to try and get the horsepower back on the ground to win a race! Similar, but I can tell you some drivers were obviously upset over their new found driving patterns they modified to keep racing to the front.

Austin Williams took the lead from the start at the place where he has two lifetime wins and I thought it might be a 3rd one tonight if nobody could pass him jumping around behind him. Not to be, as on lap 19 he was suddenly in 4th and his brother Cody replaced him in the lead. I missed it, but can imagine a push caused Austin’s path back three spots. What was bad for him was good for his bro! Cody was dialed in as he held off a frantic little red sucker the rest of the way for his first ever CRA victory, much to the delight of his whole family and legion of Williams fans. It was another 1st time winner at Santa Maria, a track that is noted for that interesting fact. Some first time winners, like John Andretti never won another!

The entire feature was a serious adventure for all as many passes were the result of a balking car, often one that suddenly pushed high and slowed them enough that those behind made moves forward. Bud Kaeding was the hard charger coming from 19th up to 5th at the end. Great job on the tricky track for the savvy veteran. All in all it was fun, but I’ve never seen that track so difficult in all the years I have been going there. I’m not complaining but you would have to have been there to get the picture fully.

Richard Vander Weerd took Mike Sala’s midget into the winner’s circle for that 20 car feature on the night. He did a great job. Ronnie Gardner had his early problems, but rebounded from his 13th starting spot to get 2nd at the end. He was bitched out by the third place driver who said he broke her race car when they banged together as Ronnie passed for 2nd. I didn’t see enough force on the pass to do any damage, but when you get a chance to vent sometimes you just take it!

It was 10:30 when I whizzed out the gate after the race on the road home. I drove 3 hours before pulling over to sleep two hours at a rest stop, and then rolled into my garage about 6 AM. That is what I am talking about when I say I don’t want to do that crap anymore, yet I did it and I am glad I was there. I paid for it with my exhaustion the next two days, but I recovered. Next time I’ll try the sleep over trick before heading home late at night. I posted pics by Doug Allen and Steve Lafond, along with the results from Lance Jennings, and then hit the sac………………………………….

I still love my racing, but wish I had a plane to make these little trips in. Don’t know my next trip, but probably Calistoga as I am busy resting up for another go at it. Thanks to all who gave me a little time, it felt good, but I am retired, dammit!

The next CRA race day is August 15th a mere 5 weeks away, what a load of crap. A couple of drivers will attend the Indiana Speed Week. Brody Roa and R J Johnson for two with the Vander Weerd Brothers probably, but that is a long hot hard trail back in the Midwest. I’ve done it many times and loved it, but probably won’t venture back there again in a while. Good luck to all who venture there. I am sure there are some West Coast 360 races in the big gap in the CRA schedule, so find one, it is competitive. I never thought I would say that, go to a 360 race thing! See ya next time around. I have three Wagsbooks left, so $45 and you too can have one.

AMSOIL USAC/CRA SPRINT CAR RACE RESULTS: July 5, 2014 - Santa Maria, California - Santa Maria Speedway - Party at the Coast /"Doug Fort Memorial"

QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Jake Swanson, 92, Sertich-14.999; 2. Logan Williams, 5, Jory-15.489; 3. Dennis Howell, 62, 15.659; 4. D.J. Johnson, 33, Johnson-15.681; 5. Damion Gardner, 4, Alexander-15.818; 6. Mike Spencer, 50, Chaffin-15.823; 7. Cody Williams, 44, Jory-15.861; 8. Gary Taylor, 04G, Cook-15.874; 9. Nic Faas, 73, Ford-15.894; 10. Austin Williams, 2, Jory-15.969; 11. Richard Vander Weerd, 10, Vander Weerd-16.017; 12. Ryan Bernal, 56, Phulps-16.028; 13. R.J. Johnson, 51, Martin-16.081; 14. Jace Vander Weerd, 88, Vander Weerd-16.160; 15. Jeremy Ellertson, 98X, Ellertson-16.171; 16. Brody Roa, 48, Leonard-16.206; 17. Rick Hendrix, 15, Hendrix-16.251; 18. Matt Mitchell, 37, Mitchell-16.278; 19. Bud Kaeding, 29, Bowman-16.288, 20. Chris Gansen, 4G, Gansen-16.380; 21. Danny Faria Jr., 2F, Bowman-16.455; 22. Shon Deskins, 4X, Deskins-16.529; 23. Hobie Conway, 3K, Kruseman-16.537; 24. Luke Boles, 56A, Boles-16.555; 25. James Herrera, 16J, Jones-17.689; 26. Connor Kassik, 26, Kassik-17.689.

FIRST HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Roa, 2. Kaeding, 3. C.Williams, 4. A.Williams, 5. Deskins, 6. J.Swanson, 7. Kassik, 8. D.J.Johnson, 9. R.J. Johnson. NT

SECOND HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Gardner, 2. J.Vander Weerd, 3. R.Vander Weerd, 4. Hendrix, 5. Taylor, 6. L.Williams, 7. Gansen, 8. Conway, 9. Herrera. NT

THIRD HEAT: (10 laps) 1. Mitchell, 2. Faas, 3. Spencer, 4. Boles, 5. Bernal, 6. Howell, 7. Faria, 8. Ellertson. NT

SEMI: (12 laps) 1. J.Swanson, 2. L.Williams, 3. Taylor, 4. R.J.Johnson, 5. D.J.Johnson, 6. Howell, 7. Bernal, 8. Gansen, 9. Deskins, 10. Ellertson, 11. Kassik, 12. Conway, 13. Herrera, 14. Faria. NT

FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Cody Williams, 2. Mike Spencer, 3. Damion Gardner, 4. Austin Williams, 5. Bud Kaeding, 6. Gary Taylor, 7. Shon Deskins, 8. Nic Faas, 9. Chris Gansen, 10. Richard Vander Weerd, 11. Brody Roa, 12. Jake Swanson, 13. Ryan Bernal, 14. Dennis Howell, 15. Rick Hendrix, 16. D.J. Johnson, 17. R.J. Johnson, 18. Matt Mitchell, 19. Jace Vander Weerd, 20. Logan Williams, 21. Ryan Bernal, 22. Jeremy Ellertson.

FEATURE LAP LEADERS: Laps 1-18 A.Williams, Laps 19-30 C.Williams.

NEW AMSOIL USAC/CRA SPRINT POINTS: 1-D.Gardner-714, 2-Spencer-603, 3-Faas-603, 4-R.Vander Weerd-471, 5-C.Williams-459, 6-Mitchell-456, 7-Roa-446, 8-A.Williams-444, 9-J.Swanson-404, 10-Cory Kruseman-381.

NEXT AMSOIL USAC/CRA SPRINT RACE: August 16 - Perris (CA) Auto Speedway