September 19, 2011

By Ken Wagner

After all the recent roadblocks for his racing team, Showtime is back!! It was a big weekend for Danny Sheridan and the crew at Santa Maria this week as it was at his home track. In the last visit there, the little blue bugger ran second in the CRA 410 feature and couldn’t make the pass to get his first win there this year. On this trip to run with the West Coast 360’s, he was 2nd quick at 13.591, ran 2nd in his heat and started the main in the 7th spot. By lap 11 he was in 3rd. There was a long red flag stop on lap 12 when somebody knocked down the fence. Sorry Chris Kearns! Crew chief, Randy Shiosaki, had been texting me updates all night. During the red, his text said “we were tight, so now they are really in trouble”! Sure enough Danny took off after the leaders passing Wes Gutierrez and then Bud Kaeding on lap 27 for the win! Pour a big Jack n' Coke here, it has been too long for this team!

Doug Allens work is here as usual click here to view.

The team has had more bad luck than should be possible over the last two years. Danny Sheridan has improved greatly in this timeframe, but of course everything in the last two years all stems from the bad economy. On more than one occasion, a big victory possibility was denied by a broken rear end, a rock through the hood, a packed right rear wheel, an errant slide job, a spinning car and the list went on and on, seemingly endless. Calistoga this year started with leading 15 laps but having to settle for a 2nd place finish due to a lap car manuever. Then a Sunday night fiasco with a magneto failure meant that the big money night didn’t work out well for the team.

The year 2010 was semi successful when you remember they finished 2nd in the Championship Points battle on a less than required budget. They lost one good sponsor over a misunderstanding, then another cut back due to, yes you know, their own economy problems. How they finished the year on that barrel of limited cash is a testament to the crew re-using, repairing and making right a lot of parts that normally would have been shelved for new stuff. Randy and the crew of Paul, Ralph, Jimbo, and Chad worked their butts off using what little they had very quietly! The old Stingers were not keeping up with the faster cars coming out and they had to look elsewhere. Now enter the new Sherman Chassis for 2011. Right from the start the new car was better. Unfortunately, after a few races of 2011, things came to an abrubt halt due to lack of cash. Now sadly, the big fun hauler was gone as well as the 410 motors. Quickly, a new plan was put together. Gary Kittle owns the blue #18 car with his strong 360 engine and Warren Dorathy’s owns the red #21 car with another 360 engine. A co-op 360 racing program was the new direction. Paul Dean then stepped up and bought one of the Kittle 410 motors so they could run some CRA races as well.

Still hustling money, the team didn’t run Hanford or the Memorial Day race at Perris trying to get their plans together for the rest of the year. When they came back racing, with a much smaller trailer and a borrowed truck to pull it, they took a trip to Watsonville and Santa Maria because they just knew the car was ready! Even though that trip had finishes of 12th and 20th, Danny was as fast as anyone on the track, in fact a little too fast as it got him in trouble both nights after running up front. One thing for sure, his new car was coming in!

The next race was the annual 4th of July race at the PAS and they scored a fifth place finish and learned more about the new Sherman chassis. From that point forward to now, they have actually run only 3 of the 7 possible races,(including the Sunday Calistoga race they didn't start) and have one third place finish and two second’s for 3 in a row on the podium. This week’s victory was with the little blue bugger and it ran strong again. The no start at Calistoga was painful, but they are running up front now and hope this week’s race at Perris shows more of the same. Yes, like most others who also have these type of problems, they could use some more cash sponsors!

WAG$CA$H money is coming in and the calendar is coming along. I am still looking for more people to step up to the $500 challenge put down by Steve Lafond, and that is in addition to the Lafond Jar of change he says has $ 300 in it! Check the Wagtimes On-line auction out at http://wagtimes.com/wagsauction2011.html and get a bid or two in. I have some great pencil drawings coming, so will get them up soon to see.

I missed the annual Save Ventura Raceway golf tourney this past weekend. I have plenty of excuses, but won’t go into them, just will apologize for missing the event. I planned to go, but like many plans we make, some just don’t happen. I hope all went well.

Perris will feature the Glenn Howard Memorial race this weekend, so let’s go racing! Rumor has it Mrs Wags will make an appearance, but until you see the whites of her eyes………………………… Get in your car and head out to Perris to honor a man who had our racing uppermost in his mind at all times. Enjoy the race as well!!! See you there!

West coast 360 9/17/11 FEATURE: (30 laps) 1. Danny Sheridan, 2. Bud Kaeding, 3. Wes Gutierrez, 4. Richard VanderWeerd, 5. Greg Alexander, 6. Dennis Howell, 7. Jace VanderWeerd, 8. Josh Ford, 9. Derek Buckley, 10. Ryan Bernal, 11. Davey Pombo, 12. A.J. Bender, 13. Bobby Bender, 14. Brody Roa, 15. Ricky Kirkbride, 16. Jeff Culver, 17. Ray Potter, 18. T.J. Smith, 19. Nico Russo, 20 Justyne Hamblin, 21. Austin Liggett, 22. Peter Murphy. NT