November 2, 2009

Attention, attention, may I have your attention please! The Bullring is still paved! All I have heard for months from my friend/announcer D J Everett, when he found out I was free for Halloween, come to the Bullring for the Super Modifieds and USAC Midgets. It wasn’t until the date got close that he mentioned there would also be a 154 lap Southwest Tour Stock car race, a Legend 30 lapper and a Bomber race on the card. Lucky for me the 154 lapper was after I left.

For my pics of LVMS Click Here. For Doug Allen's best Click here.

Arrival in the afternoon allowed me a leisurely stroll thru the pits to visit with a few midget people I knew. Jerome Rodella, Chad Boat and Dave Darland were three who I spoke with about their chances on the paved oval. Wally Pankratz had his # 8 car out with rookie Austin Smith in it and I spent some time with Wally. I didn’t know he won 62 Super Modified races? He also told me about playing high school football in the Orange show field inside the race track.

When I scoped out the Supers, the first thing I noticed was almost every Super was painted sharp and colorful. When they were on the track, it was an awesome show of speed and beauty. They weren’t busied up with all kinds of decals and other sponsor stuff, so looked more like show cars on the track. I didn’t recognize anyone, but looked over the champion Troy Regier’s car because he has won more SMRA races than anyone in history.

After a generous walk thru the large pit area, I ambled up into the grandstands, and I use that term loosely because it’s a long pull to the top and these old legs could have used the elevator here. The track looks like a smaller version of the Irwindale track, with asphalt from A to Z, with no dirt! The smaller 3/8 mile track had K-rail surrounding the inside of the race surface to keep the wreckers and emergency vehicles from harm, but ready to go. Fortunately only the wreckers were needed this night and the worst crash was a legend car that a fender came off when he nailed the wall.

The spectator gates opened up at 5 pm. Unfortunately for the spectators, qualifying started at 4 pm. So I was in position to see when the Legends first ran two 6 car groups to get their times and then the midgets came out to get their two laps followed by the Supers. Since there was a power problem with the sound system, I was in the dark to everything that came out of them when the cars were on the track. I could hear a little when there weren’t racing, but until morning I had no idea Chad Boat was the midget fast timer and they inverted 6 for the 50 lap main. Later they got some booster started and you could hear a little more, but that also went away when the Supers were racing.

I had already heard from a couple drivers telling me it would be on the bottom for the midgets and watching their low corners and high straightaway qualifying passes, I knew that was coming. The Supers were a little more flexible as they could run on the bottom and up one groove, so there would be two grooves for them, but not the Midgets.

The Midget main was pretty much what I expected as the only movement was when someone screwed up or moved over on purpose. Otherwise it was watching Evan Margeson lead most of the race and Bryan Clauson getting under him when it appeared he slowed briefly. The sharper drivers just waited their chance and struck. Only 16 cars ran the main and maybe half finished. Not real action packed, but bottom groove racing works that way.

The Supers were a much better show even though they only started 11 cars. Jim Birges took off like a flash and was a half a lap ahead when SMRA Champion Troy Regier got his act moving. He started 8th of 11 and dropped back a little on the first green, but began to roll em’ up as he used a middle groove to pass mostly in the corners. In 20 laps or so he caught up to Birges and quickly dispatched him to take the lead. Two cars dropped oil on the track and after a fairly long cleanup, Troy had Byran Warf on his tail the rest of the way. It looked like Byran was looking to pass, but I suspect Troy was just making laps and would have recovered had there been a move made on him. So the champion won and in the process ran under the track record of 12.5 something many times.

I let myself out as the Southwest Tour cars began to take over the oval and hit home by 9:30 probably. I enjoyed the day, thanks DJ, but it would take a lot for me to go back again as I am just not a pavement person. It’s a good racetrack, but a little dirt would really spice it up for me!

10/31/09 USAC Midget QUALIFICATIONS: 1. Chad Boat, 30, Boat-13.983; 2. Bryan Clauson, 11D, DeBeaumont-14.077; 3. Zach Daum, 5D, Daum-14.138; 4. Ryan Kaplan, 20k, Kaplan-14.145; 5. Alex Bowman, 55, Bowman-14.193; 6. Evan Margeson, 50, Margeson-14.213; 7. Levi Roberts, 2, Roberts-14.254; 8. Thomas Meseraull, 38, McGerigle-14.285; 9. Alex Schutte, 21D, DeBeaumont-14.402; 10. Jerome Rodela, 25, Rodela-14.409; 11. Garrett Hansen, 88, McKenney-14.510; 12. Brad Loyet, 05, Loyet-14.753; 13. Cody Swanson, 5, VanDyne-14.759; 14. Dave Darland, 12k, Kruseman-14.761; 15. Austin Smith, 8, Smith-14.996; 16. David Prickett, 15, Neverlift-15.220; 17. Austin Mero, 14k, Kruseman-NT; 18. #70, Hansen-NT 10/31/09 FEATURE: (50 laps) 1. Bryan Clauson, 2. Evan Margeson, 3. Zach Daum, 4. Alex Schutte, 5. Levi Roberts, 6. Thomas Meseraull, 7. Garrett Hansen, 8. Jerome Rodela, 9. Brad Loyet, 10. Cody Swanson, 11. Dave Darland, 12. Chad Boat, 13. Ryan Kaplan, 14. Austin Smith, 15. Alex Bowman, 16. David Prickett. NT ---

10/31/09 SMRA